Key Factors to a Supportive Environment

Key factors that support speech, language and communication environment: 1. Your room/setting layout – what does your physical environment look like? The noise level – are there quieter and noisier areas, planned times or activities. Evidence: There are two main rooms that are in use during morning and afternoon sessions, the classroom and larger hall area. The classroom has a book corner with a child's size couch and soft cushions on the floor. This area is ideally for quiet time and reading. The rest of the classroom and large hall allows for noisy and more social activities.Throughout the day there are planned adult lead activities, circle times, outdoor play, snack bar and lunch club. Which work on a rota based system. Quality of light – are play areas well lit for children to see ; communicate well with each other, see mouth movements, resources ; staff. Evidence: The classroom and main hall both allow for a substantial amount of natural light through large windows and also have more then one artificial light in either room. Space to move, expressively, with whole bodies, with and without speedEvidence: The main hall area is a large open space with a substantial amount of room for children to move freely and expressively. This room is used for more active activities and also for when outdoor play is restricted due to poor weather conditions. The children will use this area to build train tracks, stack blocks, act out role plays and imaginary games, as well as group games such as duck duck goose and ring a ring a roses. The outdoor area is also set up in a way that allows for all types of movement. There is an large space for bikes and smalls cars, which is also used for obstacle courses and tents.This is divided from the rest of the playground by log stumps that the children can also walk across. Resources and toys – is there a varied selection available for both indoor ; outdoor play. Evidence: Within the classroom and hall the re is a large variety of resources and toys to cater for all the children. For example; a home corner, roll play area, mark making area, play dough and sand/water trays, block building, music corner, small world toys, ICT area book corner. The outside area has a large storage cupboard which allows us to alternate what goes outside to create interest and excitement.There is an outside book corner with bean bags and blankets, large wooden blocks for building, play house with kitchen and work bench, prams, bikes and large cars, balls, rackets, a table and chairs to encourage mark making, blackboard with chalk and a variety of playing apparatus's. 2. Staff – Involvement/roles – how does everyone interact with children to promote communication. Evidence: Most children attending the pre-school will have an all about me book, which their key person and any other staff member are allowed assess. It contains information and pictures on the child's life including family, pets, f riends, likes and dislikes.The children also receive a settling in performer after two weeks of them attending the setting. Which goes over how they are doing and is sent home to their parents to read and comment on, then sent back in. This is kept in the child's learning journey. The children are also given a chance to have their say on what they would like to do at pre-school, with the children's planing board. Where any ideas that are given from the children are written on and then added to the planing in future sessions. We have a classroom rules board, illustrating the main rules of the setting. Which is positioned down low at the children's eye level.There is also a ‘how are you feeling today' poster with photos and illustrations of different facial expressions, again at the children's eye level. We also try to operate with a positive language approach when reminding children of rules, for example saying ‘walking feet and kind hands' instead of ‘no running an d don't hit each other. ‘ Staff responsibilities – does a key person system operate to support your children? Evidence: A key person system is operational within the setting, each key person has on average 11 children under their care and are also responsible for the overall care of every child.Observations are made on every child and logged in their learning journeys, which are kept in a locked cupboard. Planning daily routines – are there times of the day to support communication eg. greetings and goodbyes, toilet asking times? Small/large group and individual activities? Evidence: Our setting works on an rota based system, in which there are set times for snack bar, lunch club, tidy up times, free play, adult led activities, nappy changes, circle times and outdoor play. This helps the children and staff to get into a routine.Who ever is responsible for nappy changes that day will also be reminding children to go to the toilet, both are logged in a daily folder . The children are welcomed in the mornings/afternoons and self register with name cards. At the end of both morning and afternoon sessions the story of the week is read and the children can give thanks in prayer. The children are then dismissed when their allocated parent/carer arrives. Training opportunities? Child Development, Safeguarding, Impairment, Activity intervention & awareness.Evidence: All staff are given the opportunity to attend relevant training that is beneficial for the setting and themselves. I myself have already attended four training courses since joining in September 2012. Certificates given at the completion of the training days and are displayed on the wall inside the classrooms setting. We also have a weekly policy quiz, with a different quiz selected each week for staff to read through and then be tested on. 4. Parent & carer involvement – Evidence: The Pre-school welcomes parent and carer involvement within and outside of the setting, especially du ring the festive period.We often have parent helpers for the day that provide us with an extra pare of hands. The pre-school also recently held a fundraising event at the local community center, where we saw an overabundance of support from parents/carers. How does the setting engage with parents to share activity ideas, rhymes, resources, books, event dates, news, parent's language needs, knowledge ; expertise Evidence: Each week parents and staff receive the ‘weekly update sheet' via email, which provides information on the up and coming week.This information consists of the theme of the week, number, letter sound and shape, story focus, our star of the week (child), important dates, resources needed for any activities planned, how they can support their child and a photo gallery of what their children have been up to in the previous week. 5. Language itself – Identify the types of language/methods of communication used in the setting; facial, body, creative, expressi ve and behavioral. Evidence: At the entrance to the classroom there is a mood board on the wall with the phase ‘how do you feel today'.The board displays a variety of facial expressions and words for the children to relate to and caters especially to children still developing their speech or children that have English as an additional language. We also have a mark making area with creative resources for the children to express themselves. Throughout the setting there are posters and images reminding the children of the pre-school rules, for example use kind hands, put hands up during circle time, line up in a straight line and two children at the I. T station. Additional Language-Is there support within the setting for children with additional languages. Evidence: All resources accessible to the children are labelled with the relevant wording of the contents and a photo or picture to support visual aid. Around the main classroom we have numerals 1-10 in additional languages an d greetings/farewells in multiple languages. When the children join the setting their parents/careers are asked if they speak any additional languages or if English isn't their first spoken language. During circle times, we will often greet each child in an additional language.

Harley Davidson Company Essay

Situational analysis Harley Davidson, an international motorcycle company, started out as a small three man operation in 1903, by the Davidson brothers and William Harley manufacturing heavyweight motorcycles. This included financial services for the motorbikes, accessories and branded apparel. It experienced great success during both World Wars, and managed to survive the trying times of the Great Depression. After World War II, Harley Davidson brand begin to build on the image of the V-twin cylinder engine established in the 1920’s by shifting from manufacturing military bikes to recreational ones. During the 1970’s and 1980’s Japanese competition nearly destroyed the company. Competitors introduced technological advanced bikes at a lower cost due to mass production. Technological advances and economics of scale and efficiencies made competitor’s products superior in some instances. Harley responded by a re-evaluating its marketing strategy centered on a lifestyle image. This included a re-organization and brand building program, including the Harley Owners Group (HOG), Harley Davidson was able to re-capture its market share. It established these groups along with better customer service that helped it establish itself as a dominate company in the motorbike industry. It had a differentiated focus and various target markets as the environments changed. It was positioned effectively as a way of life with a sense of freedom as opposed to selling the best motorbikes. The marketing campaigns focused more on the lifestyle associated with the product and worked on its social image. The marketing team used differentiation to create more awareness of the product by reinforcing Harley from a psychological perspective as a symbol of freedom, developing and maintaining relationships. Harley Davidson South Africa was established in 1996 and has prospered due to very high annual growth rates. It succeeded as an emotionally driven brand, one that customers choose for a sense freedom, biker image or as a status symbol. It is this emotive response that Harley Davidson capitalizes on in its marketing strategy and that is re-enforced with the Harley Owners Group magazine, events and the international customer rental service. Despite the company’s success it faces some unique challenges. Currently all merchandise  is imported from the U.S.A., as a result pricing decisions are problematic relative to competitors. Harley continuously evolved its brand but lacked focus on black upcoming consumer (black diamonds) and on women initially. It will need to do some valuable market research and determine the best way forward with very careful implementation of the strategy to best target black diamonds and increase growth in this ‘untapped’, high disposable i ncome market. 1: Product Policy Product Policy is defined as â€Å"A strategic rule or rules covering how a good or service is promoted to potential consumers† (Kotler and Keller, Year!). Harley-Davidson has since grown from one dealership to seven independent dealerships between 1996 and 2007. Harley product policy was to focus more into customers’ needs rather than the company, this is the strategy that was introduced in the early 1980’s and was subsequently implemented in South Africa. These customer-orientated services have differentiated the company from competitors, in the minds of customers in South Africa as it was about image, sense of Freedom and status. This help in dismissing the myth / reputation of its â€Å"bad boy† image. This was seconded by the gender split of 28% female and 72% of male’s riders in South Africa. Harley South Africa set  out to promote Harley’s into females who are independent with high salary income as the new market segment; the strateg y was to treat them as equals and as owners in their own right. Post 2007, the product policy changed to â€Å"Black Diamonds† with an effort to attract and increase the black market into Harley riders. Their marketing strategy was different as it had done very little above the line advertising, dealers were given freedom to determine their own promotional activities modified to their own client’s needs and demands. Classification: Specialty goods – Customers are willing to make an extended search to find Harley and in some cases, might be willing to travel 20 or 30 KM to find the bike. â€Å"Marketing mix† is a general phrase used to describe the different kinds of choices organizations have to make in the process of bringing a product or service to market. The Product which is one of the 4P’s is used in defining the marketing mix and is categorized into 4 pillars namely Product Mix; Product Design; Product Development and Product Life Cycle (Kotler & Keller, 14th Edition) 1. PRODUCT MIX: Product policy lies at the heart of the marketing mix and encompasses all qualitative aspects of the products offered. Product-mix refers to the range of products offered by an institution. Offering products that are valued and demanded by customers is key to the success of Harley in South Africa. 2. PRODUCT DESIGN The goal of product design is not to create a different product to satisfy every possible client need. Harley should design products that respond to several different needs with only a few variables. Product design variables must be appropriate for the markets that the Harley has decided to target. 3. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Product development is the process of continually refining client-oriented products. It includes several phases, such as exploring customer needs, screening ideas, evaluating products through pilot testing, revising product  design based on the results and finally, launching the products. All of these phases are intertwined. 4. PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE Below is the summary of the four phases of the Harley product life cycle which include introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Core Benefits of owning a Harley: * Harley members have an enduring relationship built on trust and dependability supported by good service and meaningful advice as most of the riders especially females had no technical capabilities of some of the riders. * Become part of the Harley family which include meeting with business associates, share a cup of coffee with new riders and also talk to a friend. This has made most riders to have a â€Å"sense of belonging†. * Harley offer in-house finance and insurance program for riders / customers. * A full one-year membership in the Harley Owners Group (H.O.G) comes with every purchase of a new, unregistered Harley motorcycle. * Associate  memberships for H.O.G family members and passengers also benefit and become part of the Harley family membership. * Owner’s memberships are renewable at a discount and they can also become a member for life. * Full access to the company’s website, magazines each year, and a subscription to the special member publication, toll-free customer service and even a touring handbook for trip planning. * Harley also organizes and sponsor special events for H.O.G members including bike parades. * Analysing the Brand equity of Harley Davidson: When purchasing a Harley, the customer is endowed with an added value of a sensation of freedom offered by the product, the sense of belonging and a sense of exhibitionism offered by a Harley. Harley Davidson does not market the functional purpose of the bike but rather the emotional and psychological attributes of freedom and belonging. The success of the marketing approach and achievement of brand promise of such psychological attributes are well evidenced by the successful financial performance of Harley Davidson. The following case facts indicate that Harley commands higher prices, market share and profitability: * Steady share of half the USA heavyweight motorcycle market in 2006; * Annual growth in unit sales in South Africa had averaged 46% over the past few years. * Harley still held the majority share in SA market, an estimated 67%. The above indicates that Harley Davidson has strong brand equity credentials. We can further analyse the brand equity of Harley Davidson by applying one of the Brand Equity Models, ‘The Brand Resonance Model’ (Kotler and Keller YEAR) and applying the 6 fundamental building blocks of the resonance model to Harley Davidson: Building brand Equity The right brand knowledge structures targeted at the right consumer can build substantial brand equity (Kotler and Keller YEAR). An analysis of how Harley uses the 3 brand equity drivers (Kotler 2014) to build brand equity: 1. Brand elements – Harleys brand benefits are less concrete (freedom, sense of belonging etc) and thus it ensures that its brand elements focus on emotional and psychological attributes. E.g. slogans such as â€Å"The fun is not in the destination, the fun is in the journey†. In addition company marketing themes never emphasize on the bikes mechanical specifications but rather the associated lifestyle for owning a Harley. 2. Marketing activities – product/service – Lifestyle – How do customers make contact with the Harley brand: * Internal Branding – Harley’s primary focuses is on internal branding Harley makes extensive use of marketing through its brand community, the H.O.G. H.O.G members have a consciousness of kind† or sense of felt connection to Harley. i. H.O.G. as a channel for internal marketing has proved to be more effective than Harley’s external  marketing campaigns. ii. HOG is not organic but company-sponsored and facilitated because it’s one of the main and primary marketing activities. iii. H.O.G is a business strategy. The entire business model supports the H.O.G. iv. Harley’s cultivation and engineering of the H.O.G plays a significant role in growing and strengthening the brand * Individual Customer marketing v. Harley places a lot of marketing attention and focus on the individual customer. Significant investment is made towards dealerships being well equipped to cater for H.O.G meetings, vi. High individual customer focus pays off in terms of, significant sales arising from repeat customers, accessories, customisations of initial purchase, trading upwards after initial purchase etc. vii. Individual marketing to women on a personal basis as they walked into the store with their husbands or partner’s. This was successful in building brand equity amongst female customers. * External Branding is minimal. Harley does not do much mainstream advertising. This has a benefit of cost saving from not having to rely heavily on mainstream high cost advertising channels. Harley prefers to grow through existing dealerships. For example, Dealerships are equipped with coffee areas where staff can connect with customers that walk into the stores. 3. Leveraging secondary associations * Harley frequently associates itself with charity rides and motorcycle events. This allows it an opportunity to build on its brand promise of exhibitionism and belonging While applying the logic of the brand value chain (Kotler 2014) backwards, high profitability & market share arise from strong customer awareness and customer associations, which in turn arise from successful marketing programme investment. It could be inferred that Harley has generated valuable return from its marketing approach consistently over a period, indicating successful brand equity building over the years. Target Market: Harley Davidson’s new target market is the, ‘Black Diamond’. This has been their focus as they believe this market has potential. In 2007 the market totalled 2.6 million, while they managed to make sales totalling 709. This meant they had 27% of their target market. This was a drop when compared to the previous year. Post 1994 this target market has had opportunities that did not exist before. We also saw the emergence of BEE, which continues to make Black people more financially stable. This therefore makes this market an ideal market to focus on. Market profile: As much as the female rider target market is growing (28% by 2007) and has potential Harley needs to understand that there are still cultural issues that this market has to deal with. Such issues include that fact that for the black community for a woman to drive a motorcycle it might be not acceptable. Therefore, this would need Harley to come up with strategies to deal with this cultural perception in order for them to benefit from this market. Future product policy: Product Portfolio: Harley Davidson has managed to introduce accessories which are priced differently. This works as those that cannot afford to buy the motorcycles can still settle for other biker accessories thus improving margins. Harley needs to continue to widen its product mix. Usually a biker will buy one bike unless they can afford to buy more, therefore for Harley to continue gaining from this consumer they need to also focus more on their accessories which not only bikers like but also non bikers and family members. It was mentioned that 70% of the purchasers were non bikers. Harley however needs to be careful that its product system does not disadvantage its brand. This is seen as an exclusive brand and one needs to be careful that a product diversification does not bring down the value of the brand and result in consumers perceiving it as cheap. It is therefore important that we keep the current product portfolio as exclusive as possible to protect the brand. With the increase in fuel prices, Harley might need to consider a two-way stretch where they might need to produce cheaper motorcycles which are more  fuel efficient to encourage people who might not want to consider investing in a Harley due to costs. Strategies for growth: Driving in a Harley club is a spectacular moment, whether or not the bike itself was bought for show. Cruisers are differentiated products and Harley is the leader in that market but that is a double edge sword as its guaranteed popularity and high expectations as a result. They are effectively selling a lifestyle and for more people to buy into it and to keep those on board they need to focus on strengthening the product differentiation, design, brand and service differentiation. Bikes as an extension of personality and customers will associate with a product that delivers on the highest promise. The design of the bikes and features that are most useful and necessary to the rider are important, the customisation has resulted in unique end products for each customer, the quality in terms of performance and conformance need to me maintained at a level above the competition. Because customer needs and tastes vary, the service levels required to keep customers happy also varies, the service dimension of the business is therefore important in creating a strategy. By creating awareness about the product and pricing mix and different after sales service options available to the customer (delivery, training, consultation, HOG, maintenance and repair options), Harley Davidson SA can bridge the information gap and appeal to a larger market. Targeting the Black diamond: This is one of the fastest growing segments in the South African economic context, the majority being young and qualified and earning a more than descent constant salary. Mostly growing up post apartheid, this group is less stereotypical and more adventurous and likely to try new things than was previously not associated with the age segment. This is the new financial muscle of the South African economy and Harley Davidson should explore it purely as a potential market for its affluence and exploratory capacity if not for its perceived desire for opulence and status. As a product that provides pleasure, fun and value, there is no reason not to tap into this virgin market that hasn’t yet grasped its stance or identity  relative to the previous politically influenced generation. Harley-Davidson Services According to Kotler and Keller, †The customer will judge the offering by three basic elements: product features & quality, services mix and quality, and price† (Refer to Fig 12.1). In our technologically age it is now easier for any company products to be replicated and even produced much cheaper too. This makes the element of â€Å"service quality and mix† very important to marketers. The service quality and mix Harley-Davidson offers to its customers will be a source of competitive advantage. The customer value hierarchy diagram places an ‘augmented product’ at a very high level (Fig 12.2). Customers will value an augmented product because of its additional features and services that come with it. Harley-Davidson should aim for service differentiation at all stages of the buying process and after purchase: (Ordering Ease, Delivery, Bike-riding training, customer consulting, maintenance and repair). The customer service personnel employed by Harley-Davidson will affect the quality of service. The company would need to ensure that they hire and train the right people for the jobs. Employee satisfaction would be critical to making sure the employees have a positive attitude as they work with customers. The marketing department at Harley-Davidson has to understand the needs and wants of their customers in order to satisfy them. Customers are concerned with reliability, service dependability and maintenance costs of the motorbike. A service-quality management system would also need to be set up plus monitoring systems to ensure that all customer complaints are handled properly.

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Basic Ideas and Theories of Mass Communication Essay Example for Free

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It is a social structure by which social issues and organizational problems arise. In a society, groups of people share a similar social status, and this is known as social class†. ABSTRACT In this work (assignment), I bother most on the contributions, the basic ideas and established notions propounded by both theorists_ D K Berlo and that of Max Weber. And their biography. Q. 1 (a) THE CONTRIBUTION OF DAVID K. BERLO AND HIS BASIC IDEAS ESTABLISHED IN THE THEORIES OF MASS COMMUNICATION Foremost, for a proper focus on communications theory, the Oxford English Dictionary defines communication as the imparting, conveying, or exchange of ideas, knowledge, information, etc. We can look up the origin of the word. Communication comes from the Latin communis, common. When we communicate, we are trying to establish a commonness with someone. That is, we are trying to share information, an idea or an attitude. Looking further, you can find this type of definition: Communications is the mechanism through which human relations exist and develop. This broad definition, found in a book written by a sociologist, takes in about everything â€Å"Communications theory then becomes the study and statement of the principles and methods by which information is conveyed. Among key communications theorists were Wilbur Schramm, David Berlo, and Marshall McLuhan. Basically, for a close examination, the major contribution in communication model that I will consider is the SMCR model, developed by David K. Berlo, a communications theorist and consultant. In his book The Process of Communication,6 Berlo points out the importance of the psychological view in his communications model. The four parts of Berlos SMCR model are — no surprises here — source, message, channel, receiver. The first part of this communication model is the source. All communication must come from some source. The source might be one person, a group of people, or a company, organization, or institution such as MU. Several things determine how a source will operate in the communication process. They include the sources communication skills — abilities to think, write, draw, speak. They also include attitudes toward audience, the subject matter, yourself, or toward any other factor pertinent to the situation. Knowledge of the subject, the audience, the situation and other background also influences the way the source operates. So will social background, education, friends, salary, culture — all sometimes called the sociocultural context in which the source lives. Message has to do with the package to be sent by the source. The code or language must be chosen. In general, we think of code in terms of the natural languages — English, Spanish, German, Chinese and others. Sometimes we use other languages — music, art, gestures. In all cases, look at the code in terms of ease or difficulty for audience understanding. Within the message, select content and organize it to meet acceptable treatment for the given audience or specific channel. If the source makes a poor choice, the message will likely fail. Channel can be thought of as a sense — smelling, tasting, feeling, hearing, seeing. Sometimes it is preferable to think of the channel as the method over which the message will be transmitted: telegraph, newspaper, radio, letter, poster or other media. Kind and number of channels to use may depend largely on purpose. In general, the more you can use and the more you tailor your message to the people receiving each channel, the more effective your message. Receiver becomes the final link in the communication process. The receiver is the person or persons who make up the audience of your message. All of the factors that determine how a source will operate apply to the receiver. Think of communication skills in terms of how well a receiver can hear, read, or use his or her other senses. Attitudes relate to how a receiver thinks of the source, of himself or herself, of the message, and so on. The receiver may have more or less knowledge than the source. Sociocultural context could be different in many ways from that of the source, but social background, education, friends, salary, culture would still be involved. Each will affect the receivers understanding of the message. Messages sometimes fail to accomplish their purpose for many reasons. Frequently the source is unaware of receivers and how they view things. Certain channels may not be as effective under certain circumstances. Treatment of a message may not fit a certain channel. Or some receivers simply may not be aware of, interested in, or capable of using certain available messages. In short, Berlo: Several important ideas, notions and factors established must be considered relating to source, message, channel, and receiver. Q. 1. (b) TRACE THE BIOGRAPHY OF DAVID K. BERLO D. K. Berlo in history. This caption attempts to give an insight in to the biography of the eminent scholar whose communication ideologies, philosophy and notions cannot be overlooked in the field of mass communication_ journalism. Biographical information: In 1955, David K. Berlo, at the age of 29, received his doctorate degree in the study of communication from the University of Illinois. Berlo was a student of Wilbur Schramm, who sat on the doctoral committee. Schramm, whose theories of communication are well known, was responsible for the creation of the first communication program at the graduate level which was an entity separate from speech and mass communications. Dean Gordon Sabine, also sat on the committee, and the following day offered Berlo an assistant professorship position and the chair of the newly created Department of General Communication Arts, at his Michigan State University (MSU) (Rogers, 2001). In our trivial pursuit, it was discovered that, Berlo, being many years younger than his colleagues and some of his students, perceived himself to be in need of communicating an air of permanence and maturity, so that his position, and that of the newly formed department, would be taken seriously. To this end, he deliberately gained weight†¦up to 270 pounds of body mass, dressed in dark, fancy suits, and began to act the part of the chairperson of a more well-established department (Rogers, 2001). It must have worked, because he was able to successfully establish, at Michigan State, one of our country’s first undergraduate majors in communication. He functioned in the role of educator, author, and communication department chair at MSU for 14 years, from the department’s inception in 1957 through 1971. In 1960 he wrote the textbook which was implemented in his undergraduate classes, The Process of Communication. He taught an excellent doctoral level core course in research methods and statistics. He was a strong leader, excellent educator, and advocate for the field of communication study. He continued to research and develops his SMCR theory of communication and information. In it he stressed the importance of the perception of the source in the â€Å"eye† of the receiver and also the channel(s) by which the message is delivered. During his final 3 years at Michigan State, it is said, that he seemed to lose interest in his job. He became county chairperson of the Republican Party and was passed over for the position of Dean of the College of Communication Arts (Rogers, 2001). In 1971 he became President of Illinois State University, but resigned in 1973 when an investigation took place to uncover whether or not he had spent unauthorized funds for the completion of the presidential house (Plummer, 2005). He completed his career working as a corporate consultant in St. Petersburg, Florida. Q. 2. (a) GIVE SOME ESTABLISHED NOTIONS OF MAN AND SOCIETY PROPOUNDED BY MAX WEBER. Max Weber was one of the founding figures of sociology. His work is important to students of communication for several reasons, including his methodological and theoretical innovations as well as a diversity of useful concepts and examples for the analysis of social behaviour, economic organization and administration, authority, leadership, culture, society, and politics. Some of his greatest achievements, notions, ideologies, philosophy, and the experiences that guided his convictions he established, which also characterized his stand and position; thus, can be seen as highlighted in the following contributions outlined: * Max Webers work provides an example of historical and comparative social science that successfully negotiated between attention to theoretical concepts and empirical details. Rather than concluding an investigation with a generalization or theoretical claim—that all economic behaviour is rational, for example—Weber would use the concept of rational b ehaviour as a comparison point in conducting his research. * Webers work provides the origin of action theory as such. Weber defines action as meaningfully oriented behaviour, and takes it to be the fundamental unit of sociological investigation. This is crucially important for communication studies, for it defines a model of social science distinct from behaviourism. * How could Weber claim a scientific approach to motives and meanings, which cannot be directly observed? His resolution of this problem has been widely admired and imitated. On the one hand, he combined logic, empathy, and interpretation to construct ideal types for the analysis of historical cases. He constructed, for example, idealtype models of how the perfectly rational or perfectly traditional actor would make choices in ideal circumstances. These expectations would then be compared with what real people did in actual circumstances. When historical actors deviated from the ideal types, Weber did not take that as evidence of their cognitive shortcomings (their irrationalit y, for example) but as clues to additional concepts he needed to develop for further analysis. * Working from the other direction, he interpreted historical records empathetically, striving to identify how the actors in a particular situation could have seen their action as a rational response to their circumstances. In this way, he was able to construct models of a range of types of rational action, opening up his theory to a greater range of human situations than either the behaviorists or the economists. Prayer, for example, as Weber pointed out, is rational behavior from the point of view of the faithful. * Webers work also provides many useful concepts and examples for communication studies, in addition to the wide-ranging importance of his action theory and his methodological innovations. * His analysis of economic organization and administration is the standard model of rational organization in the study of organizational communication. His studies of authority and leadership are important to students of mass communication, and of both organizational and political communication. * His studies in the sociology of religion explore the range of possibilities in the relation between ideas and social structures, a problem that continues to be at the heart of cultural studies. * His contrasts of rational and traditional and his analysis of modern bureaucracy are starting points for analysis of modern industrial-commercial culture and communication and the effect of the media on culture and politics. * Weber distinguished three ideal types of political leadership (alternatively referred to as three types of domination, legitimisation or authority): 1. Charismatic domination (familial and religious), 2. Traditional domination (patriarchs, patrimonialism, feudalism) and 3. Legal domination (modern law and state, bureaucracy). In his view, every historical relation between rulers and ruled contained such elements and they can be analysed on the basis of this tripartite distinction. He notes that the instability of charismatic authority forces it to routinise into a more structured form of authority. In a pure type of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a ruler can lead to a traditional revolution. The move towards a rational-legal structure of authority, utilising a bureaucratic structure, is inevitable in the end. Thus this theory can be sometimes viewed as part of the social evolutionism theory. This ties to his broader concept of rationalisation by suggesting the inevitability of a move in this direction. * Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally domination through knowledge. * Weber described many ideal types of public administration and government in his masterpiece Economy and Society (1922). His critical study of the bureaucratisation of society became one of the most enduring parts of his work. It was Weber who began the studies of bureaucracy and whose works led to the popularisation of this term. Many aspects of modern public administration. Social stratification * Weber also formulated a three-component theory of stratification, with Social class, Social status and Political party as conceptually distinct elements. * Social class is based on economically determined relationship to the market (owner, renter, employee etc.). * Status class is based on non-economical qualities like honour, prestige and religion. * Party class refers to affiliations in the political domain. * All three dimensions have consequences for what Weber called life chances (opportunities to improve ones life). This context consisted of the political problems engendered by the bourgeois status-group of the city, without which neither Judaism, nor Christianity, nor the developments of Hellenistic thinking are conceivable. According to Weber, * He argued that Judaism, early Christianity, theology, and later the political party and modern science, were only possible in the urban context that reached a full development the West alone. =He also saw in the history of medieval European cities the rise of a unique form of non-legitimate domination that successfully challenged the existing forms of legitimate domination (traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal) that had prevailed until then in the Medieval world. This new domination according to him, was based on the great economic and military power wielded by the organised community of city-dwellers (citizens). Weber’s ideas â€Å"form the heart of what is commonly known as structuralism† (Littlejohn). Weber defines organization as follows: â€Å"An ‘organization’ is a system of continuous, purposive activity of a specified kind. A ‘corporate organization’ is an associative social relationship characterized by an administrative staff devoted to such continuous purposive activity† (Weber, Social and Economic Organizations, p. 151.). Weber’s notion of bureaucracy involves power, authority, and Legitimacy. Power â€Å"is the ability of a person in any social relation to Influence others and to overcome resistance. Power in this sense is fundamental to most social relationships† (Littlejohn). Q. 2. (b) GIVE THE BIOGRAPHY OF MAX WEBER MAX WEBER’S EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY BACKGROUND Weber was born in 1864, in Erfurt, Thuringia.[3] He was the eldest of the seven children of Max Weber Sr., a wealthy and prominent civil servant and member of the National Liberal Party, and his wife he was buckin Helene (Fallenstein), who partly descended from French Huguenot immigrants and held strong moral absolutist ideas.[3][9] Weber Sr.s involvement in public life immersed his home in both politics and academia, as his salon welcomed many prominent scholars and public figures.[3] The young Weber and his brother Alfred, who also became a sociologist and economist, thrived in this intellectual atmosphere. Webers 1876 Christmas presents to his parents, when he was thirteen years old, were two historical essays entitled About the course of German history, with special reference to the positions of the Emperor and the Pope, and About the Roman Imperial period from Constantine to the migration of nations.[10] In class, bored and unimpressed with the teachers – who in turn resented what they perceived as a disrespectful attitude – he secretly read all forty volumes of Goethe.[11][12] Before entering the university, he would read many other classical works.[12] Over time, Weber would also be significantly affected by the marital tension between his father, a man who enjoyed earthly pleasures, and his mother, a devout Calvinist who sought to lead an ascetic life.† Max Weber and his brothers, Alfred and Karl, in 1879 MAX WEBER’S EDUCATION At this juncture, Weber was in 1882, enrolled in the University of Heidelberg as a law student. After a year of military service he transferred to University of Berlin. After his first few years as a student, during which he spent much time drinking beer and fencing, Weber would increasingly take his mothers side in family arguments and grew estranged from his father. Simultaneously with his studies, he worked as a junior barrister. In 1886 Weber passed the examination for Referenda, comparable to the bar association examination in the British and American legal systems. Throughout the late 1880s, Weber continued his study of law and history. He earned his law doctorate in 1889 by writing a dissertation on legal history entitled Development of the Principle of Joint Liability and the Separate Fund in the Public Trading Company out of Household and Trade Communities in Italian Cities. This work was used as part of a longer work On the History of Trading Companies in the Middle Ages, based on South-European Sources, published in the same year. Two years later, Weber completed his Habilitationsschrift, Roman Agrarian History and its Significance for Public and Private Law, working with August Meitzen. Having thus become a Privatdozent, Weber joined the University of Berlins faculty, lecturing and consulting for the government. References Reinhard Bendix and Guenther Roth Scholarship and Partisanship: Essays on Max Weber, University of California Press, 1971, p. 244. Max Weber. Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica Online. 20 April 2009. Britannica.com Max Weber. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 17 February 2010. Max Weber; Hans Heinrich Gerth; Bryan S. Turner (7 March 1991). From Max Weber: essays in sociology. Psychology Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-415-06056-1. Retrieved 22 March 2011. D K Berlo. The Process of Communication.

Toilet Paper Essay Example for Free

Toilet Paper Essay The pages of history state that there was an era in which many other alternatives were used instead of toilet papers. Examples of such alternatives included leaves, pebbles, and water. In ancient times the tribes used to clear their excreta through the remains of a corn or corncobs. They would also sometimes use the skin of the corn. Toilet paper is made up of thin fibers of trees. The increasing demand of toilet roles is decreasing the amount of trees, which are of a great use. The manufacturers of toilet roles many times chop the trees but as it is said they do not understand the importance and just throw the remaining fiber as if it is not of any use. On average, Britons use 17.6 kilograms of toilet paper annually whereas Americans use 15.7 kilograms annually. (Waterfield, 2007) In all, Americans consume 27% of the total wood produced globally. On average, each American uses 75 cubic meters of wood annually. In North America alone, almost half of the coastal temperate rainforests have been wiped out. Almost half of the forests that were originally spread over an area of 48% of the Earths land surface have been lost. Moreover, â€Å"only one-fifth of the Earths original forests remain pristine and undisturbed.† (NRDC: Forest Facts, 2004) In the United States, 94% of the original forests have already been destroyed. Currently, 307,000 square kilometers of forests are remaining which make up around 2% of the total forest remaining worldwide. (Remaining Frontier Forest, n.d.) Toilet Paper manufacturers like Kimberly-Clark say that consumers want non-recycled toilet papers because of their softness which is not possible by using recycled material. â€Å"One million trees would be saved if every U.S. household replaced just one 250-count package of virgin fiber napkins with 100 percent recycled ones. 424,000 trees would be spared by replacing a 500-sheet roll of virgin fiber toilet paper.†Ã‚   (Llanos, 2006) (NRDC: A Shoppers Guide, 2005) Most manufacturers use pulp because it increases the softness of toilet papers. As stated above, many consumers prefer those toilet papers which are soft although the use of recycled toilet papers reduces environmental hazards like global warming by saving trees and forests. Approximately in the USA 5.8 million tons of tissues grades, toilet paper, towels, sanitary products, facial tissues, and diapers are produced yearly. And around 3.5 million tons of scrap paper was used to manufacture aforementioned products. â€Å"By recycling 1 ton of paper you save: 17 trees 6953 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, 587 pounds of air pollution, 3.06 cubic yards of landfill space, and 4077 Kilowatt hours of energy.† (Fun Facts, n.d.) An average roll contains 227 grams weight, which usually include the cardboard core tube and this is just over half of a pound. In paper related manufacturing account shows that around 28 percent of trees have been cut down in this respect. However, more trees are planted every annum instead of chopped down. Fortunately, on an average five trees are planted in place of one chopped down tree. (Fun Facts, n.d.) There are over five hundred paper mills are working in the United States. Global production of paper is predictable to expand forty six percent by the year 2040. In this regard, One of the most complete sources for tree-free paper is the â€Å"Oregon based Fiber Options Paper Company catalog†. The owner of the company Karen said that, plants just like â€Å"kenaf† produce four times as much fiber per annum as tress. Hence the plant shorter fiber also forms them more easily recyclable. (Fun Facts, n.d.) Recycled paper is paper that comprises fiber from waste paper. Nevertheless, there is no global agreement on the exact definition of this. According to paper user’s environmental forum checklist recycled paper should comprise as high proportion of pre consumer fiber waste as possibility proportionate. A pre consumer waste paper is a paper that has been used by the end-user for the indented purpose. Recycling paper is not only gathering wastepaper, but also using paper with recycled substances. Certainly, Toilet paper with high-recycled content is neither expensive nor difficult to acquire. â€Å"Recycled paper, either pre or post-consumer materials needs to be washed and is often deinked prior to being pulped. The pulp goes through a bleaching process to make it whiter. There are many bleaching processes; New Leaf Paper chooses a processed chlorine free process. Once the pulp is bleached, it enters a series of phases including the following: the paper forming section; the press section where water is removed by pressing the wet paper between rolls and felts; and the drying section where the moisture content is reduced to the desired level; and the calendering section where the paper is compacted and smoothed progressively as it travels down a stack of steel rolls. After completion, the paper is stored in either rolls or cut into sheets†. (Fun Facts, n.d.) A research conducted by EPA for congress in the early 1970’s disclosed the facts that by using one ton of 100 percent recycled paper we can saves 4100 Kwh of energy, which is sufficient for 1 home for six months besides this we can save 7000 gallons of water. The study further revealed that it also keeps more than sixty pounds of pollution out of the fresh air and hence saves 3.3 cubic yard of landfill space, which is increasingly significant as many domestic landfills near capacity. Moreover, representatives of paper industry companies also approximated that 1 ton of recycled paper saves nearly 17 trees. (Fun Facts, n.d.) References    Fun Facts (n.d.) http://www.toiletpaperworld.com/tpw/encyclopedia/navigation/funfacts.htm Accessed, June 5, 2007 Llanos, Miguel (2006, April 21) Ready to rethink toilet paper for Earth Day? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12318915/ Accessed, June 5, 2007 NRDC: A Shoppers Guide to Home Tissue Products (2005, Oct 26) http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/gtissue.asp Accessed, June 5, 2007 NRDC: Forest Facts (2004, Aug 27) http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/fforestf.asp Accessed, June 5, 2007 Remaining Frontier Forest (n.d.) http://www.endgame.org/gtt-deforestation.html Accessed, June 5, 2007 Waterfield, Bruno 05/02/2007 Britons lead the way in toilet paper use http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/05/wrolls05.xml Accessed, June 5, 2007

Study Of Blue Eye Technology

Study Of Blue Eye Technology Blue eye is the technology to make computers sense and understand human behavior and feelings and react in the proper ways. The blue eye technology aims at creating computational machines that have perceptual and sensory ability like those of human beings. It uses non-obtrusive sensing method, employing the most modern video cameras and microphones to identify the users actions through the use of imparted sensory abilities. The machine can understand what a user wants, where he is looking at, and even realize his physical or emotional states. This paper outlines the system over view, design features besides hardware part. The concept of the technology is the system recognizes through its various modules the basic emotions and feelings evinced by the user. This paper brings out the features of this technology, the various methods of giving the inputs to the system, design challenges and the emerging trends. Application of this technology in areas like automobile, surveillance system etc. is also dealt with. THE TERM BLUE EYE: BLUE in the term stands for Bluetooth, which enables reliable wireless communication. EYE, because the eye movement enables us to obtain a lot of interesting and important information. BASIC IDEA: In general, the blue eye technology aims at : creating interactive computer. computer acts as partner (and friend) to the user. realizes his physical or emotional states. gives computer human power. provide technical means for monitoring and recording operator physiological conditions Design smarter devices . Create devices with emotional intelligence . Create computational devices with perceptual abilities. BLUE EYE TECHNOLOGY: The complex solution for human-operator monitoring: Visual attention monitoring Physiological condition Operators position detection Wireless data acquisition using Bluetooth Real time user defined alarm triggering Recorded data playback Gesture recognition, Facial recognition, Eye tracking, Speech recognition, Doesnt predict nor interfere with operators thoughts Cannot force directly the operator to work SYSTEM OVERVIEW: Blue eye system provides technical means for monitoring and recording the operators basic physiological parameters. The most important parameter is saccadic activity ( Saccade is a rapid eye jump to a new location assigned by the conscious attention process), which enables the system to monitor the status of the operators visual attention along with head acceleration, which accompanies large displacement of the visual axis (saccades larger than 15 degrees). Complex industrial environment can create a danger of exposing the operator to toxic substances, which can affect his cardiac, circulatory and pulmonary systems. Thus, on the grounds of lethysmographic signal taken from the forehead skin surface, the system computes heart beat rate and blood oxygenation. The blue eye system checks above parameters against abnormal (e.g. a low level of blood oxygenation or a high pulse rate) or undesirable (e.g. a longer period of lowered visual attention) values and triggers user-defined alarms wh en necessary. Quite often in an emergency situation operators speak to themselves expressing their surprise or stating verbally the problem. Therefore, the operators voice, physiological parameters and an overall view of the operating room are recorded. This helps to reconstruct the course of operators work and provides data for long-term analysis. This system consists of a mobile measuring device and a central analytical system. The mobile device is integrated with Bluetooth module providing wireless interface between sensors worn by the operator and the central unit. ID cards assigned to each of the operators and adequate user profiles on the central unit side provide necessary data personalization so different people can use a single mobile device. DESIGN FEATURES: It has a personal area network for linking all the operators and the supervising system. It has two major units DAU (data acquisition unit ) CSU (central system unit ) The basic block diagram is shown below: DATA ACQUISITION UNIT: The DAU consists of the following components ATMEL 8952 microcontroller BLUE TOOTH MODULE supports synchronous voice data transmission PCM CODEC -used to transmit operators voice and central system sound feedback UART -communication between bluetooth module and microcontroller (115200 bps) MAX232 -level shifter ALPHAUNUMERIC LCD display LED indicators ID CARD interface In creating the hardware part of the DAU a development board is built, which enables the operator to mount, connect and test various peripheral devices cooperating with the microcontroller. During the implementation of the DAU a piece of software is needed to establish and test Bluetooth connections. Therefore a tool called BlueDentist is created. The tool provides support for controlling the currently connected Bluetooth device. Its functions are: local device management (resetting, reading local BD_ADDR, putting in Inquiry/Page and Inquiry/Page scan modes, reading the list of locally supported features and setting UART speed) connection management (receiving and displaying Inquiry scan results, establishing ACL links, adding SCO connections, performing link authorization procedure, sending test data packets and disconnecting). To test the possibilities and performance of the remaining parts such as computer, camera and database software, BlueCapture is created. The tool supports capturing video data from various sources (USB web-cam, industrial camera) and storing the data in the MS SQL Server database. Additionally, the application performs sound recording. After filtering and removing insignificant fragments (i.e. silence) the audio data is stored in the database. Finally, the program plays the recorded audiovisual stream. The software is used to measure database system performance and to optimize some of the SQL queries (e.g. replacing of correlated SQL queries with cursor operations). Also a simple tool for recording Jazz Multisensor measurements is created. The program reads the data using a parallel port and writes it to a file. To program the operators personal ID card we use a standard parallel port, as the EPROMs and the port are both TTL-compliant. A simple dialog-based application helps to accomplish the task. DAU FEATURES: The data acquisition unit has the following features. Lightweight Runs on batteries low power consumption Easy to use does not disturb the operator working ID cards for operator authorization Voice transmission using hardware PCM codec CENTRAL SYSTEM UNIT: The CSU consists of the following components. CONNECTION MODULE main task to perform low-level blue tooth communication DATA ANALYSIS MODULE performs the analysis of the raw sensor data in order to obtain information about operators physiological condition DATA LOGGER MODULE provides support for storing the monitored data. VISULAIZATION MODULE provides user interface for the supervisors CSU FEATURES: The central system unit has the following features. Accessverification System maintenance Connection management Data processing Visualization Data recording AFFECTIVE COMPUTING The process of making emotional computers with sensing abilities is known as affective computing. Steps include:- Giving sensing abilities Detecting human emotions Respond properly ASPECTS OF AFFECTIVE COMPUTING There are two aspects of affective computing: giving the computer the ability to detect emotions and giving the computer the ability to express emotions. Not only are emotions crucial for rational decision making, but emotion detection is an important step to an adaptive computer system. An adaptive, smart computer system has been driving efforts to detect a persons emotional state. An important element of incorporating emotion into computing is for productivity for a computer user. By matching a persons emotional state and the context of the expressed emotion, over a period of time the persons personality is being exhibited. Therefore, by giving the computer a longitudinal understanding of the emotional state of its user, the computer could adapt a working style which fits with its users personality. The result of this collaboration could increase productivity for the user. INPUTS CONSIDERED Heart pulse rate Facial expressions Eye-brows and mouth lines primarily Eye movements As a pointing device Also to determine the emotion Voice METHODS: 1. AFFECT DETECTION: One way of gaining information from a user non-intrusively is by video. Cameras have been used to detect a persons emotional state. The basic block diagram of the facial expression detection is shown below. THEORY ON FACIAL EXPRESSION Based on a facial expression work, there is a correlation between a persons emotional state and a persons physiological measurements. Paul Ekman, a scientist performed an experiment which involved participants attached to devices to record certain measurements including pulse, galvanic skin response (GSR), temperature, somatic movement and blood pressure. He then recorded the measurements as the participants were instructed to mimic facial expressions which corresponded to the six basic emotions. He defined the six basic emotions as anger, fear, sadness, disgust, joy and surprise. Thus from this experiment it was determined how physiological measures could be used to distinguish various emotional states. The measures taken were GSR, heart rate, skin temperature and general somatic activity (GSA). These data were then subject to two analyses. For the first analysis,a multidimensional scaling(MDS) procedure was used to determine the dimensionality of the data. Thus it can be concluded that most of the information is extracted from the position of the eye-brows. Detection Geometric facial data extraction Basic emotion-specified facial expression 1 2 3 4 5 6 disgust fear joy surprise Sadness anger 2. MAGIC POINTING: Magic Pointing stands for MANUAL AND GAZE INPUT CASCADED (MAGIC) POINTING. This work explores a new direction in utilizing eye gaze for computer input. Gaze tracking has long been considered as an alternative or potentially superior pointing method for computer input. It is believed that many fundamental limitations exist with traditional gaze pointing. In particular, it is unnatural to overload a perceptual channel such as vision with a motor control task. Therefore an alternative approach of dubbed MAGIC (Manual And Gaze Input Cascaded) pointing is proposed. With such an approach, pointing appears to the user to be a manual task, used for fine manipulation and selection. However, a large portion of the cursor movement is eliminated by warping the cursor to the eye gaze area, which encompasses the target. Two specific MAGIC pointing techniques are Conservative magic pointing and Liberal magic pointing. The pros and cons of the two techniques are discussed in light of both performance data and subjective reports. IMPLEMENTATION The MAGIC pointing program takes data from both the manual input device (of any type, such as a mouse) and the eye tracking system running either on the same machine or on another machine connected via serial port. Raw data from an eye tracker can not be directly used for gaze-based interaction, due to noise from image processing, eye movement jitters, and samples taken during saccade (ballistic eye movement) periods. Therefore filters are used. The goal of filter design in general is to make the best compromise between preserving signal bandwidth and eliminating unwanted noise. In the case of eye tracking, eye information relevant to interaction lies in the fixations. The key is to select fixation points with minimal delay. Samples collected during a saccade are unwanted and should be avoided. In designing the algorithm for picking points of fixation, the tracking system speed (30 Hz) is considered, and that the MAGIC pointing techniques utilize gaze information only once for each new target, probably immediately after a saccade. The filtering algorithm was designed to pick a fixation with minimum delay by means of selecting two adjacent points over two samples. Advantages of magic pointing: The both the liberal and the conservative MAGIC pointing techniques offer the following potential advantages: Reduction of manual stress and fatigue, since the cross screen long-distance cursor movement is eliminated from manual control. Practical accuracy level. In comparison to traditional pure gaze pointing whose accuracy is pointing fundamentally limited by the nature of eye movement, the MAGIC pointing techniques let the hand complete the task, so they can be as accurate as any other manual input techniques. . A more natural mental model for the user. The user does not have to be aware of the role of the eye gaze. To the user, pointing continues to be a manual task, with a cursor conveniently appearing where it needs to be. Speed. Since the need for large magnitude pointing operations is less than with pure manual cursor control, it is possible that MAGIC pointing will be faster than pure manual pointing. Improved subjective speed and ease-of-use. Since the manual pointing amplitude is smaller, the user may perceive the MAGIC pointing system to operate faster and more pleasantly than pure manual control, even if it operates at the same speed or more slowly. Problems related to magic pointing: In addition to problems with todays eye tracking systems, such as delay, error, and inconvenience, there may also be many potential human factor disadvantages to the MAGIC pointing techniques we have proposed, including the following: 1. With the more liberal MAGIC pointing technique, the cursor warping can be overactive at times, since the cursor moves to the new gaze location whenever the eye gaze moves more than a set distance (e.g., 120 pixels) away from the cursor. This could be particularly distracting when the user is trying to read. It is possible to introduce additional constraint according to the context. For example, when the users eye appears to follow a text reading pattern, MAGIC pointing can be automatically suppressed. 2. With the more conservative MAGIC pointing technique, the uncertainty of the exact location at which the cursor might appear may force the user, especially a novice, to adopt a cumbersome strategy: take a touch (use the manual input device to activate the cursor), wait (for the cursor to appear), and move (the cursor to the target manually). Such a strategy may prolong the target acquisition time. The user may have to learn a novel hand-eye coordination pattern to be efficient with this technique. Gaze position reported by eye tracker Eye tracking boundary with 95% confidence True target will be within the circle with 95% probability The cursor is warped to the boundary of the gaze area, along the initial actuation vector Previous cursor position, far from target Initial manual actuation vector 3. With pure manual pointing techniques, the user, knowing the current cursor location, could conceivably perform his motor acts in parallel to visual search. Motor action may start as soon as the users gaze settles on a target. With MAGIC pointing techniques, the motor action computation (decision) cannot start until the cursor appears. This may negate the time saving gained from the MAGIC pointing techniques reduction of movement amplitude. Clearly, experimental (implementation and empirical) work is needed to validate, refine, or invent alternative MAGIC pointing techniques. SUITOR SUITOR stands for Simple User Interface Tracker. Computers would have been much more powerful, had they gained perceptual and sensory abilities of the living beings on the earth. What needs to be developed is an intimate relationship between the computer and the humans. And the Simple User Interest Tracker (SUITOR) is a revolutionary approach in this direction. By observing the Webpage a netizen is browsing, the SUITOR can help by fetching more information at his to desktop. By simply noticing where the users eyes focus on the computer screen, the SUITOR can be more precise in determining his topic of interest. It can even deliver relevant information to a handheld device. The success lies in how much the suitor can be intimate the user. A cue to exploit nonverbal cues to create more effective user interfaces c is gaze-the direction in which a person is looking. A new technique for tracking a persons eyes has been created and this gaze-tracking technology has been incorporated into two prototypes. One, called SUITOR (Simple User Interest Tracker), fills a scrolling ticker on a computer screen with information related to the users current task. SUITOR knows where the user is looking, what applications he/she is running, and what Web pages the user may be browsing. For example, If a Web page about IBM, is being read for instance and the system presents the latest stock price or business news stories that could affect IBM. If the headline off the ticker is read, it pops up the story in a browser window. If the story is also read then , it adds related stories to the ticker. Thats the whole idea of an attentive system-one that attends to what you are doing, typing, reading, so that it can attend to your information needs. EMOTION MOUSE: One goal of human computer interaction (HCI) is to make an adaptive, smart computer system. A non-invasive way to obtain information about a person is through touch. People use their computers to obtain, store and manipulate data using their computer. In order to start creating smart computers, the computer must start gaining information about the user. The proposed method for gaining user information through touch is via a computer input device, the mouse. From the physiological data obtained from the user, an emotional state may be determined which would then be related to the task the user is currently doing on the computer. Over a period of time, a user model will be built in order to gain a sense of the users personality. The scope of the project is to have the computer adapt to the user in order to create a better working environment where the user is more productive. . One obvious place to put sensors is on the mouse. Through observing normal computer usage (creating and editing documents and surfing the web),people spend approximately 1/3 of their total computer time touching their input device. Because of the incredible amount of time spent touching an input device, the possibility of detecting emotion through touch can be explored. Mouse is embedded with sensors that can sense the physiological attributes like Temperature Body pressure Pulse rate Touching style etc. The computer determines the users emotional states from these inputs. BLUE EYE EMOTIONAL MOUSE sensors in the mouse ,sense the physiological attributes which are correlated to emotions using correlation model -by simply touching the mouse ,the computer will be able to determine a persons emotional state. BLUE EYE enabled TELEVISION could become active when the user makes an eye contact incorporated. 5. SPEECH RECOGNITION: It is important to consider the environment in which the speech recognition system has to work. The grammar used by the speaker, noise level, noise type, position of the microphone, and speed and manner of the users speech are some factors that may affect the quality of speech recognition . Artificial intelligence comes into place where an automatic call-handling system is used without employing any telephone operator. THE TECHNOLOGY: Artificial intelligence (AI) involves two basic ideas. First, it involves studying the thought processes of human beings. Second, it deals with representing those processes via machines (like computers, robots, etc). AI is behavior of a machine, which, if performed by a human being, would be called intelligent. It makes machines smarter and more useful, and is less Expensive than natural intelligence. Natural language processing (NLP) refers to artificial intelligence methods of communicating with a computer in a natural language like English. The main objective of a NLP program is to understand input and initiate action. The input words are scanned and matched against internally stored known words. Identification of a key word causes some action to be taken. In this way, one can communicate with the computer in ones language. No special commands or computer language are required. There is no need to enter programs in a special language for creating software. The user speaks to the computer through a microphone, which, in used; a simple system may contain a minimum of three filters. The more the number of filters used, the higher the probability of accurate recognition. Presently, switched capacitor digital filters are used because these can be custom-built in integrated circuit form. These are smaller and cheaper than active filters using operational amplifiers. The filter output is then fed to the ADC to translate the analogue signal into digital word. The ADC samples the filter outputs many times a second. Each sample represents different amplitudes of the signal .Evenly spaced vertical lines represent the amplitude of the audio filter output at the instant of sampling. Each value is then converted to a binary number proportional to the amplitude of the sample. A central processor unit (CPU) controls the input circuits that are fed by the ADCS. A large RAM (random access memory) stores all the digital values in a buffer area. The pictures represent the basic schemes of the speech recognition process. This digital information, representing the spoken word, is now accessed by the CPU to process it further. The normal speech has a frequency range of 200 Hz to 7 kHz. Recognizing a telephone call is more difficult as it has bandwidth limitation of 300 Hz to3.3 kHz. As explained earlier, the spoken words are processed by the filters and ADCs. The binary representation of each of these words becomes a template or standard, against which the future words are compared. These templates are stored in the memory. Once the storing process is completed, the system can go into its active mode and is capable of identifying spoken words. As each word is spoken, it is converted into binary equivalent and stored in RAM. The computer then starts searching and compares the binary input pattern with the templates. t is to be noted that even if the same speaker talks the same text, there are always slight variations in amplitude or loudness of the signal, pitch, frequency difference, time gap, etc. Due to this reason, there is never a perfect match between the template and binary input word. The pattern matching process therefore uses statistical techniques and is designed to look for the best fit. The values of binary input words are subtracted from the corresponding values in the templates. If both the values are same, the difference is zero and there is perfect match. If not, the subtraction produces some difference or error. The smaller the error, the better is the match. When the best match occurs, the word is identified and displayed on the screen or used in some other manner. The search process takes a considerable amount of time, as the CPU has to make many comparisons before recognition occurs. This necessitates use of very high-speed processors. A large RAM is also required as even though a spoken word may last only a few hundred milliseconds, but the same is translated into many thousands of digital words. It is important to note that alignment of words and templates are to be matched correctly in time, before computing the similarity score. This process, termed as dynamic time warping, recognizes that different speakers pronounce the same words at different speeds as well as elongate different parts of the same word. This is important for the Speaker-independent recognizers. APPLICATIONS OF SPEECH RECOGNITION One of the main benefits of speech recognition system is that it lets user do other works simultaneously. The user can concentrate on observation and manual operations, and still control the machinery by voice input commands. Another major application of speech processing is in military operations. Voice control of weapons is an example. With reliable speech recognition equipment, pilots can give commands and information to the computers by simply speaking into their microphones-they dont have to use their hands for this purpose. Another good example is a radiologist scanning hundreds of X-rays, ultrasonograms, CT scans and simultaneously dictating conclusions to a speech recognition system connected to word processors. The radiologist can focus his attention on the images rather than writing the text. Voice recognition could also be used on computers for making airline and hotel reservations. A user requires simply to state his needs, to make reservation, cancel a reservation, or ma ke enquiries about schedule. 6. EYE TRACKER: Eye tracker is a device which tracks the movement of eye. This system is much more compact and reliable. Available commercial systems, rely on a single light source that is positioned either off the camera axis, or on-axis. Illumination from an off-axis source (or ambient illumination) generates a dark pupil image. When the light source is placed on-axis with the camera optical axis, the camera is able to detect the light reflected from the interior of the eye, and the image of the pupil appears bright. This effect is often seen as the red-eye in flash photographs when the flash is close to the camera lens. The Almaden system of eye tracking uses two near infrared (IR) time multiplexed light sources, composed of two sets of IR LEDs, which were synchronized with the camera frame rate. One light source is placed very close to the cameras optical axis and is synchronized with the even frames. Odd frames are synchronized with the second light source, positioned off axis. The two light sources are calibrated to provide approximately equivalent whole-scene illumination. Pupil detection is realized by means of subtracting the dark pupil image from the bright pupil image. After thresholding the difference, the largest connected component is identified as the pupil. This technique significantly increases the robustness and reliability of the eye tracking system. The Almaden eye tracker is shown in the figure. The above picture an ON AXIS infrared illumination The figure explains the OFF AXIS infrared illumination. APPLICATIONS 1. Surveillance systems: A large retailers have implemented surveillance systems that record and interpret customer movements, using BlueEye software. BlueEye software makes sense of what the cameras see to answer key questions for retailers, including, How many shoppers ignored a promotion? How many stopped? How long did they stay? Did their faces register boredom or delight? How many reached for the item and put it in their shopping carts? Blue Eye works by tracking pupil, eyebrow and mouth movement. When monitoring pupils, the system uses a camera and two infrared light sources placed inside the product display. One light source is aligned with the cameras focus; the other is slightly off axis. When the eye looks into the camera-aligned light, the pupil appears bright to the sensor, and the software registers the customers attention. This is way it captures the persons income and buying preferences. BlueEye is actively been incorporated in some of the leading retail outlets. 2. Automobile industry Blue Eye can be applied in the automobile industry. By simply touching a computer input device such as a mouse, the computer system is designed to be able to determine a persons emotional state. For cars, it could be useful to help with critical decisions like: I know you want to get into the fast lane, but Im afraid I cant do that. You too upset right now and therefore assist in driving safely. 3. Video games We could see its use in video games where, it could give individual challenges to customers playing video games. Typically targeting commercial business. The integration of Childrens toys, technologies and computers is enabling new play experiences that were not commercially feasible until recently. The Intel Play QX3 Computer Microscope, the Me2Cam with Fun Fair, and the Computer Sound Morpher are commercially available smart toy products developed by the Intel Smart Toy Lab in. One theme that is common across these PC-connected toys is that users interact with them using a combination of visual, audible and tactile input output modalities. The presentation will provide an overview of the interaction design of these products and pose some unique challenges faced by designers and engineers of such experiences targeted at novice computer users, namely young children. 4. An alternate to keyboard The familiar and useful come from things we recognize. Many of our favorite things appearance communicate their use; they show the change in their value though patina. As technologists we are now poised to imagine a world where computing objects communicate with us in-situ; where we are. We use our looks, feelings, and actions to give the computer the experience it needs to work with us. Keyboards and mice will not continue to dominate computer user interfaces. Keyboard input will be replaced in large measure by systems that know what we want and require less explicit communication. Sensors are gaining fidelity and ubiquity to record presence and actions; sensors will notice when we enter a space, sit down, lie down, Pump iron, etc. Pervasive infrastructure is recording it. 5. A better future scenario Current interfaces between computers and humans can present information vividly, but have no sense of whether that information is ever Viewed or understood. In contrast, new real-time computer vision techniques for perceiving people allows us to create Face-responsive Displays and Perceptive Environments, which ca

Essay on Social Hierarchy in The Tempest -- Tempest essays

Social Hierarchy in The Tempest  Ã‚        Ã‚   During Shakespeare's time social classification was much more rigid than today and some members of society were considered superior to other members. Shakespeare provides an example of this rigid social structure through his play, The Tempest. Shakespeare illustrates how superior men differentiated themselves from lesser beings on the basis of race, financial status, and gender. Through the character of Prospero, Shakespeare provides and example of one, who had reason to feel superior, yet treated others equally and with the respect due to them.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Tempest reflects Shakespeare's society through the relationship between characters, especially between Prospero and Caliban. Caliban, who was the previous king of the island, is taught how to be "civilized" by Prospero and his daughter Miranda. Then he is forced to be their servant. Caliban explains "Thou strok'st me and make much of me; wo... ...lson. "Shakespearian Superman" The Tempest D.J. Palmer (ed.) Macmillan & Co. 1968 Murray, J. Middleton. "Shakespeare's Dream" The Tempest D.J. Palmer (ed.) Macmillan & Co. 1968 Palmer, D.J. Shakespeare's Later Comedies: An Anthology of Modern Criticism. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1971. Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. 1611. Ed. Stephen Orgel. New York: Oxford UP, 1994. Tillyard, E.M. "The Tragic Pattern" The Tempest D.J. Palmer (ed.) Macmillan & Co. 1968   

Loss Of Freedom Through Apathy :: essays research papers

Loss of Freedom Through Apathy We do have freedom in this country but we simply choose to ignore it. We live in a democracy, the most just kind of government, where we the people hold supreme power. It is an institution that is a culmination of revolutions, wars, philosophies and heroes. It is the greatest and proudest government in the world. One reason for this is that Americans have a right citizens of Iraq and China and North Korea only dreamed they could have. It took one of the greatest military epics in history for our Founding Fathers to receive this right. It took the marching of thousands for women to achieve this right. It took 400 years of abuse for blacks to finally to win this right. It is the highest and purest form of freedom of speech and as Americans it is our single most powerful instrument of self government. It is the American vote and in this Presidential election it is a right 250 million chose to ignore. This year I had the great opportunity to volunteer my services to the Democratic party. I was excited to work for the Democrats because it was my first ever experience involved with the election. For 17 years I stood as a common bystander to this great American tradition. Volunteering my hours made me feel like I was part of something important. Mostly my work consisted of random polling. I would call people up between the hours of 7 and 9 P.M. and ask them a few questions about the election. With every call I hoped for the best, but it seemed that I was calling people at the time they were most irritable. Most would simply hang up, leaving with a polite "Oh, I'm not interested." Others acted militantly to my calling, slamming the phone in disgust. It startled and in a way disheartened me, the way many of the people I polled seemed totally apathetic to the political world around us. To me, spending a minute answering questions about the future of politics did not seem like too much to ask at all. Yet it continued. "Hello I'm calling on behalf of your congressman Bob Toricelli. I'd like to ask a few questions." "I'm sorry I'm really busy right now. I can't talk." *click "Hello I'm calling on behalf of your congressman Bob Toricelli. I'd like to ask a few questions." "Not interested" *click "Hello I'm calling on behalf of your congressman Bob Toricelli. I'd like to ask a few questions." "I'm tired of hearing about this election." *click If I was calling from a telephone company or some other corporate monster

Exemplary Leadership

Abstract In order to be a successful leader, one must have specific virtues to qualify them as effective. This analysis examines how a leader utilizes organizational power, the magnitude to which the leader is constrained by contingency factors, how the leader deals with ethical issues, and the leader’s decision-making style and influence tactics in addition to other characteristics.The leader detailed in this analysis is proven to be effective based on certain qualities and the methods he employ to successfully reach the organization’s goal, and motivate the employees to efficiently meet their subdivision and complete organizational goals. Upon completion of this analysis, it is recommended that a study is done to assess if factors such as age, sex, heritage, etc. contribute to the type of leader one becomes. Introduction Leaders are an essential part of every organization. The quality of leaders determines the success of the organization.There are exemplary leaders, a nd there are leaders that can learn a thing or two. What is a leader? Colquitt, Lepine, and Wesson (2011) define leadership as the use of power and influence to direct the activities of followers toward goal achievement (p. 451). This analysis will chronicle an exemplary leader that many other leaders can learn from. The analysis will assess the leaders use of sources of organizational power, how the leader is constrained by contingency factors, how the leader makes decisions, his influence tactics, and how ethical issues are dealt with.Context My boss at the job that I currently hold is a prototypical leader and the example chosen for this analysis. While studying Management at Howard University, one subject that was constantly visited is what makes a proficient leader. I always wondered where all of my bosses learned their horrible leadership skills from until I crossed paths with my present boss. His kindheartedness, importable nature, and accommodating temperament raises the bar for leaders everywhere.The way he interacts with his staff makes them happy to work dexterously to meet organizations goals above what is expected. These are the behaviors that Colquitt et al states an effective leader achieves. Discussion and Analysis The Use of Organizational Power Power is the aptitude to guide the performance of other individuals and limit unwanted influence in return (Colquitt et al. , 2011). The authors stated that even if one posses the power to influence, it does not guarantee they can effectively influence.Power is made up of five facets – legitimate, reward, coercive, expert, and referent. My supervisor has the power to request that I perform tasks within the scope of his authority – legitimate, the power to extend specific resources I need and rewards I want – reward, the power to control consequences for adverse behaviors – coercive, the expertise that I depend on to get my job done and to grow within the organization  œ expert, and finally he is an individual that I’d like to be associated with in the organization – referent.He has all five facets of power as described by Colquitt et al. My supervisor exercises his rights to power in order to help the organization reach its overall goals and not to be seen as a coercive leader. He exercises legitimate power for reasonable requests such as asking me to come in earlier than my scheduled time to attend an important meeting that could only be scheduled at that time. Notice that he makes reasonable requests, meaning that he gives the option to decline if I cannot make reasonable accommodations.He exercises reward power by periodically making mention of how he intends to go about upcoming performance appraisals. This is actually a strategic method as he utilizes his reward power to remind me of what he can do, which in turn heightens the effectiveness of legitimate power as I am more prone to be submissive to his requests in order to rece ive greater rewards. My supervisor has been in the marketing field – the basis of our department – for over fifteen years, which makes him somewhat of an expert, giving him expert power.My supervisor is not a fan of coercive power, as he does not feel the need to intimidate because he effectively gets his employees to do what they need to do. He encourages his employees to obtain the results he desires. Overall, my supervisor has a great deal of power. He strategically applies his powers in order to achieve what is most important – the organizational goal. As mentioned earlier, he uses his reward and legitimate power concurrently, which is beneficial for him and his staff.His expert power has strength in that I try to use it to my advantage to acquire new talents to help me grow in this organization and any future organizations. He is well respected because of his choice to not use coercive power. Contingency Factors There are four contingencies of power, which Colquitt et al tells us are substitutability, centrality, discretion, and visibility. My supervisor is insignificantly constrained by substitutability, which is the extent to which people have alternatives in accessing resources. My organization strongly attempts to adhere to budgets previously set for the year. o stick to budgets and discretion is the degree to which managers have the right to make decisions on their own (p. 455). Centrality represents how important a person’s job is and how many people depend on that person to complete their task, and visibility is how aware people are of a leader’s powers and position. . He does not have sole control of rewards and resources. As a non-profit, my organization relies heavily on budgets and each higher manager must adhere to their budgets that must be agreed upon by the chief financial officer and president.So even with his reward power, there are limitations. His centrality contingency is not a restraint. He has a ver y important role in the organization as we rely on him significantly to bring money into the organization. I personally depend on him for the completion of many of my assignments, as he must approve many of my tasks before it is executed fully. The discretion contingency may serve as a restraint for my supervisor; while he is Vice President of Marketing, the CFO or president must approve many of his big decisions.They can then revise or rebut his decision if they feel it is necessary. The visibility contingency is not necessarily a constraint or helper to my boss. The resources he can provide are not necessarily organizational record but his title makes it known that he is above most employees and under just the CFO and president; this makes it so he still has relatively high influence. Influence Tactics Colquitt et al (2011) defines influence as the use of an actual behavior that causes behavioral or attitudinal changes in others (p. 56) or as Ceasar and Grant (2004) define as Infl uence tactics are specific types of proactive behavior used to exercise influence. The influence tactics that my boss uses are exchange, consultation, collaboration, and ingratiation. One of my supervisor’s favorite influence tactics is the exchange tactic, which is when an individual extends a reward or resource to the target with the intent for them to perform a request (p). This tactic is most common when my supervisor has projects with outsourced associates.If we are compensating someone for their expertise and we need them to start working prior to receiving payment, he will construct and send an email stating â€Å"your payment is on its way, in the meantime please†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Usually, when I am asked to complete an assignment, I am also asked how we should implement it and at that point he approves or change it somewhat. This is the consultation tactic, which is when the target – me – is allowed to participate in deciding how to carry out or implement a request (p. 457). He uses the collaboration tactic, which involves making the request easier to complete.He generally provides me with the necessary resources I need to complete the task as well making it simpler so that it is done efficiently and effectively on the first try. Ingratiation is his favorite tactic to use. Ingratiation is the use of favors, compliments, or friendly behavior to make the target feel better about the influencer (p. 457). He never fails to tell me how awesome I am, or on occasions he would tell me that he does not need to review my work because he trusts me, or explain that he gave me a task because he knew I was smart enough to handle it.Influence tactics are the medium through which managers convert power into behaviors; when managers need others to perform tasks or participate in activities, influence tactics serve as a means of facilitating individual cooperation (Ceasar & Grant, 2004). The tactics that he uses are effective and he uses them appropri ately as well. He also uses personal appeals because in his line of work, he deals with a lot of outside clients.It is beneficial for him to build relationships with people in other industries so that they are readily available to help us when we need them. All in all, the tactics my boss uses results in internalization, which involves getting the target to agree with and become committed to a request (p. 459). Ethical Issues My boss works extremely well under intense conditions and with conflicts. Just recently, we joined with a major corporation for a campaign and sought help from a board certified doctor so that the information we offered would be further validated.Prior to execution of the assignment by the doctor, he let us know that he was not satisfied with the pay and proceeded to tell the major corporation false accounts of what we told him were part of the agreement. My boss could have outright denied his claims in the same rude manner that the doctor was exemplifying. Ins tead, he apologized to the doctor for the misunderstanding and attributed his false account to miscommunication. He then asked the doctor what his normal fee was for the task he performed, and he accommodated him accordingly.He then concluded he would never use the doctor again. In this example of an ethical issue, the fault is not of my organization or my boss but that of the doctor. However, my boss handled the situation in an ethical manner when he could have very well become as unethical as the doctor. I personally respected him for his handling of the situation, as I know my initial instinct would have been to react a lot differently. Decision-Making Styles Colquitt et al talks about four decision-making styles: delegative, facilitative, consultative, and autocratic.With delegative style, a leader gives an individual employee or a group of employees the responsibility for making the decision within some set of specified boundary conditions and with facilitative style, the leade r presents the problem to a group of employees and seeks consensus on a solution, making sure his or her own opinion receives no more weight than others (p. 488). With a consultative style, the leader present the problem to an individual employees or a group, asking for their opinions and suggestions before making a decision him- or her- self and with autocratic style, the leader makes the decision alone (p. 57). My boss uses three of the four decision-making styles as he sees appropriate. For example, he would use the delegative style in a situation where he gives the staff a project. He will provide the specified conditions and then allow us to determine the way we carry out the assignment. He would use the consultative style in a situation where he may want different viewpoints about a decision he has to make to see if he explored all relevant avenues before ultimately making the decision based on his own views.He uses the autocratic style when the decision does not directly affe ct the team and he needs no further input. Transformational Vs. Transactional Leadership According to Colquitt et al (2011), transformational leadership involves inspiring followers to commit to a shared vision that provides meaning to their work while also serving as a role model who helps followers develop their own potential and view problems from new perspectives (p. 496). Transactional leadership occurs when the leader rewards or disciplines the follower depending on the adequacy of the follower’s performance (p. 98). Grant (2012) defines transformational leadership as a central purpose to articulate a vision that focuses employees’ attention on their contributions to others. He states that this form of leadership motivate employees to perform more effectively. My boss is a transformational leader. Not only is he great at inspiring his staff to commit to a shared vision, he makes sure that their work is worth their while. He continually asks if our work is suffici ent and challenging enough because he does not want us to become bored.In addition, he gives us tasks that may go beyond our duties just to develop us into more valuable professionals. He gives us leeway to execute our tasks in a manner that is most comfortable to us while giving his input when we ask or when he sees it is necessary. He does not micro-manage and puts more focus on making us better employees so we can help him with our current skills while learning new skills to be more of a help in the future. Neutralizers Vs. Substitutes Neutralizers, as Colquitt et al (2011) explains, reduce the importance of the leader but have no beneficial impact on performance (p. 05). Substitutes reduce the importance of the leader while providing a direct benefit to employee performance. My supervisor’s effectiveness is rarely affected by substitutes. Because our organization is small, outside staff is less likely able to help us because each department has its specialty. Staff could gain experience that will lessen the extent to which they need the manager’s help but could never alleviate it completely because he is the provider of the tasks. Neutralizers are also minimal. There is task stability, formalization, and spatial distance, but inflexibility is not a factor.For the most part there are tasks that are unchanging and daily and there are written instructions for many of the tasks. Also, all leaders have offices and therefore there is spatial distance. Impact My supervisor has a major impact on performance and commitment in a positive way. His personality and leadership techniques make it so he is a pleasant person to work for. He governs over his employees just enough to make sure the work is done while giving enough space for them to be creative and comfortable. His behaviors definitely influence commitment because it is rare to find a boss of this caliber.Conclusions and Reflections I have always viewed my boss as a great boss. I never had the op portunity to think of why he was such a great boss. This assignment allowed me to do just that. And from my research, I found that my boss has virtually everything that makes a boss a great one from his personality to leadership skills. I have always had the attitude that I want to work for myself because most bosses were not very nice people. While I still desire to work for myself, I would not mind working with a boss like mine and now know that all bosses are not horrible people.I desire to be the exact type of boss that my boss is because his methods are effective. After taking the initiation and consideration assessment, I found that my score for initiating was considered low and the score for consideration was considered high. That coincides with the way I think I would lead. I would care about more about input from group members and their comfort than being more autocratic as a high initiative score would indicate. I would be interested in further researching if certain chara cteristics attribute to the sort of boss a person becomes such as gender, race, age, etc.References Colquitt, J. , Lepine, J. , Wesson. M. (2011). Organizational Behavior: Improving Performance and commitment in the workplace. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Gardner, W. L. , & Ceasar, D. (2004). Transition to Self-Directed Work Teams: Implications of transition time and self-monitoring for managers' use of influence tactics. Journal Of Organizational Behavior, 25(1), 47-65. Grant, A. M. (2012). Leading with Meaning: Beneficiary contact, prosocial impact, and the performance effects of transformational leadership. Academy Of Management Journal, 55(2), 458-476.