Choose two ads from popular magizines. Do a pre-write in which you Essay

Choose two ads from popular magizines. Do a pre-write in which you consider what elements these ads have in comman, and what ele - Essay Example Both these advertisements have catchy captions and provide stark images to the consumer that will be able to have an impact on his mind on viewing. They are persuasive in nature and have been analyzed and explained below. The advertisement from Nike is a very different and innovative one, something not most business enterprises would be able to publish in the print media. This is because it shows a young boy peeing in the corner with a caption that reads â€Å"Just Do It†. It is indeed a very persuasive and catchy to the image as well. The entire image tries to depict and make a consumer understand on his sub conscious level, how important it is to just do things without thinking twice about them. It tries to make people understand that mostly when people think about carrying out an action a few more times, they chicken out by the entire idea and are not able to follow through or implement. With the help of the young boy in the image, it tries to tell people that when they wer e young, they did not have a care in their minds and would just do whatever they felt like. However, with age comes responsibility and most of the times the heavy weight of the responsibility that people carry on their shoulders, weighs them down and they are unable to do things for themselves. This advertisement has helped to bridge that very gap by showing the young boy peeing on the road – an indication of a young carefree mind, not bothering about the implications and ‘just doing it’; in this case, ‘just buying’ products from the brand Nike. (Nike) The second advertisement from the Condomshop.ch is a image of a naked man standing with three soldiers in a war zone, completely armed and thus, ‘protected’. This ad is from a company of condoms and thus is trying to tell the consumers how important it is to be protected while having sexual intercourse with their partners. With the help of the soldiers and guns in the war zone, the adverti sement helps the consumer to form an image in their heads of the particular condom providing the best results. It is an analogy that suggests that the condom will provide as much protection to the men that make use of it, as arms and bullet proof clothing provide soldiers in a war like environment. Again, it is a very persuasive advertisement with the tag line ‘Don’t Be Stupid’. This indicates a very simple and concise manner of portraying how one should not fall prey to the implications that not using a condom might have i.e. unplanned pregnancies and thus in order to avoid all that and not be stupid, one should make use of the condom from Condomshop.ch which provides the maximum amount of protection. (Condomshop.ch) Both the advertisements thus are quite rhetoric in nature as they suggest exactly what they portray in the images. On viewing, it instantly hits the consumer’s mind about what the images might be suggesting or trying to say. Both advertisemen ts also have a very simple and catchy line that people are able to remember with ease. This is a very good strategy to use because simple captions help to attract more consumers and play in their heads all the time, making them finally make use of or purchase the product or services. Both advertisements also present images that the consumer is able to relate with very easily. They are also fairly explicit in nature, suggesting a very probable as well as obvious statement to the consumer. Thus, they make for very good marketing strategies for the both the

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) Abstract- In the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) domain, researchers have always wondered about which principles and models to adopt for the development of collaborative applications capable to really meet the needs of their users. However, these users requirements are unpredictable and depend on several task or environment-related factors. Integrated collaborative environments are rarely open, extensible and reconfigurable enough so as to meet these requirements. This paper presents an environment, called LEICA (Loosely-coupled Environment for Integrating Collaborative Applications), allowing the integration of existing cooperative applications. LEICA adopts a loosely-coupled integration approach which is based on Web services Services technology, an event notification system, and the definition of Collaboration Policies to control the interactions among integrated applications. LEICA allows different functionalities of existing applications to be dynamically combined and controlled, enhancing therefore the flexibility. Through a case study we show how LEICA was successfully used to integrate three collaborative applications: a co-browsing tool, an instant messaging tool and a VoIP conference controller. Index Terms-Collaborative work, integrated collaborative environments, web services. INTRODUCTION Advances in networking and computing technologies, combined with the fact that companies and work teams are becoming geographically distributed, have created increased a need for communication technologies to ease distance collaboration among distributed individuals (virtual work teams). This leads to the appearing of the so-called Integrated Collaboration Environments (ICEs), having as main goal to integrate different collaborative applications together into a single easy-to-use operational environment [1]. Users needs are very frequently unpredictable and depending on several emerging factors, including the size of the workgroup, the collaborative activities to be accomplished, the intensiveness of the required communications, the coordination policy and the communication needs of the workgroup. Therefore, the possibility of dynamically integrating new functionalities to the environment appears as an important characteristic for collaborative applications [3]. Supporting the integration of new collaborative functionalities reflects how flexible the environment is while responding to unpredictable users needs. We can define this characteristic as integration flexibility that denotes the ease with which an ICE can be its functionalities in response to the users needs. Nowadays one of the main problems of ICEs is that their lack of integration flexibility and as consequence various users decide to set-up their own environments composing different collaborative applications executed independently. In this case, each application is completely isolated from others, without any possibility of coordination among them. This lack of integration can lead to a loss of control from the part of the user, since the operation environment is particularly artificial. Promoting the integration flexibility of ICEs could bring significant benefits to users, allowing different functionalities of existing applications to be dynamically combined and controlled (enhancing therefore the flexibility itself). For instance, a whiteboard application can be integrated with an instant messaging application in such a way that whenever a user joins an instant messaging room, he is automatically logged into the same whiteboard session, instead of been forced to manually login into a session of each one of these collaborative tools. Another case could be the integration of a distributed game and an audio conference application. Whenever a user avatar enters a level/place into the game, his is logged into the audio conference session associated to that level/place, so that the users can online discuss with each other. In order to achieve the integration of existing collaborative applications without having to deal with their low-level features, this work presents LEICA, a Loosely-coupled Environment for Integrating Collaborative Applications. Relying on Web services Services (WS) technologies and an event notification system, different collaborative applications can interoperate by exchanging information within the context of a global collaborative session. The loosely-coupled approach proposed by LEICA overcomes a key problem usually related to integration environments it does not require a true semantic integration of applications. Accordingly, it supports further integration possibilities, such as the integration of third party applications, enhancing, thus, flexibility. LEICA also offers flexibility in the level of the integration semantics. Based on Collaboration Policies to control the interactions between integrated applications, LEICA provides means to define how the collaboration activity supported by one collaborative application will be affected by information received from other collaborative applications. In practice, these collaborative applications interact through the notification of events which may lead to performing specific action(s) in some of these applications themselves. As we will explain later in detail, we think that once a collaborative session has been configured, the use of LEICA can improve users productivity by reducing the application-related administrative tasks, focusing precisely on the collaboration activity itself, and all that by just by interpreting the rules stated for a particular session, all this in function of some pre-established policy rules (also to be explained in detail later). In this way users will find a more natural collaboration environment from the users point of view. In order to illustrate the usability of LEICA in real-world conditions, this paper presents a case study that demonstrates the capability of LEICA to integrate collaborative applications. In this case study, LEICA was successfully used to integrate three collaborative applications: a co-browsing tool, instant messaging tool and a VoIP conference controller. The paper is structured as follows. Section II presents related work regarding the integration of CSCW systems. Section III overviews the general integration approach proposed by LEICA. Section IV explains how to specify Collaboration Policies. Section V presents the LEICAs architecture, detailing how to integrate applications in practice. Some implementation issues are considered in section VI. Section VII describes a case study illustrating the use of LEICA. Finally, in section VIII we draw some conclusions and presents directions of future work. RELATED WORK There are several works oriented to improving integration flexibility of collaborative environments. In this context, four main approaches can be identified: user-tailorable solutions; CSCW toolkits; middleware based solutions; and platforms for integration of heterogeneous collaborative systems. User-Tailorable Solutions As stated in [2], different definitions of tailorability can be found in the literature. Most of them focus on user tailorability ([3], [4], [5] [6]) defining that a tailorable application can be adapted and modified by its own users in order to meet their different requirements. In CSCW, tailorability must focus on the requirements of the group task and of the organization, in which the CSCW system is used [5]. Actually, tailorability is one of the main concerns of groupware development methods. For example, application of participatory design methods ([7] [8]) has been proposed in order to approach the user involvement during groupware development, augmenting thus the opportunities for tailoring. According to [6], tailoring can be supported in three different levels: customization, selecting among a set of predefined configuration options; integration, linking together predefined components within or between applications; extension, improving the implementation by adding new program code. Most of user-tailorable groupware tools support only the customization or integration level (e.g. [2] [9]). Note that the integration level supposes that the functionality to be integrated has been pre-developed and is available somewhere [6]. Only at the extension level users would be able to integrate new functionalities, even if they have not been anticipated by developers at design time. A method frequently used for supporting tailoring at the extension level is the component-based tailoring. For example, in [10], components are implemented using Flexibeans (an extension of the Java Beans model) and end-users tailor the system using a composition language. In [11], end-users may assemble components into larger composite components using the visual representation rather than writing lines of code. However, even at the extension level the integration flexibility is partial as the integration of existing collaborative systems or groupware would require them to be redesigned according to the system architecture. CSCW Toolkits CSCW toolkits ease the implementation of CSCW systems by providing reusable components and behaviors designed to be applicable in a range of circumstances [12]. The need for flexibility and tailorability in CSCW toolkits is well acknowledged. The Neem Platform [13] offers a generic (application-neutral) evolvable framework upon which socially and culturally aware applications are developed. Flexibility and extensibility in Neem result from its foundation on a core architectural coordination model [13]: decoupled components interact indirectly through message exchanges. Intermezzo [14] is a collaboration support environment supporting the coordination information sharing, offering fluid interactions, user awareness, session management and policy control. It addresses dynamic flexibility [12] by allowing applications to adapt not just their own behavior, but also the behavior of the toolkit in reacting to the changing dynamics of the world they run into. The Groupware Toolkit/Shared Dictionary (or GT/SD) toolkit [15][16] has been developed to support rapid development of groupware, focusing mainly on networking and data sharing aspects. GT/SDs extensibility is based on its modular design, which allows adding or modifying behavior by replacing or wrapping different components. Toolkits may represent an interesting solution for helping the development of CSCW systems, as they promote the reuse of components. But in general, CSCW toolkits offer a limited set of functionalities or they are target for some specific kind of domain. Besides, to reuse components of the toolkit, developers often need to implement very specific details of the toolkit in order to adapt it to the application needs [16][17]. Middleware based solutions The integration of heterogeneous applications has been a widely investigated subject, mainly in distributed systems area. General integration solutions based on middleware, like CCM (CORBA Component Model), .NET and Enterprise JavaBeans have been developed. Moreover, integration solutions associated with specific domains have also been proposed, such as Enterprise Application Integration systems [17][18]. The emergence of Web services WS has also led to the development of general solutions for integration of distributed applications, due mainly to the use of open standards. In the CSCW domain, some middleware-based solutions have been proposed. Dustdar et al. [18][19] discuss the importance of using Web services WS in order to provide collaborative application interoperability. But in order to be integrated, collaborative applications must originally support Web servicesWS. Even if Web servicesWS represent an emerging software trend, only a limited set of collaborative applications are currently supporting these technologies. As an enhancement to traditional middleware, some SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) solutions have also been proposed. For example, WGWSOA [19][20] uses Web ServicesWS as an access interface in order to support the reuse and the interoperability of different collaborative services. But an important drawback of WGWSOA is that collaborative services must be developed following the respective middleware architecture. It is also important to note that like WGWSOA, most middleware based solutions present technical responses to the so called syntactic interoperability [20][21]. They provide mechanisms allowing applications to communicate and interact through information exchange. But according to [21][22], the integration concept goes beyond the possibility of sharing and exchanging specific information. Applications must agree upon the meaning (or the semantics) of these exchanges. In other words, integration solutions should provide means for defining integration semantics. Thus, interoperability can be seen as a requirement for integration. The EcoSpace Project [22][23] proposes an environment that, besides being based on SOA and Web servicesWS, relies on Semantic Web technologies (WSDL-S with services ontologies) to support semantic description of collaborative services. Besides a semantic description of each service, it would be necessary a semantic description of the composition of services so as to coordinate their orchestration. However, this part of the project remains as design aspect. Moreover, using Web serviceWSs as integration technology may imply some performance loss, particularly associated to the use of SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) [23][24]. Luo et al. [24][25] claim that Web ServicesWS should be only used in situations which are really heterogeneous. They propose a service-oriented solution for the integration of collaborative applications that, instead of using SOAP, adopts a unified service bus (implemented through an open source Enterprise Service Bus). Platforms for integrating heterogeneous collaborative systems The latter latest approach to improve the integration flexibility of collaborative environments is to create platforms aiming specifically at the integration of collaborative applications. They focus on the integration of collaborative functionalities provided by these applications while trying to define any semantics behind integration. Iqbal et al. [25][26] propose an integrative framework based on the three-level model presented by [26][27]: the Ontological Model specifies shared objects, their relations and taxonomies; the Coordination Model specifies how interactions take place during system execution; and the User Interface Model specifies how the system is presented to the final user. Integration process consists firstly in identifying, for each collaborative application, the elements associated with these three models. Then, on each level the elements from different applications are grouped and merged when equivalent. As a result, common ontological, coordination and user interface models are generated. In spite of enabling a multi-level integration, this approach requires an internal knowledge of the collaborative applications so that their functionalities can be mapped into the three-level model. Accordingly, the integration of third party applications becomes a complex task. In order to avoid considering application internals during the integration process (facilitating the integration of existing applications), some integration solutions propose the so called loosely-coupled approach. This approach presents two main features: (i) once integrated to the environment, collaborative applications preserve their autonomy, i.e., they can still be used as standalone application; (ii) the integration environment remains independent of integrated applications, and accordingly, applications can be integrated and detached from the environment without compromising its behavior. This last feature is particularly important considering the integration flexibility aspect. In fact, in a loosely-coupled environment, the set of integrated applications must be easily modified according to users needs. Systems like AREA [27][28] and NESSIE [28][29] have proposed a loosely-coupled integration for supporting cross-application awareness. Both systems represent a collaborative environment where independent applications can share a common information space, implemented through an event notification system. Users can receive notifications of activity relevant events from different applications (executed by other users). An important aspect of these systems is the use of open Internet technologies (such as HTTP and CGI) to enable the integration of third party collaborative applications. However, the main drawback of both systems is that the integration semantics is statically defined collaborative applications are integrated so as to offer a common awareness of the whole collaboration activity. Another proposal also based on a loosely-coupled approach is the framework XGSP [29][30]. XGSP proposes the integration of audio and videoconferencing tools based on SIP and H.323 standards, as well as the integration of Access Grid applications [30][31]. In this framework, XGSP manager servers are in charge of controlling collaborative sessions. A different gateway is defined for each application type (i.e. SIP, H.323 and Access Grid applications). Using a signaling protocol based on Web servicesWS, these gateways are employed to mediate the communication between applications and XGSP servers. An important disadvantage of XGSP is the fact that, originally, it only allows the integration of application based on SIP, H.323 and Access Grid. Loosely-coupling is also inherent to the Web servicesWS based solutions presented in the previous section. Similarly to those solutions, LEICA represents an integration environment that proposes a loosely-coupled approach based on Web servicesWS technologies. Regarding the performance implications of SOAP, Alonso et al. [31][32] suggest that Web ServicesWS technologies should be used only to implement coarse-gained interactions, where the impact of the overhead associated to SOAP would be less important. Following the recommendations of [31][32], Web servicesWS are employed by LEICA for coarse-grained operations only. As it will be detailed in the following sections, LEICA defines a hybrid architecture where Web ServicesWS are applied as an initial mechanism for registering newly integrated applications, as well as for setting and starting up collaborative sessions. Then, during the execution of integrated collaborative sessions a different infrastructure is used to interconnect collaborative applications. Another important aspect concerns integration semantics. Unlike the previous solutions, LEICA provides users with the possibility to define the desired integration semantics for each collaborative session. The Integration Environment: LEICA LEICA aims at the integration of different collaborative applications, where integration semantics is to be defined according to user requirements. Before explaining the general integration approach and the behavior of LEICA, a possible scenario is presented to better illustrate the advantages of such integration. Integration Scenario An important domain where collaborative environments have been largely used is e-Learning. In particular, a CVE (Collaborative Virtual Environment) can be used to implement a 3D shared world representing a school building divided into: one entrance hall, classrooms, and teachers rooms. Different collaborative applications could be associated to each room: (i) a chat room associated to the entrance hall; (ii) a collaborative web browsing (it would enable teachers to guide students through lecture notes) and an audio conference tool associated to the classrooms; and (iii) a shared whiteboard associated to each of the teachers room. Un paragraphe pour montrer la situation: Utilisation des outils non integrà ©es, et lintà ©gration avec LEICA. With this integration semantics, whenever an avatar enters into a room, the respective user is automatically connected to the associated collaborative application(s). Besides, only authorized users should enter into private rooms (e.g. the teachers rooms with its whiteboard could be restricted to teachers). Another possible behavior specified by this integration semantics is some kind of floor coupling between the two applications used as a support for virtual class sessions. This way, it would be possible to assure that the user holding the Web browsing floor (i.e. the one guiding the lecture notes browsing) is the only one to have the right to speak to the class attendees. General Integration Approach As previously mentioned, and illustrated in Fig. 1, LEICA follows a hybrid architecture where Web ServicesWS are applied at the collaborative sessions start up, and an event notification system allows collaborative applications to interact through the exchange of event notifications. Two other basic components of LEICA are the Wrappers and the Session Configuration Service (SCS). The integration of a collaborative application to LEICA is achieved by attaching a Wrapper to it. Three main cases may be considered: a) open source applications, b) API-based applications, and c) applications without any available API. Integration of open source applications can achieve the tightest interaction degree, since any internal event/action can be exported/performed; it might however imply great development efforts. API-based integration is straightforward, and interaction is limited to the provided API. Applications without API are the most limitating ones, constraining to interact only through application start and stop actions. LEICAs integration approach is mainly driven by case (b), believing that developers are certainly interested in creating specific and performable collaboration tools that can be used either stand-alone or integrated with other applications (through a flexible API, being able to get a great share of the market). This is for instance the case of Skypeâ„ ¢, a successful example of communication tool that has released its API since some time ago. Fig. 2 summarizes LEICAs general integration framework. The first step of the LEICAs integration framework is the Collaborative Application Integration. For instance, in the illustrative scenario presented in III.A, the first step to integrate the CVE with the instant messenger (supporting the chat room associated to the entrance hall), the collaborative Web browser and the audio conference applications, it is necessary to create a Wrapper for each one of these applications. As detailed in Section V, these wrappers can be automatically generated by LEICAs API Factory, based on the API description of each collaborative application. The Wrappers comprise a Web services Services WS interface allowing the collaborative application to register itself with LEICA. As illustrated by Fig. 1, through the Wrappers Web servicesWS ports, the integrated application can interact with the Session Configuration Service (SCS). The SCS is a Web service Service WS used for (i) configuring new global SuperSessions and (ii) starting up SuperSessions. A SuperSession is an integrated collaborative session holding the whole collaboration activity. Within the context of a global SuperSession, different specificSessions can exist. A specificSession is a conventional collaborative session defined within the context of a collaborative application (e.g. a videoconference session, a whiteboard session, etc.). The SCS dynamically contacts each integrated application, during the SuperSession configuration process, in order to request: (i) which specific data is required to create specificSessions for this respective application (e.g. a videoconference tool could require an IP multicast address); and (ii) which kind of events it can notify, and action requests it can handle. The interaction degree among the integrated applications depends essentially on the nature of the events they are able to exchange, and actions they are able to perform. In order to create a SuperSession, a user must define its integration semantics. It is accomplished by configuring the Collaboration Policy. A Collaboration Policy is a set of rules under a condition/action model. These rules define how collaborative applications must react when receiving information (events) notified by other integrated applications. In other words, the specification of Collaboration Policies allows defining specific integration semantics (i.e. how to coordinate integrated applications) to each SuperSession, according to the different users requirements. Once a SuperSessions has been created (and its associated configuration file is generated), it can finally be started up. The SCS firstly contacts each integrated collaborative application requesting them to create the specificSessions defined in the SuperSession. Then, during the execution of collaborative sessions the integrated application can interact through the exchange of event using the Event Notification System. According to predefined Collaboration Policies, these notifications may lead specific actions to be performed. Wrappers are in charge of managing the SuperSessions Collaboration Policy. When the Wrapper of a collaborative application receives event notifications, it verifies if the notified events enable any policy rule concerning this collaborative application. If so, the Wrapper sends action requests to the respective application. Note that LEICA is not intended to support low-level physical events (e.g. mouse click/scrolling) or high frequency synchronization events (e.g. current position of moving objects). It aims at supporting activity relevant events that carry some semantics. SuperSession Concept As previously mentioned, LEICA controls the whole collaboration activity within the context of a global SuperSession. A SuperSession model has been defined in order to precisely identify and describe its components. Based on this model, LEICA maintains concise and coherent SuperSession state information. Furthermore, a well-defined taxonomy of the components and their attributes are also implied from the model. General models for describing collaborative applications have already been proposed in the literature. Some of them [26][27] [32][33] represent a conceptual or ontological model describing the entities and relationships of individual CSCW systems. Few models aim at describing integrated CSCW systems, like OOActSM [33][34] and the conceptual model presented in [34][35]. However, these models are based on the notion of a general activity as the central abstraction, which was considered rather abstract for a detailed specification of the SuperSession. Nevertheless, these models have inspired several concepts adopted in the defined SuperSession model. The SuperSession represents a collaboration activity involving different integrated applications, a group of users and general roles associated to these users. Formally, a CIE Session CS is a tuple: SS = (SSid, CA , NA , Rl , U , SSat) where: SSid is a unique identifier; CA = {CAi } | i ÃŽ [1,I]} is a finite set of collaborative applications where CAi = (CAidi, spSi, CAati) a specific collaborative application running a set of specificSessions (sSi). CAati is a list of attributes characterizing the collaborative application. These attributes provide information about the application description, including name, type, whether it is a role-based application, its distribution architecture (client/server, multi-servers, peer-to-peer) and the type of user applications (stand-alone or webWeb-based).); NA is a finite set of non-collaborative applications (data converters, databases, web applications, etc.); Rl = {Rlk } | k ÃŽ [1,K]} is a finite set of general roles. The concept of general role refers to a group of users owning the same set of responsibilities and privileges inside LEICA; Rlk = (Rlidk , Rlatk). Rlidk is a unique role identifier; and Rlatk is a list of attributes characterizing this general role. This list provides details like roles description, membership and administration rights. Regarding the membership, it defines how the role is associated with users: it may be either (i) a static association (there is a membership list), (ii) an automatic association (there is a predicate function based on users parameters and SuperSession state) or (iii) a users choice (password protected or not).); U = {Ul } | l ÃŽ [1,L]} is a finite set of connected users; Ul = (Uidl, URlidl, Mbl, Uatl) represent a user, where Uidl is a unique identifier; URlidl is one general role associated with the user; Mbl is a finite set of membership relations; Uatl is a list of attributes (name, email, IP address, network connection, device type, etc.); Mbl.n = (mCAidl.n , mSidl.n , msRlidl.n) is a membership relation, where mCAidl.n is an application identifier; mSidl.n is a specificSession identifier; msRlidl.n is a finite set of specific roles identifiers. Thus, each membership relation indicates the participation of a connected user to a specificSession of a collaborative application (once connected to the SuperSession, a user can concurrently take part in none, one or more specificSessions of different collaborative applications); SSat is a list of attributes characterizing the SuperSession. These attributes describe information like session context (name, purpose, etc.), scheduling (if scheduled or not, duration, etc.), accessibility type (open or closed), role association type (how users are associated to a general role) and maximum number of connected users. A specificSession regards a conventional collaborative session of a collaborative application. The role of the specificSession entity (spSi.m), wich is formally represented by the tuple: spSi.m = (Sidi.m, sRli.m, pUidi.m, Rsi.m, spSati.m) is not to precisely describe each aspect of a collaborative task. Instead, it captures relevant elements like the specific roles defined for this session (sRli.m), the users participating to this session (pUidi.m.) and the shared resources accessed by these users (Rsi.m). A specific role is a tuple, sRli.m.o = (sRlidi.m.o, sRlati.m.o), where sRlidi.m.o is a specific role identifier and sRlati.m.o is a list of attributes characterizing the specific role (description and maximum number of simultaneous users). A resource is also a tuple Rsi.m.p= (urli.m.p, Rsati.m.p ), where urli.m.p is a resource locator and Rsati.m.p is a list of attributes characterizing the resource. The purpose of the resource element is simply to allow the implementation of an inter-application access control mechanism. LEICA will not need to keep the state of each resource. Thus, resources attributes just describe its type (file, device, virtual object, interface widget, etc.) and the read/write access type (exclusive or concurrent). SuperSession Configuration In order to create a SuperSession, a two step configuration process is carried out: (i) Session Management configuration and (ii) Collaboration Policy configuration. In the first configuration step, two groups of information should be specified: General Session Management information (GSMinfo): It carries management information such as scheduling, membership and general user roles.; Integrated Applications information (IAinfo): It defines the list of integrated applications to be used during this SuperSession; for each collaborative application, a list of specificSessions is defined, where specific data required by this application for creating sessions is provided (e.g. a videoconference application will be provided with an IP multicast address). Once Session Management configuration is completed, the Collaboration Polic Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) Abstract- In the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) domain, researchers have always wondered about which principles and models to adopt for the development of collaborative applications capable to really meet the needs of their users. However, these users requirements are unpredictable and depend on several task or environment-related factors. Integrated collaborative environments are rarely open, extensible and reconfigurable enough so as to meet these requirements. This paper presents an environment, called LEICA (Loosely-coupled Environment for Integrating Collaborative Applications), allowing the integration of existing cooperative applications. LEICA adopts a loosely-coupled integration approach which is based on Web services Services technology, an event notification system, and the definition of Collaboration Policies to control the interactions among integrated applications. LEICA allows different functionalities of existing applications to be dynamically combined and controlled, enhancing therefore the flexibility. Through a case study we show how LEICA was successfully used to integrate three collaborative applications: a co-browsing tool, an instant messaging tool and a VoIP conference controller. Index Terms-Collaborative work, integrated collaborative environments, web services. INTRODUCTION Advances in networking and computing technologies, combined with the fact that companies and work teams are becoming geographically distributed, have created increased a need for communication technologies to ease distance collaboration among distributed individuals (virtual work teams). This leads to the appearing of the so-called Integrated Collaboration Environments (ICEs), having as main goal to integrate different collaborative applications together into a single easy-to-use operational environment [1]. Users needs are very frequently unpredictable and depending on several emerging factors, including the size of the workgroup, the collaborative activities to be accomplished, the intensiveness of the required communications, the coordination policy and the communication needs of the workgroup. Therefore, the possibility of dynamically integrating new functionalities to the environment appears as an important characteristic for collaborative applications [3]. Supporting the integration of new collaborative functionalities reflects how flexible the environment is while responding to unpredictable users needs. We can define this characteristic as integration flexibility that denotes the ease with which an ICE can be its functionalities in response to the users needs. Nowadays one of the main problems of ICEs is that their lack of integration flexibility and as consequence various users decide to set-up their own environments composing different collaborative applications executed independently. In this case, each application is completely isolated from others, without any possibility of coordination among them. This lack of integration can lead to a loss of control from the part of the user, since the operation environment is particularly artificial. Promoting the integration flexibility of ICEs could bring significant benefits to users, allowing different functionalities of existing applications to be dynamically combined and controlled (enhancing therefore the flexibility itself). For instance, a whiteboard application can be integrated with an instant messaging application in such a way that whenever a user joins an instant messaging room, he is automatically logged into the same whiteboard session, instead of been forced to manually login into a session of each one of these collaborative tools. Another case could be the integration of a distributed game and an audio conference application. Whenever a user avatar enters a level/place into the game, his is logged into the audio conference session associated to that level/place, so that the users can online discuss with each other. In order to achieve the integration of existing collaborative applications without having to deal with their low-level features, this work presents LEICA, a Loosely-coupled Environment for Integrating Collaborative Applications. Relying on Web services Services (WS) technologies and an event notification system, different collaborative applications can interoperate by exchanging information within the context of a global collaborative session. The loosely-coupled approach proposed by LEICA overcomes a key problem usually related to integration environments it does not require a true semantic integration of applications. Accordingly, it supports further integration possibilities, such as the integration of third party applications, enhancing, thus, flexibility. LEICA also offers flexibility in the level of the integration semantics. Based on Collaboration Policies to control the interactions between integrated applications, LEICA provides means to define how the collaboration activity supported by one collaborative application will be affected by information received from other collaborative applications. In practice, these collaborative applications interact through the notification of events which may lead to performing specific action(s) in some of these applications themselves. As we will explain later in detail, we think that once a collaborative session has been configured, the use of LEICA can improve users productivity by reducing the application-related administrative tasks, focusing precisely on the collaboration activity itself, and all that by just by interpreting the rules stated for a particular session, all this in function of some pre-established policy rules (also to be explained in detail later). In this way users will find a more natural collaboration environment from the users point of view. In order to illustrate the usability of LEICA in real-world conditions, this paper presents a case study that demonstrates the capability of LEICA to integrate collaborative applications. In this case study, LEICA was successfully used to integrate three collaborative applications: a co-browsing tool, instant messaging tool and a VoIP conference controller. The paper is structured as follows. Section II presents related work regarding the integration of CSCW systems. Section III overviews the general integration approach proposed by LEICA. Section IV explains how to specify Collaboration Policies. Section V presents the LEICAs architecture, detailing how to integrate applications in practice. Some implementation issues are considered in section VI. Section VII describes a case study illustrating the use of LEICA. Finally, in section VIII we draw some conclusions and presents directions of future work. RELATED WORK There are several works oriented to improving integration flexibility of collaborative environments. In this context, four main approaches can be identified: user-tailorable solutions; CSCW toolkits; middleware based solutions; and platforms for integration of heterogeneous collaborative systems. User-Tailorable Solutions As stated in [2], different definitions of tailorability can be found in the literature. Most of them focus on user tailorability ([3], [4], [5] [6]) defining that a tailorable application can be adapted and modified by its own users in order to meet their different requirements. In CSCW, tailorability must focus on the requirements of the group task and of the organization, in which the CSCW system is used [5]. Actually, tailorability is one of the main concerns of groupware development methods. For example, application of participatory design methods ([7] [8]) has been proposed in order to approach the user involvement during groupware development, augmenting thus the opportunities for tailoring. According to [6], tailoring can be supported in three different levels: customization, selecting among a set of predefined configuration options; integration, linking together predefined components within or between applications; extension, improving the implementation by adding new program code. Most of user-tailorable groupware tools support only the customization or integration level (e.g. [2] [9]). Note that the integration level supposes that the functionality to be integrated has been pre-developed and is available somewhere [6]. Only at the extension level users would be able to integrate new functionalities, even if they have not been anticipated by developers at design time. A method frequently used for supporting tailoring at the extension level is the component-based tailoring. For example, in [10], components are implemented using Flexibeans (an extension of the Java Beans model) and end-users tailor the system using a composition language. In [11], end-users may assemble components into larger composite components using the visual representation rather than writing lines of code. However, even at the extension level the integration flexibility is partial as the integration of existing collaborative systems or groupware would require them to be redesigned according to the system architecture. CSCW Toolkits CSCW toolkits ease the implementation of CSCW systems by providing reusable components and behaviors designed to be applicable in a range of circumstances [12]. The need for flexibility and tailorability in CSCW toolkits is well acknowledged. The Neem Platform [13] offers a generic (application-neutral) evolvable framework upon which socially and culturally aware applications are developed. Flexibility and extensibility in Neem result from its foundation on a core architectural coordination model [13]: decoupled components interact indirectly through message exchanges. Intermezzo [14] is a collaboration support environment supporting the coordination information sharing, offering fluid interactions, user awareness, session management and policy control. It addresses dynamic flexibility [12] by allowing applications to adapt not just their own behavior, but also the behavior of the toolkit in reacting to the changing dynamics of the world they run into. The Groupware Toolkit/Shared Dictionary (or GT/SD) toolkit [15][16] has been developed to support rapid development of groupware, focusing mainly on networking and data sharing aspects. GT/SDs extensibility is based on its modular design, which allows adding or modifying behavior by replacing or wrapping different components. Toolkits may represent an interesting solution for helping the development of CSCW systems, as they promote the reuse of components. But in general, CSCW toolkits offer a limited set of functionalities or they are target for some specific kind of domain. Besides, to reuse components of the toolkit, developers often need to implement very specific details of the toolkit in order to adapt it to the application needs [16][17]. Middleware based solutions The integration of heterogeneous applications has been a widely investigated subject, mainly in distributed systems area. General integration solutions based on middleware, like CCM (CORBA Component Model), .NET and Enterprise JavaBeans have been developed. Moreover, integration solutions associated with specific domains have also been proposed, such as Enterprise Application Integration systems [17][18]. The emergence of Web services WS has also led to the development of general solutions for integration of distributed applications, due mainly to the use of open standards. In the CSCW domain, some middleware-based solutions have been proposed. Dustdar et al. [18][19] discuss the importance of using Web services WS in order to provide collaborative application interoperability. But in order to be integrated, collaborative applications must originally support Web servicesWS. Even if Web servicesWS represent an emerging software trend, only a limited set of collaborative applications are currently supporting these technologies. As an enhancement to traditional middleware, some SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) solutions have also been proposed. For example, WGWSOA [19][20] uses Web ServicesWS as an access interface in order to support the reuse and the interoperability of different collaborative services. But an important drawback of WGWSOA is that collaborative services must be developed following the respective middleware architecture. It is also important to note that like WGWSOA, most middleware based solutions present technical responses to the so called syntactic interoperability [20][21]. They provide mechanisms allowing applications to communicate and interact through information exchange. But according to [21][22], the integration concept goes beyond the possibility of sharing and exchanging specific information. Applications must agree upon the meaning (or the semantics) of these exchanges. In other words, integration solutions should provide means for defining integration semantics. Thus, interoperability can be seen as a requirement for integration. The EcoSpace Project [22][23] proposes an environment that, besides being based on SOA and Web servicesWS, relies on Semantic Web technologies (WSDL-S with services ontologies) to support semantic description of collaborative services. Besides a semantic description of each service, it would be necessary a semantic description of the composition of services so as to coordinate their orchestration. However, this part of the project remains as design aspect. Moreover, using Web serviceWSs as integration technology may imply some performance loss, particularly associated to the use of SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) [23][24]. Luo et al. [24][25] claim that Web ServicesWS should be only used in situations which are really heterogeneous. They propose a service-oriented solution for the integration of collaborative applications that, instead of using SOAP, adopts a unified service bus (implemented through an open source Enterprise Service Bus). Platforms for integrating heterogeneous collaborative systems The latter latest approach to improve the integration flexibility of collaborative environments is to create platforms aiming specifically at the integration of collaborative applications. They focus on the integration of collaborative functionalities provided by these applications while trying to define any semantics behind integration. Iqbal et al. [25][26] propose an integrative framework based on the three-level model presented by [26][27]: the Ontological Model specifies shared objects, their relations and taxonomies; the Coordination Model specifies how interactions take place during system execution; and the User Interface Model specifies how the system is presented to the final user. Integration process consists firstly in identifying, for each collaborative application, the elements associated with these three models. Then, on each level the elements from different applications are grouped and merged when equivalent. As a result, common ontological, coordination and user interface models are generated. In spite of enabling a multi-level integration, this approach requires an internal knowledge of the collaborative applications so that their functionalities can be mapped into the three-level model. Accordingly, the integration of third party applications becomes a complex task. In order to avoid considering application internals during the integration process (facilitating the integration of existing applications), some integration solutions propose the so called loosely-coupled approach. This approach presents two main features: (i) once integrated to the environment, collaborative applications preserve their autonomy, i.e., they can still be used as standalone application; (ii) the integration environment remains independent of integrated applications, and accordingly, applications can be integrated and detached from the environment without compromising its behavior. This last feature is particularly important considering the integration flexibility aspect. In fact, in a loosely-coupled environment, the set of integrated applications must be easily modified according to users needs. Systems like AREA [27][28] and NESSIE [28][29] have proposed a loosely-coupled integration for supporting cross-application awareness. Both systems represent a collaborative environment where independent applications can share a common information space, implemented through an event notification system. Users can receive notifications of activity relevant events from different applications (executed by other users). An important aspect of these systems is the use of open Internet technologies (such as HTTP and CGI) to enable the integration of third party collaborative applications. However, the main drawback of both systems is that the integration semantics is statically defined collaborative applications are integrated so as to offer a common awareness of the whole collaboration activity. Another proposal also based on a loosely-coupled approach is the framework XGSP [29][30]. XGSP proposes the integration of audio and videoconferencing tools based on SIP and H.323 standards, as well as the integration of Access Grid applications [30][31]. In this framework, XGSP manager servers are in charge of controlling collaborative sessions. A different gateway is defined for each application type (i.e. SIP, H.323 and Access Grid applications). Using a signaling protocol based on Web servicesWS, these gateways are employed to mediate the communication between applications and XGSP servers. An important disadvantage of XGSP is the fact that, originally, it only allows the integration of application based on SIP, H.323 and Access Grid. Loosely-coupling is also inherent to the Web servicesWS based solutions presented in the previous section. Similarly to those solutions, LEICA represents an integration environment that proposes a loosely-coupled approach based on Web servicesWS technologies. Regarding the performance implications of SOAP, Alonso et al. [31][32] suggest that Web ServicesWS technologies should be used only to implement coarse-gained interactions, where the impact of the overhead associated to SOAP would be less important. Following the recommendations of [31][32], Web servicesWS are employed by LEICA for coarse-grained operations only. As it will be detailed in the following sections, LEICA defines a hybrid architecture where Web ServicesWS are applied as an initial mechanism for registering newly integrated applications, as well as for setting and starting up collaborative sessions. Then, during the execution of integrated collaborative sessions a different infrastructure is used to interconnect collaborative applications. Another important aspect concerns integration semantics. Unlike the previous solutions, LEICA provides users with the possibility to define the desired integration semantics for each collaborative session. The Integration Environment: LEICA LEICA aims at the integration of different collaborative applications, where integration semantics is to be defined according to user requirements. Before explaining the general integration approach and the behavior of LEICA, a possible scenario is presented to better illustrate the advantages of such integration. Integration Scenario An important domain where collaborative environments have been largely used is e-Learning. In particular, a CVE (Collaborative Virtual Environment) can be used to implement a 3D shared world representing a school building divided into: one entrance hall, classrooms, and teachers rooms. Different collaborative applications could be associated to each room: (i) a chat room associated to the entrance hall; (ii) a collaborative web browsing (it would enable teachers to guide students through lecture notes) and an audio conference tool associated to the classrooms; and (iii) a shared whiteboard associated to each of the teachers room. Un paragraphe pour montrer la situation: Utilisation des outils non integrà ©es, et lintà ©gration avec LEICA. With this integration semantics, whenever an avatar enters into a room, the respective user is automatically connected to the associated collaborative application(s). Besides, only authorized users should enter into private rooms (e.g. the teachers rooms with its whiteboard could be restricted to teachers). Another possible behavior specified by this integration semantics is some kind of floor coupling between the two applications used as a support for virtual class sessions. This way, it would be possible to assure that the user holding the Web browsing floor (i.e. the one guiding the lecture notes browsing) is the only one to have the right to speak to the class attendees. General Integration Approach As previously mentioned, and illustrated in Fig. 1, LEICA follows a hybrid architecture where Web ServicesWS are applied at the collaborative sessions start up, and an event notification system allows collaborative applications to interact through the exchange of event notifications. Two other basic components of LEICA are the Wrappers and the Session Configuration Service (SCS). The integration of a collaborative application to LEICA is achieved by attaching a Wrapper to it. Three main cases may be considered: a) open source applications, b) API-based applications, and c) applications without any available API. Integration of open source applications can achieve the tightest interaction degree, since any internal event/action can be exported/performed; it might however imply great development efforts. API-based integration is straightforward, and interaction is limited to the provided API. Applications without API are the most limitating ones, constraining to interact only through application start and stop actions. LEICAs integration approach is mainly driven by case (b), believing that developers are certainly interested in creating specific and performable collaboration tools that can be used either stand-alone or integrated with other applications (through a flexible API, being able to get a great share of the market). This is for instance the case of Skypeâ„ ¢, a successful example of communication tool that has released its API since some time ago. Fig. 2 summarizes LEICAs general integration framework. The first step of the LEICAs integration framework is the Collaborative Application Integration. For instance, in the illustrative scenario presented in III.A, the first step to integrate the CVE with the instant messenger (supporting the chat room associated to the entrance hall), the collaborative Web browser and the audio conference applications, it is necessary to create a Wrapper for each one of these applications. As detailed in Section V, these wrappers can be automatically generated by LEICAs API Factory, based on the API description of each collaborative application. The Wrappers comprise a Web services Services WS interface allowing the collaborative application to register itself with LEICA. As illustrated by Fig. 1, through the Wrappers Web servicesWS ports, the integrated application can interact with the Session Configuration Service (SCS). The SCS is a Web service Service WS used for (i) configuring new global SuperSessions and (ii) starting up SuperSessions. A SuperSession is an integrated collaborative session holding the whole collaboration activity. Within the context of a global SuperSession, different specificSessions can exist. A specificSession is a conventional collaborative session defined within the context of a collaborative application (e.g. a videoconference session, a whiteboard session, etc.). The SCS dynamically contacts each integrated application, during the SuperSession configuration process, in order to request: (i) which specific data is required to create specificSessions for this respective application (e.g. a videoconference tool could require an IP multicast address); and (ii) which kind of events it can notify, and action requests it can handle. The interaction degree among the integrated applications depends essentially on the nature of the events they are able to exchange, and actions they are able to perform. In order to create a SuperSession, a user must define its integration semantics. It is accomplished by configuring the Collaboration Policy. A Collaboration Policy is a set of rules under a condition/action model. These rules define how collaborative applications must react when receiving information (events) notified by other integrated applications. In other words, the specification of Collaboration Policies allows defining specific integration semantics (i.e. how to coordinate integrated applications) to each SuperSession, according to the different users requirements. Once a SuperSessions has been created (and its associated configuration file is generated), it can finally be started up. The SCS firstly contacts each integrated collaborative application requesting them to create the specificSessions defined in the SuperSession. Then, during the execution of collaborative sessions the integrated application can interact through the exchange of event using the Event Notification System. According to predefined Collaboration Policies, these notifications may lead specific actions to be performed. Wrappers are in charge of managing the SuperSessions Collaboration Policy. When the Wrapper of a collaborative application receives event notifications, it verifies if the notified events enable any policy rule concerning this collaborative application. If so, the Wrapper sends action requests to the respective application. Note that LEICA is not intended to support low-level physical events (e.g. mouse click/scrolling) or high frequency synchronization events (e.g. current position of moving objects). It aims at supporting activity relevant events that carry some semantics. SuperSession Concept As previously mentioned, LEICA controls the whole collaboration activity within the context of a global SuperSession. A SuperSession model has been defined in order to precisely identify and describe its components. Based on this model, LEICA maintains concise and coherent SuperSession state information. Furthermore, a well-defined taxonomy of the components and their attributes are also implied from the model. General models for describing collaborative applications have already been proposed in the literature. Some of them [26][27] [32][33] represent a conceptual or ontological model describing the entities and relationships of individual CSCW systems. Few models aim at describing integrated CSCW systems, like OOActSM [33][34] and the conceptual model presented in [34][35]. However, these models are based on the notion of a general activity as the central abstraction, which was considered rather abstract for a detailed specification of the SuperSession. Nevertheless, these models have inspired several concepts adopted in the defined SuperSession model. The SuperSession represents a collaboration activity involving different integrated applications, a group of users and general roles associated to these users. Formally, a CIE Session CS is a tuple: SS = (SSid, CA , NA , Rl , U , SSat) where: SSid is a unique identifier; CA = {CAi } | i ÃŽ [1,I]} is a finite set of collaborative applications where CAi = (CAidi, spSi, CAati) a specific collaborative application running a set of specificSessions (sSi). CAati is a list of attributes characterizing the collaborative application. These attributes provide information about the application description, including name, type, whether it is a role-based application, its distribution architecture (client/server, multi-servers, peer-to-peer) and the type of user applications (stand-alone or webWeb-based).); NA is a finite set of non-collaborative applications (data converters, databases, web applications, etc.); Rl = {Rlk } | k ÃŽ [1,K]} is a finite set of general roles. The concept of general role refers to a group of users owning the same set of responsibilities and privileges inside LEICA; Rlk = (Rlidk , Rlatk). Rlidk is a unique role identifier; and Rlatk is a list of attributes characterizing this general role. This list provides details like roles description, membership and administration rights. Regarding the membership, it defines how the role is associated with users: it may be either (i) a static association (there is a membership list), (ii) an automatic association (there is a predicate function based on users parameters and SuperSession state) or (iii) a users choice (password protected or not).); U = {Ul } | l ÃŽ [1,L]} is a finite set of connected users; Ul = (Uidl, URlidl, Mbl, Uatl) represent a user, where Uidl is a unique identifier; URlidl is one general role associated with the user; Mbl is a finite set of membership relations; Uatl is a list of attributes (name, email, IP address, network connection, device type, etc.); Mbl.n = (mCAidl.n , mSidl.n , msRlidl.n) is a membership relation, where mCAidl.n is an application identifier; mSidl.n is a specificSession identifier; msRlidl.n is a finite set of specific roles identifiers. Thus, each membership relation indicates the participation of a connected user to a specificSession of a collaborative application (once connected to the SuperSession, a user can concurrently take part in none, one or more specificSessions of different collaborative applications); SSat is a list of attributes characterizing the SuperSession. These attributes describe information like session context (name, purpose, etc.), scheduling (if scheduled or not, duration, etc.), accessibility type (open or closed), role association type (how users are associated to a general role) and maximum number of connected users. A specificSession regards a conventional collaborative session of a collaborative application. The role of the specificSession entity (spSi.m), wich is formally represented by the tuple: spSi.m = (Sidi.m, sRli.m, pUidi.m, Rsi.m, spSati.m) is not to precisely describe each aspect of a collaborative task. Instead, it captures relevant elements like the specific roles defined for this session (sRli.m), the users participating to this session (pUidi.m.) and the shared resources accessed by these users (Rsi.m). A specific role is a tuple, sRli.m.o = (sRlidi.m.o, sRlati.m.o), where sRlidi.m.o is a specific role identifier and sRlati.m.o is a list of attributes characterizing the specific role (description and maximum number of simultaneous users). A resource is also a tuple Rsi.m.p= (urli.m.p, Rsati.m.p ), where urli.m.p is a resource locator and Rsati.m.p is a list of attributes characterizing the resource. The purpose of the resource element is simply to allow the implementation of an inter-application access control mechanism. LEICA will not need to keep the state of each resource. Thus, resources attributes just describe its type (file, device, virtual object, interface widget, etc.) and the read/write access type (exclusive or concurrent). SuperSession Configuration In order to create a SuperSession, a two step configuration process is carried out: (i) Session Management configuration and (ii) Collaboration Policy configuration. In the first configuration step, two groups of information should be specified: General Session Management information (GSMinfo): It carries management information such as scheduling, membership and general user roles.; Integrated Applications information (IAinfo): It defines the list of integrated applications to be used during this SuperSession; for each collaborative application, a list of specificSessions is defined, where specific data required by this application for creating sessions is provided (e.g. a videoconference application will be provided with an IP multicast address). Once Session Management configuration is completed, the Collaboration Polic

Analysis of Lord of the Flies by William Golding Essay -- Lord of the

Analysis of Lord of the Flies by William Golding William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is a sordid tale about a group of kids who are stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. The story is set during the Atomic War and plenty of references are made to the fact. However, the real key to the story lies in the role of Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. Beelzebub has a central role in the story as he represents the Beast, or evil, that dwells within all humans. The Beast cannot be hunted and since it dwells within all humans, humans are all guilty because mankind is sick. The destruction of mankind is a point that Golding makes apparent often in this novel. He establishes early on that Beelzebub is a force within all humans that drives them to destroy and maim. In the story the central emblem of the story lies in the dead airman. The boys mistake him for Beelzebub and basically begin to worship him. In fact, the most effective portrayal of Beelzebub appears early in the novel in the form of the dead airman. The parachute carries him through the night to the top of the mountain, where his body is entangled in the trees. It is in the way in which he is hung that makes it appear as if he was sitting on a throne of some sort. Sam n Eric first come upon it and are scared to death at the mere sight of it. However, when the whole group returns to the site the horrific monstrosity bewilders them. In this quote from the book it clearly states the group’s actions. â€Å" Behind them the sliver of moon had drawn clear the horizon. Before them something like a great ape was sitting asleep with its head between his knees. Then, the wind roared in the forest, there was confusion in the darkness and the creation lifted its head, holding toward them a ruin of a face. â€Å" The experience alone accelerates the deterioration of the already weak civilization of the group. The experience brings young Jack to committing himself fully to the newfound dark religion. (Johnston, 126) Beelzebub was the cause for accelerating the destruction of the boys. He was not the outright cause. The Atomic War generated the novel; it was the sole reason that brought the boys to live on the island in the first place. It is in this sense that the boys only duplicated the adult society that had been crashing down around them while they were part of the civilized world. Golding uses the dead airman... ...the outside world, all humanity was lost. The boys were sick with power and evil, much like the world outside the island. War had corrupted their very souls and they had become savages in order to appease the devil that dwelled within. As humans we cannot escape evil. Beelzebub dwells within every human soul and it cannot be hunted or driven away. Mankind is sick and guilty for giving into these sins. However, mankind is not lost. Through the use of reason and civilized means we can escape the grasp of Beelzebub and its dark reign of anarchy. Beelzebub served as a means of destruction in the story. He accelerated the boys fall of grace. Although the boys failed that does not condemn mankind. Hope is offered through the story in the form of a young, epileptic name Simon. Simon stood for the weak that fought with the nature of reason rather than with a bloodthirsty rage. Mankind needs only to look at Simon’s example as a guide of how to do it. Reason and virtue will always conquer over rage and violence. Wars are not the answers to every global conflict. Every war we have, we have to pass on to our children. In the end mankind is saved by the nature of reason not the use of war.

Why People Commit Crime

Tyler Hertz CRJ 308 10. 28. 2012 Why People Commit Crime How do people define crime? Some might define crime as an act of offence towards the morality of humans. Others might regard crime as an act that harms the universal human rights. In my perspectives, I think that crime is an offence made towards the law. Therefore, why do people still commit crimes? There are many reasons why people may commit crimes and it depends on the type of person they are. Many people will commit a crime everyday whether it be speeding, J-walking, or in some cases, theft and murder.Some crimes are easy to commit and that’s why I think people commit them. I also, refer to the Routine Activities theory. This theory, I believe, does a great job on explaining why people commit most crimes. It says that in order for a crime to be committed three things must have to occur and those being; a motivated offender, lack of a capable guardian, and suitable target. Why I think this does a good job in explain w hy people commit a crime is because it goes into detail about all aspects that involve a crime taking place.Take speeding for example, a person who is in a hurry will speed; this makes them the motivated offender. Next, for this crime to take place there must be a suitable target and this could be any road that is not congested by traffic. Last, we have the lack of a capable guardian and this is an obvious one, it would be not visible Law Enforcement officers on the highway. If all these are possible a person can and most likely will speed. Speeding is not really considered by most to be a really crime but, more of a criminal act.I just wanted to show how that theory can explain most types of crimes and it will work even for other crimes. I believe there is a huge difference between a crime and a criminal act. I believe a crime to be something that causes harm to others. Speeding, although can, does not usually cause any harm to others, this is what I consider a criminal act. A crim e would be something like assault or theft. Theft does not cause physical harm but, finaical and emotional harm to the victims. Why do people do it?Another reason I believe people commit crimes is because of greed. Greed is the wanting to lead a luxurious life or even to own something that is beyond one’s financial budget. For example, a person of moderate income would like to own an expensive plasma television which the price is beyond his budget. However, his greed prompts him to own that item by either stealing money to purchase it or to steal the item itself. When the person gets caught by any law enforcer, the person will be charged in court for committing a crime.To steal to fulfill one’s desire to own an item which one understands that it is beyond his financial budget is committing a crime by the cause of greed. This, in my view, shows that people commit crimes for selfish reason. In conclusion, I believe that most people will commit a crime either because they can and it is easy or because they have the selfish vision of living a life they cannot afford to live so they will do anything they can to achieve it, even if that means breaking the law and causing harm to others.

Exposure to Conflicting Ideals Can Weaken a Person’s Sense of Self Essay

Standing at a crossroad, some turn left while others turn right. Will you still choose to go straight even if nobody chooses so? Will you still believe in your beliefs if your values are being strongly challenged by the main stream? The ideal statement is that one should be steadfast in his/her beliefs! However, in reality, exposure to conflicting ideals can cause people to lose sense of self. To settle the conflicting ideals in order to belong predicates to sacrifice one’s own beliefs. As human beings are primary gregarious animals, the impulse to belong is strong. One, who holds different values, will feel alienation from the majority. Consequently, he or she needs to succumb to the main stream in the certain group which he or she wants to belong in order to gain acceptance. Hence, the original, or say the true images of them are obliterated and transferred to fake, too, unstable images. Theresa McTerry, one of the characters in Bombshell written by Joanna Murray-Smith, is so an example of such kinds of people who sacrifice their own identities for the sake of social acceptance and validation. Theresa lives in the contemporary world which has witnessed much advancement, yet, she holds a bygone tradition which she persists can provide her the sameness with other women in society. Her fear of the alienation overwhelms her limited understanding of the dark undercurrents that lie beneath the surface of the failed marriage. In the conflicts of feminism and the male-orientated tradition, Theresa, along with those women through the man-dominated ages, has compromised their own identities for the chance to belong to the hallowed institute of marriage. For some, being constantly exposed under public scrutiny can distract their expectations to social expectations. For the sociable animals who also need to seek for individual fulfillments, human beings always find it hard to achieve the twin goals of social cooperation and personal satisfaction. Facing the conflicts between these two, people always tend to let the social expectation play the role of self-expectation as they care more about the affirmation from other people in the same group or the society. No doubt, this can promote an inevitable loss of self. Meryl Louise Davenport, another character in Bombshell, who pursues the traditional domestic roles, only creates herself a fragmented existence in which she has no room to reflect her own life. The performance of an adequate mother as well as a lovable wife is, from her perspective, a constant appraisal by the public, children, teachers, and by other mothers. At the constant bombardment of expectations of women from the society, Meryl, a woman, mother and consumer, is bewildered and has a fragmented view of self. To sum up, individuals are likely to assimilate themselves to the majority when experience some sorts of conflicts. In the purpose either to belong or to satisfy others’ expectation, conformity always seems to be essential for people to cooperate in groups and society. Hence, ego identity for each individual is always attenuated when exposed to controversial ideals.

5 Tips for Writing a Winning Resume - Proofread My Paper

5 Tips for Writing a Winning Resume - Proofread My Paper 5 Tips for Writing a Winning Resume Recruiters may take as little as six seconds to make a decision about a resume. With the job market increasingly competitive, ensuring your resume is well written and correctly formatted is, therefore, essential. But how do you do this? There’s no catch-all method for writing a winning resume. But there are some things to keep in mind†¦ 1. Content The exact content of your resume will depend on your background, experience, and the role you’re applying for. But should always include: Contact Information – Your name, address, email and phone number Job Objective – A brief statement about the kind of role you’re after and the skills you can bring to it Education – Relevant information about college courses and training Work Experience – Details of previous positions you’ve held Skills – Any abilities you have that are related to the job Activities and Achievements – Anything else that could enhance your application (e.g., college societies, volunteering, awards, etc.) 2. Tailor Your Resume to the Job Most roles require particular skills, so you should always tailor your resume to the position. As well as using the job description, try checking the companys website; they may have additional information relevant to your application. It’s fine if you have a basic â€Å"template† with all the important information on it, but make sure you adjust it accordingly before sending it to employers. The mistake this guy made was writing in Latin. [Photo: Flazingo Photos] 3. Two Pages Maximum! Recruiters sometimes have to read dozens of resumes in a day, so they won’t be impressed if yours is a novel-length treatise on your skills as a worker. Try keeping your resume down to a maximum of two pages. If this involves cutting information not directly relevant to your application, do it. Additional detail can be provided in a cover letter. It may be worth noting that, although resume and CV are often used interchangeably, a CV is usually a longer document that includes complete details of your professional experience. 4. Pay Attention to Formatting Since a good resume will be easy to read and visually impactful, it’s worth considering the formatting you use on yours. Minimally, you should use a consistent style throughout, making sure that text isn’t too small to read and that you provide clear headings indicating important details. You may also want to use bullet points to list responsibilities and achievements. Like so. [Image: Dawakhuu/Wikimedia] 5. References Unless a company specifically asks for references (i.e., people who can vouch for your skills as a worker) during the initial application, it’s usually enough to write â€Å"References available upon request† on your resume. And don’t forget: It’s polite to let your referees know if a prospective employer might be calling!

Beginner English Grammar Review

Beginner English Grammar Review Once youve taught a beginning level class for a few months, its time for review. There are so many new learning points over the course of a class that students need to revisit what they have learned. In order to do this, we like to do a bit of what we call grammar banging. Students take a quiz which has a question for each type of learning point the class has covered. The point of this exercise is to encourage students to discuss each point to review together. We like using this exercise in small groups to raise awareness of what has already been learned and where problems still lie. The sheets provided in these grammar banging reviews are very effective because each question focuses on one important, specific area. Aim Grammar review of the most important intermediate level English tenses, structure, and functions Activity Grammar banging multiple-choice review lesson with each question focusing on a specific point Level Beginner Outline This is straight-forward stuff. Make the copies and give them to the students.Have each student do the sheet by him/herself.Ask students to compare answers and discuss differences, each student trying to explain his/her choice.A correct sheet as a class. Review each grammar point quickly - you should get a lot of Oh, yeah.....Give the students an unmarked copy of the same exercise to repeat at home to solidify the review exercise. Grammar Banging - Review your English - 1 Choose the correct word to fill in the gap. Are there ______ apples in the kitchen?muchanysomeThat is _____ interesting book.theaanI went ______ church last Sunday.atintoWhat _____ he like? - He is very friendly.doesdidisI ________ a new car last month.boughthave boughtbuyedHow ________ money do you have in your pocket?manyfewmuchHe came ______ home late last night.-attoJack is a nice boy, and I like _____.-himhisI get up ______ seven oclock every day.inonatI like __________ music.listenlisten tolistening toWhat __________ in your free time?you dodo you doare you doingMy father _______ in a bank.worksworkis workingWould you like _______ coffee?anyansome Exercise 1 Printing Page Beginner Grammar Banging Page 2Back to lessons resource page

Lever vs. Leverage

Lever vs. Leverage Lever vs. Leverage Lever vs. Leverage By Maeve Maddox A lever is a simple tool, a bar of iron or a sturdy length of wood that may be used to move or dislodge something heavy. Leverage is the mechanical advantage gained by a person using a lever. According to Archimedes, the power of a lever is formidable: â€Å"Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.† –Archimedes A simple verb that means â€Å"to use a lever† is lever: Dig out a hollow which is larger than the base of the keystone and roll this rock into place. Use the crowbar to lever it into its final position. Each wedge in the row is pounded until a thin crack forms between the wedges and the rock can be levered apart. The noun from lever is leverage: the mechanical advantage gained by the use of a lever. A figurative meaning of leverage is â€Å"an advantage for accomplishing a purpose.† Price-conscious renters have no leverage [with landlords]. The West has far more economic leverage over Russia at this moment than it does military possibilities. The only negotiating leverage that most players had was to hold out at contract time, refusing to play unless their conditions were met. The OED’s first documentation of leverage as a verb is dated 1937: â€Å"Acey leveraged the arm upward.† By 1957, the form leveraged was in use to refer to buyouts and holding companies. In terms of finance, leverage means â€Å"to speculate financially on borrowed capital expecting profits to be greater than the interest that must be paid on the borrowed money.† A â€Å"leveraged buyout† is the buyout of a company by its management with the help of outside capital.† The word leverage appears in so many contexts now, both as noun and verb, that sometimes a reader must think carefully in order to know if it’s a noun meaning advantage or borrowing, or a verb meaning to lever, to supplement, to provide, or something else. Here are some examples: Hillshire Brands expects to focus on continuing to invest in its business, reducing leverage over time and pursuing opportunistic acquisitions. Alex Okosi [is] a key figure in the creation and production of world class African TV content for Africa. With this, he has built a successful platform for brands to leverage on. 5 Real Ways To Leverage Social Media Likes Are Not  Profit How Corine LaFont Leveraged Her Small Business Book Award Sometimes the prepositions that follow the verb leverage are redundant or just don’t make sense: One should leverage off of the previous work in completing this project.† President Margee Ensignwill lead faculty membersto deliberate on how to leverage on Nigeria’s huge human and natural endowments to win the national war against poverty and illiteracy. Bond Investors Looking For Bigger Returns Are Increasingly Relying To Leverage Writers might want to consider relinquishing leverage to the corporate wheeler-dealers for their exclusive use to refer to borrowing and buyouts. Plain old lever still has its uses as a verb. As for leverage as a noun, advantage can replace it in most figurative contexts. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:7 Classes and Types of PhrasesOne Fell SwoopWhen to Spell Out Numbers

Capitalism and Socialism Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Capitalism and Socialism - Term Paper Example Petras (2004) says that the debate between socialism and capitalism is still pressing and he even claims that the battle of ideas has begun to intensify. Petras (2004) continues that the social indicator show that the real capitalism is considerable worse than the full employment and steady employment rates that existed during the socialist period. Another author Bala (2009) argues that critics of capitalism describe it as unfair and distribution of wealth and power. Capitalist economic system has the tendency to create market monopoly or oligopoly. Bala (2009) observes that capitalism can also lead to imperialism, various forms of economic and cultural exploitation. An example of this kind of exploitation is the outsourcing business. U.S companies have discovered that Indian engineers for example can handle the production as professionally as any U.S specialist, however price twice as lower. Thus, many corporations outsourced their business to India and Chine in an attempt to cut co sts. Critics of capitalism argue that the imperialism which is associated with this system can also establish social alienation and inequality. Bala (2009) quotes such statements expressed by many socialists as irrational, because the economy has no direction and is unplanned, consequently it can create internal contradictions and inconsistencies. Over the last 20 years the countries from the former Soviet Block in Eastern Europe are trying to transit from socialism to capitalism. All basic industries from energy, mining, communication, trade to infrastructure have been taken over by private corporations. However, this transition and privatization do not seem to reflect the capitalist ideas and many countries from Eastern Europe are not swept by massive unemployment, gang groups, uncontrollable migration waves, relative economic instability, money laundring and illegal transfers. Bala (2009) poses that socialism is mainly criticized, because it is incompatible with civil liberties and it political model is not efficient with the general social, human performances. Friedrich Hayek (cited by Bala 2009) argues that a socialist economy can not adequately communicate the information about the productive quotas due in most cases to shortage in price mechanism. Furthermore Hayek (cited by Bala 2009) debates that the social control over the distribution allotment of wealth and private property preached by socialists can not be accomplished without a considerable reduction in prosperity and loss of economic and political freedom. This statement is proved by the Soviet Union socialist satellite countries which after the fall of the regime seem to have been lost in their attempts to revive their economies. Another negative aspect of the socialism is that it creates authoritarian regimes. All sectors of the economy are operated by the one personality usually the head of the state. The supporters from each of the commented economic systems argues that life is more satisfactory under their preferred system. Vivier (2003) says that capitalists refuse to agree that imposing capitalists values and economic doctrines on the "Third World" countries, only made their economic status worse. It increased their misery and poverty and the labor force was directly pushed into the hands of Western industrial capitalists. The capitalists values

Gender and Sexual Studies Questions Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Gender and Sexual Studies Questions - Assignment Example African American women are tempted by cars, houses and money if they take care about white and rich children, but in reality they have to look 24/7 after the children and have no days off. People, hiring domestic workers for dirty work in America very often beat their housemaids and nannies. How does it happen in the modern America? The scheme of exploitation is rather simple: employers confiscate passport and other documents of the coming women and sign a contract, where low paid working hours and hard work are described (Zarembka, p. 4). There are no even appropriate words to describe cruelty, sexual and physical assault practiced by employers against their hired housekeepers or nannies. Therefore, women from ethnic minorities or immigrants are often treated as â€Å"simple creatures† or even â€Å"slaves†. Domestic workers are hired by individual boss and it is hard for legal institutions to protect the rights of those â€Å"creatures†, hidden in private house s. These people from developing countries are looking for a better chance for life and they go to America â€Å"to make their dream come true†. In reality, as we can see in the film â€Å"Maid in America†, these women live their children in their developing countries and come to America for cleaning and bringing up children of other women. There are more than 10 million undocumented workers in America, which came to the country in the searching for a better life. More than 100,000 of them are deported to Mexico and Central America. Proponents claim that these are better lives for women in comparison with what they left at home. Very often these women are looking for better lives for their families, but on the other hand, in reality they penetrate in the cruel world of slavery. Non-English speaking help is easily controlled by the employers in America and they know that women have no place to go and they can work for low payments, in spite of the absence of social guara ntees or legal protection of their rights. Therefore, on the one hand, immigrants consider America as the most perfect dream, but on the other hand, they cannot make their dream come true. There is no doubt that financial concerns and a better future are two important triggers for â€Å"dirty work† performance. Still, there is a need to support developing countries and provide its dwellers with an opportunity to earn money and make future of their children better than they have at home. Thus, there is a need for prohibition of illegal human trafficking and shelters for illegal workers in America. Bridget Anderson in her article â€Å"Just Another Job? The Commodification of Domestic labor† claims that household duties cannot be done by working couple, which have children and money. They are busy at work and they need someone to help about the house. Middle-class women once having access to hiring domestic workers, get rid of their boring daily routine and have much tim e for their family, career, rest and themselves. On the one hand, if they are ready to pay for help, why not, but on the other hand, this domestic work is really degrading self-esteem of their employees and they are not satisfied with salary they get for doing daily routine jobs (Anderson, p. 2). It is better to bring up children with correct moral principles and enable them to take care about themselves. There is a lack of social viability of domestic

Globalization Impacts On The Poor And Inequality Essay

Globalization Impacts On The Poor And Inequality - Essay Example Financial integration should be accompanied with the pursuit of macroeconomic stabilization policies. Both traditional and modern trade theories suggest that gains from the free trade will not be distributed equally within economies. The World Bank studies several ways in which globalization affects inequality within and across countries. A very important factor in the distribution of income is the initial income of the country. The empirical literature reveals that free trade contributes only to 20% of the world inequality, being less important than such factors as technological innovations or demographic changes. The economists use the term globalization to refer to international integration in the capital, commodity, and labor markets. The crucial economic features of the two most recent periods of globalization (1950-73 and 1974-2007) involve increased integration in trade, international capital flows and movement of labor. However, as we can see in table 1 (WTO,2008), there are differences in the importance of these factors in each period. During the entire 1950-2007 period, the trade expanded by 6.2 percent. In the first decades after World War II (WWII), due to the reconstruction of the country economies, the most dynamic traders were the Western European countries and Japan.From 1974 to 2000, newly industrialized Asian economies (NIEs) were the main beneficiaries of globalization, with their merchandise exports comprising raising from 2.4 percent to 9.7 percent within only two decades.  

Outsourcing of US Jobs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Outsourcing of US Jobs - Essay Example omotes efficiency and cost reduction so companies can maintain their competitiveness, sending American jobs overseas hurts America because our economy depends on jobs at all levels in order to continue functioning. The economy is suffering from this practice and it will continue to do so because Americans are forced to compete for jobs at pay levels well below the standard of living. The secondary problem with outsourcing is that companies can visit abuse on their employees and the workers have no way of protecting themselves. Even some companies have found that outsourcing isn’t as profitable as they had once thought it would be. When American businesses outsource, it seems that everyone loses. As Americans began to raise concerns about job losses, major companies gave their reassurances that this was only happening to the â€Å"low-end† jobs. This would weed out the lower end, highly repetitive and unskilled labor, leaving better jobs for Americans to fill. These early rounds of "globalization" cost millions of U.S. jobs, but various experts assured Americans that this should not be a major concern because these were blue collar "rust belt" jobs. Old technology, they claimed. Manufacturing is passà ©. The U.S. would enter the new global economy with the new technology. Information, services, cutting-edge research and development—these would be the clean, high-paying jobs that would keep America on top. (Jasper, 2006) This promise has been revealed to be an empty one as Americans watch more jobs leave the United States as outsourcers move up the ladder to target higher skilled jobs such as engineering, medicine and legal research. Between 2003 and 2008 finan cial service companies have moved approximately 500,000 American jobs overseas. Seen in the chart below are the companies with the highest numbers of outsourced workers overseas. These 10 companies alone are responsible for outsourcing nearly 200,000 jobs. These certainly aren’t the only companies

Faculty of Business Environment and Society Essay - 8

Faculty of Business Environment and Society - Essay Example They need to meet and satisfy certain conditions, capabilities and qualities sufficiently in order to effectively manage culturally diverse human resources and agreeably, the international managers must be adaptable, open-minded, flexible and able to speak foreign languages. However, there are other critical strategies to consider and with acknowledgement that culture considerably impacts on organisations and employees, this paper will critically discuss the validity of the statement regarding international managers’ adaptability, flexibility, open-mindedness and proficiency in foreign languages. International assignments serve several purposes and the most significant ones include overseas business expansion, knowledge transfer and career development (Paauwe and Boselie 2010). International managers or expatriates are utilised by multinational corporations because of their expertise in critical areas of interest in global markets and corporate organisation as well as to oversee the entry process into new markets. While on international assignment, the international managers will be in charge of strategically significant tasks and act as the link between the subsidiary and headquarters. They will be involved in recruitment and selection; development and training; performance evaluation, remuneration and benefits; labour relations; developing competitive advantages; and, equally important, self-development (Montana and Bruce 2008). Although the roles of international managers can be generalised, different types of international managers can also be identified. One type will t ypically serve control and coordination roles and give less significance to issues related to personnel development. Another type will complement the coordination and control role by concentrating on the goals of personnel development, which usually include developing leadership competency, acquiring intercultural skills and building social

Investigating and Developing Ready-to-Eat Desserts Dissertation

Investigating and Developing Ready-to-Eat Desserts - Dissertation Example This dissertation reveals that the market for chilled desserts is estimated to be worth 302 million in 2004, which showed an increase of 29% since 1999. The market is split into two key sectors, loosely described as 'sharing desserts' and 'fresh cakes', which includes fresh in-store bakery items as well as pre-packed sliced cakes and desserts. The dessert sector is larger with 51% value share delivering a 13% growth across the period since 2000. However, it is the fresh cake sector, which has driven the largest growth, 40% up from its 2000 value to account for 49% of the category. A report by the 'Mintel' group has some interesting findings and is worth discussing. Mintel International group, which is a market research and consumer intelligence group, provides expert analysis on all aspects of consumers' economic activity. Mintel's latest report is based on an up-to-date market and original consumer research and offers ideas and motivation one needs for designing clever, creative and profitable marketing plan in the chilled desserts market. In conclusion, Mintel's report has been designed to help identify the important factors that determine the scale and nature of the UK chilled dessert market. Mintel's consumer intelligence is supposed to provide valuable insight to unlock some of the secrets of the dessert market for the more effective-and more profitable-business plan. The findings show that 48% of the consumers have eaten ready-to-eat desserts in the last 12 months while 32% believe that frozen foods are as good as fresh ones. Women are 50% more likely to buy cheesecake (34% versus 25%) and 33% more likely to buy a cream cake than men (32% versus 20%). Research design Shop Research For the shop research, visit was made to Tesco food joint in Trent Vale. I surveyed the range of desserts, both frozen and chilled and made notes of the products, the main ingredients, the price, packaging, and portion size. The survey result is shown in the following table: Type of dessert Ingredients Price (per head) Packaging Portion size Texture Remark Tiramisu Italian dessert Cream and chocolate topped chocolate cookie crust 39.95 Cardboard and plastic Serve 8 Not too soft to the touch Outstanding1 Chocolate tart with cranberries Chocolate, cranberries 19.95 plastic Serve 12-16 Soft Terrific3 Profiterole Butter, sugar, cream, vanilla, yolks, milk 2.25 plastic Individual soft Outstanding1 Lemon pudding Lemon, cream, sugar, 1.29 plastic Individual soft Excellent4 Tunisian lemon pudding Almond and lemon topped with cream and fresh berries 22.95 Cardboard and plastic Serve 12 Soft to touch but not too soft Excellent2 Ranking order *1,2,3,4 The survey revealed that most desserts are packed for 8 to 12 people, so price for individual portion had to be worked out by taking out the averages. Most of the desserts were served in porcelain plate or bow. Packaging is done either in plastic or cardboard or both. The individual price range of all the desserts was within 2 except Tiramisu Italian dessert individual portion