Cost of Financial Intermediation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Cost of Financial Intermediation - Essay Example The general view among experts in this field is that if administrative authorities are in favor of competition, it will lead to the presence of larger number of players in the banking sector that would automatically lead to lower bank rates as competing bankers will vie with each other to attract customers, and will automatically have to become efficient in their functioning in order to stay afloat in such highly competitive environment. So, the economy as a whole would be able to enjoy efficient banking services coupled with comparatively affordable bank rates. However, if entry in banking sector is strictly regulated, it would result in less competition and might also lead to lesser efficiency and almost certainly higher bank rates as the few banks that would be operating in the finance sector would remain assured of clients as the latter would have no option but to approach these few bankers for finance. It must be repeated, however, that these statutory regulations differ so wide ly between countries and regions that the only plausible method of measuring the impact of such biases and restrictions on bank rates and efficiency would be to consider each instance individually and comparing it with the larger and more generic backdrop of financial efficiency. (Demirg''-Kunt, Laeven and Levine) Impact of net interest margin and overhead expenditures on Cost of intermediation Cost of intermediation is substantially impacted by net interest margin and it would be worthwhile to study in a little more detail as to the exact characteristics and features of net interest margin. Put simply, the net interest margin signifies the income of banks and it consists of the interest a bank earns by lending money to borrowers and the interest it has to pay to its depositors. The exact measure of net interest margin is obtained by dividing the difference between a bank's interest earning and interest expenditure by the volume of interest bearing assets. The net interest margin thus is related to the traditional functions of banking industry - accepting deposits at lower interest rates and lending them at higher rates of interest. The overhead expenditure ratio of a bank is calculated by dividing bank overhead costs by the total assets of the bank. It is but obvious that the more inefficient a bank the higher would be its overhead expenditure ratio. But overhead expenditures are not only dependent on pure operational efficiency of a bank. It also depends on the prevailing market regulations and freedom or otherwise for players to leave or enter the banking sector as and when the desire to do it arises. The degree of freedom of entry or exit is, quite obviously, determined by the statutory or law enacting authorities of the country. It might be worthwhile to mention at this juncture that though freedom of entry and exit primarily determines the extent of competition in the banking sector, there are other equally important issues that determine the ability of the commercial banks to offer credit to potential

Essay on Correction Techniques Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

On Correction Techniques - Essay Example Probation, pardon and parole are some kind of the most common corrective measures implemented by criminal justice system to test the behaviour of the criminals who are sentenced. These mechanisms are normally performed to evaluate the success of the correction measures. This paper evaluates the differences between parole and probation and the extent to which probation is successful in correcting a criminal. Hertfordshire printer Frederic Rainer, a volunteer with the Church of England Temperence Society (CETS), writes to the society of his concern about the lack of help for those who come before the courts. He sends a donation of five shillings (25p) towards a fund for practical rescue work in the police courts. The CETS responds by appointing two "missionaries" to Southwark court with the initial aim of "reclaiming drunkards". This forms the basis of the London Police Courts Mission (LPCM), whose missionaries worked with magistrates to develop a system of releasing offenders on the c ondition that they kept in touch with the missionary and accepted guidance (Timeline: A history of probation) The history of probation started from England as explained above. Probation conditions have been changed or modified periodically based on the feedbacks received from the experiences. Many people do not have awareness about the differences between probation and parole. ... On the other hand, a criminal on probation may have less supervision from the probation officers. Parole and probation are granted based on the Pre-Sentence Investigation report (PSI) prepared by a probation officer. The practice of preparing PSI has started in 1920. â€Å"Its original purpose was to provide information to the court on the defendant’s personal history and criminal conduct in order to promote individualized sentencing† (The History of the Pre-sentence Investigation Report, p.1). This report normally contains the background information of the criminal such as his crime history, crime tendency, family history, juvenile adjudications, description of the crime, the defendant's work history, marital status, financial status, length of residence in the community, educational background, medical history, substance abuse history, etc. Based on these information probation officers decide about the corrective measures needed for the criminal. For example, a crimin al who has the history of series of criminal activities may normally get parole whereas first time criminals may normally get probation. Probation is the most liberal corrective mechanism. A judge can decide about the probation of the criminal after reviewing the nature of the crime and the character of the criminal. Fresh criminals may get probation in most of the cases. â€Å"A violation of probation gives rise to a hearing on whether or not probation should be revoked† (Kaman). If a criminal violates the conditions of probation, the judge or the probation officer has the right to withdraw the probation. In such cases, the criminal may get sentencing. On the other hand, parole is granted at the end of a prison term or in between the

The Gestalt theory and insight

The Gestalt theory and insight The Gestalt theory and â€Å"Insight† Professor Wolfgang Kà ¶hler was one of the founders of the Gestalt psychology. The term â€Å"Gestalt psychology† was first used by Christian von Ehrenfels, the Austrian philosopher, as early as 1890 in his paper â€Å"On Gestalt Qualities†. The Gestaltism was a reaction to some contemporary psychologists. The Gestalt psychology emphasized that behavior cannot be studied by analyzing its components but, rather, it must be studied as a whole, in all its complexity. Kà ¶hler carried out a series of famous experiments during the First World War, studying the behavior of chimpanzees in solving problems. The results of the experiments led him to introduce the notion of â€Å"insight† (Einsicht), which is one of the central terms of the Gestalt psychology. Insight, according to Kà ¶hler, manifests itself in the behavior as a break in the process of learning, i.e. as a real emergence of a solution: the correct adaptive response appears suddenly without being visibly dependent direct on the tests and errors that preceded it. Once it appears, this response is stable, i.e. the subject (hominid or human) is able to reproduce it in an appropriate manner. Theoretically, a Gestalt-adepts â€Å"intuition† is described as a restructuring of the perceptive field: the subject perceives suddenly in his environment new possibilities to action that lead him almost immediately to the solution. The phenomena of conditioning and learning cannot explain this capacity of intuitive restructuring. On the one hand their sequential character actually is directly opposed to the suddenness of insight; on the other hand their associationist and analytical character does not allow the inclusion of global and structural properties of the perception-cognitive field. This conception thus confers on the brain a global capacity to process the environments perceived. To the explicative construction in terms of combination of elements, it substitutes the notion of aptitude to immediate changes of structure. The concept of insight led Duncker (1945) to proposing the general theory of problem solving. Dunckers theory (see a separate section above) is based on the concepts of insight and field. For Duncker, a problem situation comes about when an organism has a goal but does not know how to reach it. The solution, which eliminates this situation by enabling the realization of the goal, generally consists of several successive stages, each marking a progress relative to the foregoing stage. The basic question then is how to advance from the one stage to the other. To answer it, Duncker reuses certain concepts developed by Selz (Mayer, 1992). Selz proposed some of the major ideas in cognitive psychology and formulated the firs non-associationist theory of thinking. Among his seven theses on thinking processes the most remarkable ones are the following: Directed association generates the unit of thought; Forming a structure leads to understanding a problem; Testing for conditions results in solving a problem. Selz gave the following general description to the solution of any problem: Let ?Rb be the structure of a situation in which the task is to find what ‘? covers. Perhaps an individual keeps in his memory the complex aRb, which partially correspond to ‘?Rb. From this, the element a is disclosed. Reaching the solution thus takes place according to a phenomenon of â€Å"resonance† between some generalized objects. In general, â€Å"resonance† can be described as an original combination of known elements. The origin of the combination may be internal (it is the result of imagination), or external (induced verbally). In fact, not every correspondence of a signal to an object implies necessarily a resonance between the object and the signal. It is necessary that the signal be adequate to the object, which means that it should satisfy several conditions: it must be, among others, complete, concise, conformist, etc. The process of problem solution depends closely on the structure of the situation and above all on the â€Å"availability† of the elements of which the solution consists. The elements, in fact, are not distributed randomly, but according to a characteristic organization, whereby some of them stand out. Duncker illustrates this notion by the problem of rays: how can a tumor be destroyed by means of radiation without damaging neighboring tissue? Two test subjects were used to answer the question. To the first group of test subjects the problem was described in the active voice: â€Å"The radiation might destroy also the healthy tissue. How can this be avoided?† The second group of test subjects got the same task, but this time expressed in the passive voice: â€Å"The healthy tissue might also be destroyed. How could it be protected from being damaged by radiation?† The results show that in the first group, 43 % of test subjects link their solution to the intensity of the radiation used. In the second group only 14 % focus on the intensity of radiation. The simple verbal structure of the problem description is sufficient for making the component â€Å"intensity of radiation† less prominent in the latter case than in the former. Last but not least, what is essential in the process of problem solving is the change manifesting itself in that the subject operates in a psychological structure of the situation perceived. This sudden restructuring is nothing else than the insight, the role of which is decisive. How then can the thought handle a given data field to extract from it pertinent information? One could say that the relation between two sets of data A and B is â€Å"totally distinguishable† if it is possible to grasp directly that the affirmation of A implies that of B. A connection will be â€Å"partially distinguishable if only certain traits of B can be grasped or understood parting from A. To explain the existence of such relationships there are, according to Duncker, two traditional responses: either the set B already is contained in A and can be analytically separated from it, or the functioning of the thought is such that that it always must reconnect A and B (a synthetic explication). If different events that compose the universe were not mutually related according to some law, the thought would evidently have no practical efficacy. In reality, these relations must be described not as fixed couplings of defined elements, but rather as a constant structure of variabl es. The principal cause of an effect â€Å"b† may be grasped by abstraction of factors that all possible situations â€Å"b† have in common, as well as those factors that all possible situations â€Å"non-b† do not have in common. It is a process of â€Å"precipitation† of a common aspect of coverage, parting from the inspection of a set of situations belonging to the same class. The result of the precipitation is a change in the configuration the situations envisaged. These situations thus acquire intelligibility that resides in the fact that they are reducible to a general law. This phenomenon can be called, writes Duncker, â€Å"insight of the second degree†. The various elements of a situation, as has been seen, can present very variable degrees of â€Å"availability†. The availability of an object is actually an inverse function of what the author calls its â€Å"fixedness†. For instance, a chimpanzee looking for a stick from which to make a tool, like in Kà ¶hlers experiment, does not recognize it in a branch if the latter still is attached to the tree. In this context the branch constitutes a part of the perceptive unit called â€Å"tree† and, because of this fixedness that anchors it in a definite situation, it is less available for entry into another situation than when it is detached and lies on the ground. Beside this perceptive dependence, the fixedness can also be conditioned functionally. Several of Dunckers well-known experiments reveal that. For instance, two groups of test subjects must discover in a heterogeneous set of objects one that can serve as a counterweight: in this case a book of logarithms. But, before that, one of the groups had first to resolve a mathematical problem requiring the use of the logarithmic tables. It was found that the members of this group less often identify the book in point as a counterweight than do the others. Because of its foregoing usage, which has â€Å"fixed† it as part of a certain function, it is no longer available for a new re-structuring. Another question emerges as a consequence of these results: how can one explain that the perceptive restructurings necessary for a discovery are, according to the individuals, more or less easy? Taking mathematical reasoning as an example, Duncker distinguishes two possible applications: Subjects weak in mathematics are not capable of restructuring easily, because their thinking matter is too rigid, strongly fixed. With individuals gifted in mathematics, there is an abstract level on which the perceptive functions do not interfere, but where only specific mathematical properties are considered. The former hypothesis has a degree of plausibility but it cannot be upheld: in fact, it can be stated that with subjects who are strictly mathematically oriented the perceptive restructuring plays a considerably greater part than with â€Å"ordinary† subjects. Duncker supports, however, the second explanation: it is the different role of perceptive structuring, where the difference refers to the degree with which the material of the thought is organized in depth. This causes the variations in individual performance. It is known that there are subjects of the visual type, with whom the intellectual activities always repose on visual images. By the same token, according to Duncker, many people are unable to explore and treat the problem material if it is not totally permeated with perceptive structures. It has been shown that the Gestalt theoretical notion of insight makes it undeniably possible to describe a plurality of phenomena that are allowed in the problem solving behavior. The notion has fulfilled a certain scientific function in the psychology of the last 100+ years. This advantage is, nevertheless, negatively compensated by a major explicative inability: the concept of intuition rests, almost by definition, out of reach for analysis, and therefore it cannot be included in the causal chain. It thus generates many questions that cannot be answered. Pavlov had noted it immediately and reproached Kà ¶hler for having introduced the â€Å"dualism† and the â€Å"mentalism† in the study of higher processes. If the notion of intuition largely appears as a theoretical instance, is it possible at least to give it precise objective content? Westcott tried to find the answer to this question (see further down). Westcott In his 1968 work, Westcott studied intuition by resorting exclusively to the experimental method. He conceived it initially as a form of inferential behavior and defined it operationally as the fact that an individual solver has attained a solution using less information than is usually necessary. If then for solving a particular problem P, the majority of the population p needs the quantity of information I, any individual who attains the solution using a quantity of information that is less than I displays intuitive behavior vis-à  -vis P. This definition, which is perfectly satisfactory from the scientific point of view, introduces the adoption of differential perspective: the human subjects are more or less intuitive in the same manner as they are more or less intelligent or creative. In his first experimental research Westcott used four kinds of tasks defined by the increasing variety of the type of material (verbal or numerical) and of the type of response (completing series or establishing analogies). These four categories of problems did not require any specialized knowledge, which assured that the test subjects (in Westcotts case students) could be viewed as equals. In solving tasks involving completion of series, the test subjects had at their disposal a set of examples the use of which improved the chances of attaining a solution. The same goes for the problems involving analogies, where the subject was allowed to use as many examples of relations as he pleased. Westcott called every example or additional stage that led to the goal the clue. Each test subject was required to use both the least possible number of clues, and rank, on a four-point scale, the certainty he attaches to each of his responses. Under these experimental conditions, Westcott defined four measures of performance: The quantity of the information used. Instead of the coarse number of clues used by an individual before proposing a solution, it is preferable to ponder the value of the clues used as a function of the mean and the typical spread in the population. The number of correctly solved problems of those twenty that constitute a complete series. The ratio of success (foregoing score) to information demand (first score). This ratio is called efficacy. The mean value of ratings assigned by the subjects to their responses in the twenty problems. The eleven samples studied did not differ with respect to these four measures. In particular, no significant differences are visible between girls and boys. On the other hand, each sample displays a large variability with respect to the scores of the individuals comprising the group, which gives credibility to the idea that individual capabilities differ vastly from person to person. The principal results can be summarized as follows: No correlation exists between successful solving of the tasks and the quantity of information demanded, which a priori could look like a little paradox. But, rather, this result shows that intuition constitutes a differentiating feature: the use of information collected varies greatly from person to person and is independent of the quantity alone. What is important is not the volume of what is received, but rather the specific treatment that the input data receive. Westcott was interested in subjects whose scores were extreme with respect to the two dimensions specified previously. He thus put together four groups corresponding to as many groups of individuals: those who require little information, yet often are successful. Such persons are by definition intuitive subjects, representing no more than 6 % of the total population. those who require little information, but are seldom successful. They are the â€Å"guessers†, free from a real intuitive process. those who need a great deal of information and are often successful. Their performance is prudent, as they never attempt anything if they are under informed. finally, there are those who require a great deal of information and fail most often. They are unable to use information correctly even if the information available is abundant. In all samples studied, a positive correlation exists between success and the degree of confidence in the solutions proposed, which indicates that the test subjects are sufficiently aware of their performance. By contrast, the correlations between confidence and the quantity or information demanded are all negative. It means that the more information a subject demands, the less confidence he has in the responses he gives. Finally, the correlations between confidence and the efficacy score are all positive. Westcott then tried to establish relations that might exist between the four scores mentioned and various aptitudes or personality traits measured by means of various tests. He found a negative correlation between the information demand and the verbal and numerical factors of intelligence, while success, too, seems to be positively related. This confirms the results showing that using intuitive thought seems to go hand in hand with high intelligence. As for personality traits, success is negatively correlated with anxiety. The same goes for the efficacy score, which is also positively related to flexibility. In other words, the subjects who need little information seem to be less stable and more engaged in what they are doing than are subjects who demand much information. The former are also less conformist and less sociable. Finally, the subjects who often succeed tend to be more confident in themselves, while those who often fail are more anxious. The capacity to resolve problems i ntuitively thus belongs to a specific set of personality traits. In the second part of his research, Westcott was interested in the behavior of perceptive inference, conceived a different field of manifestation of the intuitive thought that does not differ fundamentally from problem solving. How do individuals categorize their universe of perceptions? Here, too, the quantity of the information demanded will be considered on the one hand, and the ability to formulate valid conclusions in a perception related task on the other hand. The experimental material used consisted of several images borrowed from childrens books. Each image was cut into a series of seven or eight blocks arranged in the increasing order of completeness. The elements of information occurring in a specific block reappeared evidently in the neighboring block, whereupon the original design gradually re-emerged in its totality. The pictures were presented individually to each subject, beginning by the least complete block, such as a simple sketch of some features. The subjects got the instruction to identify the design as soon as they could, i.e. using the least possible number of blocks. There were thus two different passing conditions: first, the images were presented in the increasing degree of completeness and for as long a time as the subject desired. He could give as many responses as he pleased until he succeeded. Evidently, two measures can be applied here: the mean of the number of responses at which the first attempt to identification is made, and the mean of the number of responses at which the correct answer is given. In the second procedure the subjects could only give one response. The sequence was, however, broken as soon as response, good or wrong, was given. Three scores can be defined here: the mean of the responses corresponding to the demand of information in attempts to resolve the problems; the total number of correct identifications corresponding to the measure of success; and the ratio of the second to the first measure of efficacy. The experiments were carried out on 17 samples, where the age of the test subjects ranged from tender childhood to adulthood. It was thus possible to study individual differences at a given age on the one hand, and the differences between groups as a function of age and the level of education. Westcott has, for instance, established a correlation between the success at examinations and the IQ. This relation seems positive, which confirms the results of the foregoing experiment. Yet, this coarse piece of data for aptitude in mathematics is differentiated according to age. With the youngest ones this aptitude accompanies the higher scores of success and efficiency, while the students results show that this aptitude depends to a lesser degree on efficiency and on a higher demand of information, which does not necessarily accompany success. In other words, Westcott studied the relations between intuitive performance and creativity. The method used consisted of requiring that the teachers teaching the test subjects explain explicitly their own definition of creativity and then rank their students in accordance with this definition. In one of the samples, for instance, the teacher defined creativity by contrasting it to simple imagination and supposed that it requires aggressiveness, initiative, and a minimum of intelligence. Of the 26 test subjects, four most creative and four least creative subjects were selected using this concept. As for the mean number of correct responses obtained, it was found that the most creative students appeared among the top seven individuals, and the least creative ones occupied the bottom five posts. In another sample, the teacher defined creativity by distinguishing it from intelligence, and associating it with flexibility and original expression of oneself. In view of this definition five very creative students along with four very little creative students could be identified. The results obtained confirm those of the foregoing sample: the less creative ones occupy the four lowest tiers as for the number of correct responses provided in the test of perceptive inference. Thus, in the ensemble there is a strong correlation between intuitive behavior and the estimated individual creativity. According to Westcott, the opacity that characterizes the phenomenon of intuition may be due to three causes: it can follow from the fact that certain elements included in the process are inconscient; it can follow from the fact that the relationships between these elements are inconscient; or it can follow from the fact that these elements are comprised in the multiple and complex contexts obtained subliminally, peripherally or accidentally. It is also necessary to note that the intuitive behavior is useful and necessary only in certain situations. In general, our environment is very redundant, it is well informed. It could be said that the same thing is true about creative behavior the emergence of which mostly remains an exceptional phenomenon. Westcotts results make it possible to give a real content to the notion of intuition: the definition of explicit experimental operations permits, at least partially, to eliminate myths about intuition and treat it as a behavior. Of course, these initial results must be largely completed, but they already sketch the path of additional approach to the creative process.

Cross-Listing :: Business, Stock Exchange

Cross-listing can be defined as the listing of a company’s shares in a stock exchange beyond its home country boundaries. It can also be termed as a secondary listing for firms those which are already listed in their home country. Typically, when companies grow bigger and diversify business, they opt for cross-listing to raise capital from larger and more liquid foreign markets. In 2009, nearly 3100 firms cross listed their equity on major overseas stock exchanges globally (World Federation of Exchanges, 2010, list provided in appendix) . It is not only pursued by companies from developed countries but companies from emerging countries are also actively participating. Some major global cross-listing destinations are – New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and so on. The key focus of this paper will be on examining the stock price reaction and the patterns of returns before and after listing date for a diverse sample of firms from different countries specifically in the case of London Stock Exchange (LSE). Existing literature has enough evidence that cross-listings on US exchanges are associated with considerable positive stock market reactions (Foerster and Karolyi, 1999; Miller, 1999). However, there has been limited research on the impact of cross-listing on non US exchanges. This serves as a primary motivation for my interest to explore and gain understanding on a stock’s return in its home market as result of cross-listing on LSE. The rest of this paper is structured in the following manner. Section 2 provides a literature review, while section 3 outlines the data, sample and research methodology. Section 4 presents the empirical results and its discussions. Finally, in section 5 I draw a conclusion. In this section, I present an overview of the existing literature that has been reviewed as a part of gaining an understanding on the extent of work that has already been done on the topic of cross-listing and its impact on stock returns. Moreover, literature review was also essential for understanding the statistical methodologies and approaches that I can apply in this paper for testing my hypothesis. Cross listing has been a topic of immense interest among researchers for a long time. There has been lot of developments as well as debate in the cross-listing literature on its different aspects such as motivation for companies to cross-list, whether cross-listing creates value, its impact on risk and return, its financial and economic impacts so on and so forth.

Why Michael Jackson is the greatest musical artist

Do you know of a person who has won more awards than any other person in the music industry? What about a person who has inspired other performers to see the world from a different perspective? Or a man who is also ‘there’ for those in need of shelter, food, and water? Only one man in this world, who has distinguished himself through these great accomplishments, is the answer to these questions, and he is Michael Jackson. Indeed, he is perhaps the greatest musical artist of all time because of his success as an artist, whose list of achievements is endless; because of how his music changed the way people look at the world, and also because of how his kind-hearted, caring personality affected others. Firstly, Michael Jackson is the greatest musical artist of all time because of his success. He has released 13 different singles that have reached No. on the charts – definitely more than any other male artist in our history! In addition, he has been officially set as the Most Successful Entertainer of All Time for selling an approximate 750 million records worldwide. Also, he has 13 Grammy awards together with several Guinness World Records. His â€Å"Thriller† album is known as the Biggest Selling Album of All Time while his other records such as â€Å"Off the Wall†, â€Å"Bad†, and â€Å"Dangerous† are the top-sellers as well. So with these, Michael Jackson indeed is the greatest musical artist of all time for being very successful. Secondly, Michael Jackson’s kind-hearted personality also makes him the greatest musical artist. He is a humanitarian who has helped over 40 charities and foundations that include the American Cancer Society, AIDS Project Los Angeles, Make-A-Wish Foundation, End Hunger Network, Childhelp USA, and Great Ormond Street Hospital. In addition, he has spent at least 350 million dollars in funding these purposes. His charitable activities are countless and their effects are enduring. For example, when he established the Heal the World Foundation, it donated 6 tons of supplies as well as supporting treatment for drug and alcohol abuse in Sarajevo. Generally, the fact that Michael Jackson ‘healed the world’ really makes him the greatest musical artist. Lastly, the way Michael Jackson’s music changed the way people look at the world makes him the greatest musical artist of all time. His songs such has â€Å"Man in the Mirror†, â€Å"Black or White†, â€Å"Heal the World†, and â€Å"We are the World† have sent out messages to people to promote positive causes and impacts; whether it is about racism, war, or unity. In addition, his musical style paved way for many artists to develop their skills or invent new styles of music. Moreover, he also influenced many dancers through his music videos such as â€Å"Thriller†, â€Å"Billie Jean†, â€Å"Smooth Criminal†, and more. Hence, his label as the greatest musical artist can be truly defined through his influence in the way people look at the world. Unlike many artists, this man has made major impacts to people of all races around the world. Even 2 years after his death, people still mourn over him because of how important he is to our lives. Whether is it because of his success as an artist, because of a man with a kind-hearted personality, or because of how a man’s music has changed people’s point of views, Michael Jackson is truly the greatest musical artist of all time.

RTL Implementation of MP3 Decoder IP Core

RTL IMPLEMENTATION OF MP3 DECODER IP CORE Abstraction The intent of this survey is to look into the effectivity of the MP3 decrypting design in hardware comparison to the more popular package design. Nowadays, the MP3 file format is the most popular criterion for audio compaction, used in playback device such as audio participants and nomadic phones. While MP3 decryption is one of the indispensable portion in multimedia system, most of the decryption design are software-based, peculiarly because of the design of the system, which is easier compared to the hardware portion. However, the package design has higher clock, therefore higher power ingestion. This happens because of the design itself ; it has more iteration in the scheduling algorithm. There are undertakings that combine both hardware and package design in the MP3 decrypting creative activity, but the standalone hardware rational belongings ( IP ) nucleus is still non good explored. This paper will present a brief position on the basicss of the undertaking, every bit good as the needed inside informations needed in working on the undertaking. Every inside informations presented in the study are either gathered from diaries, books and the online beginning available. The mark of this undertaking is to run the designated IP nucleus and implemented in Register Transfer Level ( RTL ) manner, in which it easy means utilizing the hardware descriptive linguistic communication ( HDL ) as the footing linguistic communication for the design.Table OF CONTENTSChapterTitlePageDedication2Recognitions3Abstraction4Table OF CONTENTS5List OF FIGURES71.0Introduction81.1Undertaking Background81.2Aim91.3Problem Statement91.4Scope of the Undertaking102.0Literature Review112.1Related Studies and Previous Work112.2Introduction to the MP3 Decoding Core132.2.1Synchroscope142.2.2Huffman Decoding152.2.3Requantiser162.2.4Reordering172.2.5Antialiasing182.2.6Inverse Modified Discrete Cosine Tr ansform ( IMDCT )192.2.7Synthesis Polyphase Filterbank203.0Research Methodology223.1Introduction223.2Ocular Representation of Research Methodology223.2.1Altera DE2 Board243.2.2Altera Quartus II253.2.3NIOS II25List OF FIGURESFIGURE NO.TitlePage2.1The MP3 bitstream format192.2The three parts of frequence line202.3The reordering procedure ( the darker coloring material represents higher frequences )222.4The antialias butterfly232.5Types of window sequences in a subband252.6The IMDCT operation flow273.1The undertaking work flow3.2The Altera DE2 board ( beginning: hypertext transfer protocol: //www.terasic.com.tw/ )293.3The Quartus II work bench environment303.4The NIOS II work bench environment31Chapter 1 IntroductionUndertaking BackgroundMPEG-1/2 audio layer-3 ( MP3 ) is a most popular format for playback of high quality compressed sound. During the recent old ages the application of MP3 sound codec has exploded. Typically MP3 files are played back utilizing package ( CPU or DSP ) , but recent tendencies have since informant the outgrowth of portable device, such as nomadic phones and MP3 participants. While DSP architecture is the most efficient for running MP3 participant, the challenges of FPGA execution of MP3 decrypting are less understood. Field Programmable Gate Array, merely known as FPGA, is one type of incorporate circuit that is consumer-programmable, therefore it is called â€Å"field programmable† . This incorporate circuit uses hardware descriptive linguistic communication ( HDL ) to configure. Nowadays, FPGA has since advanced into a high degree of efficiency during the past decennary. It has since become the major HP in different types of application, since it can be employed as standalone System on Chip ( SoC ) or powerful gas pedals in multi-chip system. The mark of the undertaking is to implement the MP3 decrypting nucleus by using the FPGA belongingss. While utilizing the bing package codification to run the decipherer in package, efforts has been done to run the decipherer in hardware, which will go the chief way in this undertaking. Then, comparing the public presentation of these two methods will besides be the focal point of the undertaking.AimThe aim of this undertakings are:To plan the MP3 decipherer hardware based and can be implemented in portable based designTo measure the efficiency of the hardware based decipherer comparison to the common package based deciphererProblem StatementMost of the MP3 decryption designs are of in package. However, the hardware importance of the decryption design has since taken the popularity today. Therefore, several efforts have been taken to make the to the full hardware architecture of the decryption nucleus. This paper will measure the efficiency of the hardware decipherer as per package d ecipherer and to look into the advantages of both methods.Scope of the UndertakingThe range of the undertaking includes combination of several elements such as hardware, package and electronic parts. Below are the Scopess for the undertaking.Uses Verilog HDL linguistic communication as its chief footing for programmingExplore the application of Verilog utilizing Altera DE2 BoardInclude package programming such as C and C++Implement the application ( partial ) utilizing downloaded package for package execution ( Quartus II 9.1, Nios II 9.1 )Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW In 1988, Hiroshi Yasuda ( Nippon Telegraph and Telephone ) and Leonardo Chiariglione had initiated the working group Traveling Pictures Experts Group ( MPEG ) to put the criterions for audio and video compaction and transmittal. The group, formed by International Organisation for Standardisation ( ISO ) and International Electrotechnical Commission ( IEC ) , has since developed into an organisation joined by members from assorted industries, universities and research establishments. One of the criterions that have created is the MPEG-1 Layer 3, or good known as MP3. MP3 is the standard format used for digital audio compaction, in which the design have 12:1 compaction ratio, from 1.4Mbps 128kbps bitrate for compact phonograph record ( Cadmium ) music.Related Studies and Previous WorkIt is known that MP3 decrypting procedure is a hard procedure, but several research workers and industrialist have attempted to plan the decipherer for this specific format. For case, Faltmanet Al.( 2003 ) have stated that the designing of MP3 decrypting in portable and stand-alone participants have gained in popularity. In the study, Faltmanet Al.( 2003 ) besides stated the importance in the public presentation of these hardware MP3 decrypting based on the clock rhythms and power use. It besides includes an effort to to make an MP3 decipherer in hardware, by utilizing Xilinx FPGA board. Thuonget Al.( 2005 ) have proposed the architecture of the MP3 decryption nucleus, in which the subcores of the architecture can be separately designed, coded and tested easy. However, the design of the nucleus is coded utilizing VHDL, the older version of RTL linguistic communication. Ko and Nicolici ( 2007 ) have tested the execution of the nucleus utilizing Altera DE2 board and Xilinx multimedia board. It besides has consequences including the figure of logic elements, reversals, memories and multipliers involved. Bhargav and Yang ( 2008 ) have introduced the use of Linux-run interface on the decryption nucleus. Their research has besides opened the possibilities of animating the popular piece of consumer engineering utilizing bing hardware available in the lab. Still, the design utilizes both hardware and package constituent in their design architecture. It has few general lags due to system clock and debugging procedure. Singhet Al.( 2008 ) have proposed that the demand of hand-held participants and multimedia in nomadic phone have raised a demand for a dedicated hardware to decrypt the file formats with low power ingestion and faster acceleration. Papakonstantinouet Al.( 2008 ) have researched instance survey on the execution of drifting point math in decipherer execution to accomplish existent clip and faster decrypting procedure. In the instance survey, the writers introduce floating-point ( FP ) unit in their architecture to measure the operation velocity ; therefore naming it the FP execution of MP3 decryption. In the latest research by Moslehpouret Al.( 2013 ) , the undertaking uses NIOS II system, which is a portion of package device, to read files and produces end product from the decrypting procedure. By utilizing unafraid digital ( SD ) card as input devices, the system uses Altera DE2 board but synthesize different file format: moving ridge files, or.wav extension files. Even so, the exposure of the study have shown that running the decipherer is possible, peculiarly because of package characteristics use Altera SOPC builder in Altera Quartus 9.1 environment, in which the platform is largely used in third instruction degree. Some of the old work did even make the architectural design of MP3 decipherer, utilizing a VLSI cell-based attack. Tsaiet Al.( 2004 ) have proposed the specific architectural construction of MP3 decipherer in which it achieves a high throughput with a decreased memory demand and hardware complexness. Meanwhile, Kalpanaet Al.( 2012 ) have tried to implement the algorithm on the decreased direction set computer science ( RISC ) based ARM processor, which is far more advanced, proficient wised. All of the old work did hold its important characteristics in edifice MP3 decryption nucleus, either in hardware or package. However, the execution of MP3 decrypting IP nucleus, which uses Verilog HDL as its hardware linguistic communication, as implementing it to the full hardware based is non good discovered. Therefore, the focal point is the study is to undertake the design of MP3 decrypting nucleus, on the surface at least.Introduction to the MP3 Decoding CoreHarmonizing to Kalpanaet Al.( 2012 ) , all MP3 files are divided into fragments called frames. Each frames shops 1152 samples, enduring for 26ms, which the frame rate is about 38 frame per second ( Federal Protective Service ) . The first measure to decrypt MP3 file format is by happening the start of the frame, which is called synchronism procedure, or else called initial reading.SynchroscopeBefore decryption, the start of the frame must be found. If the frame is interrupted, we can non happen the exact place of the followi ng frame ( Thuonget Al., 2007 ) . The construction of the frame consists of 5 parts ; heading, cyclic redundancy cheque ( CRC ) , side information, chief informations and accessory informations.HeadingCRCSide InformationMain informationsAncillary Data Figure 2.1The MP3 bitstream format The inside informations about the frame heading is as follows:Frame HeaderIt is a 32-bit long and has description of the frame, together with the synchronism word to separate the get downing portion of the bitstreamCRCUse to look into if there is any transmittal mistake for the most sensitive informations. The CRC will merely exists when the protection spot in the heading is set.Side InformationIncludes the of import information needed to decrypt the chief information. This depends on the channel manner. For individual channel, 136 spots are allocated, while for double channel, 256 spot allocated ( this is tantamount to 17 bytes in individual channel, 32 bytes in dual-channel )Main DataThe chief informations portion consists of the frames that includes scalefactors, Huffman coded spots and accessory informationsAncillary DataThis information can keep user-defined information. This frame country can keep optional informations such as vocal name or song information.Huffman DecodingThis subdivision contains one of the most of import undertaking in MP3 decryption. The undertaking of Huffman decrypting is to transform and mapping the information into scalefactors and symbols stand foring the 576 original frequence lines for each granule. These frequence line is divided into three divider ;Big-values,Count1andRzero. Big-valuesCount1Rzero Figure 2.2The three parts of frequence line Detailss on the Huffman codification divider are as follows:Big-valuesRepresents the lowest frequence lines and are coded with the highest preciseness, scaled from values between -15 to 15. When the decipherer finds the value 15, it assumes that the higher preciseness is needed. This can be done by utilizing the value 15 as an flight codification, so reads extra spots from the imput watercourse. The figure specified in the Huffman tabular array are called linbits.Count1Represent the higher frequence lines ; non necessitate the higher preciseness scaled value. Ranging from -1 to 1.RzeroRepresent the highest frequence lines, and non portion of the bitstream. It contains the the frequence lines that are removed by the encoder. These values are filled with nothing by the decipherer.RequantiserThe symbols generated from Huffman decrypting is so reconstructed into the original frequence line by utilizing the scalefactors provided in the side information of the frame. The low frequence scal efactor set contains less values than the high frequence. The descaling equation for both short blocks and long blocks are defined as Short blocks: Long blocks: The denoted scalefactorsscalefactor_sandscalefactor_lused by requantiser are provided by Huffman decipherer. Parametersglobal_gain,subblock_gainandpreflagcan be found in the frames provided by the Synchroniser block. The notaiondefines end product from the Requantser block, whileis the Huffman decoded value at indexI.ReorderingThis block merely has one undertaking: it reorders the frequence lines within a granule. When the short block is decoded, a short window will be used. The end product is so sorted into subbands, so on frequences and at last by Windowss to increase the efficiency of Huffman coding. Figure 2.3The reordering procedure ( the darker coloring material represents higher frequences )AntialiasingAntialiasing is the procedure where its map is to cut down the inevitable assumed name effects because of the use of non-ideal bandpass filtering. The alias Reconstruction is based on the butterfly computation, dwelling of eight butterfly computation for each subband. Figure 2.4The antialias butterflyInverse Modified Discrete Cosine TransformInverse Modified Discrete Cosine Transform, known as IMDCT, reproduce clip samples from the frequence lines, together with synthesis polyphase filterbank. The clip samples can be obtained from the frequence lines by utilizing the undermentioned equation. The IMDCT operation flow begins by taking 18 input frequence lines and generates 36 polyphase filter subband samples. The samples so multiplied with with a 36-point window before passed into following decryption procedure. Windowing is the procedure of multiplying and overlapping add-on operation of IMDCT’s end product with the sine window coefficient. Based on the length of each window, four types of block is used ; they arestart,halt,shortandlong. The determination of block type is based on the analysis of the psychoacoustic theoretical account. Figure 2.5Types of window sequences in a subband However, bring forthing 36 samples from 18 input means that there are merely 18 samples are alone, therefore the IMDCT method uses a 50 % convergence. In this instance, the 36 end product samples is so divided into 2 groups, low group and high group, which has 18 samples each. The overlapping procedure is so carried out by adding values from the higher group, old frame with the lower group, matching frame. Then, the frequence inversion is so taken topographic point to accomplish right stage difference. This was done by multiplying every uneven subband with ( -1 ) . Figure 2.6The IMDCT operation flowSynthesis Polyphase FilterbankThis block is the last measure in decrypting procedure. It converts all 32 subbands to bring forth 32 Pulse Code Modulation ( PCM ) samples at a clip The filterbank exploits aliasing and windowing to travel the subbands back into their frequence sphere. This block is divided into two parts ; Modified Discrete Cosine Transform ( MDCT ) and windowing.Modified Discrete Cosine TransformEach clip frame of the subband samples are ordered so that the first 32 values are the first sub-sample from each subband, and so forth. The MDCT processes 32 values at a clip by utilizing the equation: where The end point end product values,is so stored in the barrel shifter.WindowingThe windowing procedure tallies by multiplying the valuesfrom the barrel shifter with the window map. This window map is specified in the ISO criterion. The PCM generated are so computed for each loop. The MDCT and windowing together run 18 times for each granule, bring forthing 576 PCM samples ( 27ms at 44.1kHz ) . Chapter 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGYIntroductionThis chapter discusses the well planned attack taken during the project’s timeline to guarantee that the undertaking is good organized and run expeditiously. The methodological analysis is represented into a flow chart for easiness of apprehension.Ocular Representation of Research MethodologyThe designate work flow for the undertaking is shown below, in Figure 3.1. Figure 3.1The undertaking work flow The undertaking begins by researching any old plants related to the MP3 decryption and FPGA-based architecture execution. Besides that, several resources on hardware descriptive linguistic communication and package programming tutorial have besides looked at. The procedure involved in constructing the nucleus is studied and briefly elaborated to give excess cognition in order to carry through the research. The importance and intent of the undertaking is besides discussed in the first phase. The hardware used for proving and implementing the undertaking is Altera DE2 Educational Development Board. Figure 3.2The Altera DE2 board ( beginning: hypertext transfer protocol: //www.terasic.com.tw/ )Altera DE2 BoardThe Altera DE2 board provides everything needed to develop many advanced digital designs utilizing Altera Cyclone II device, with utilizing application package Altera Quartus II. This development board is the first measure to present and larn basic FPGA devices easy, since it is accessible in the lab. It is suited for a broad scope of exercisings in classs on digital logic and computing machine organisation, from simple undertakings that illustrate cardinal constructs to progress designs.Altera Quartus II Figure 3.3The Quartus II work bench environment Altera Quartus II is a package tool produced by Altera for analysis and synthesis of HDL designs, which enables the user to roll up their designs, execute clocking analysis, analyze RTL diagrams, imitate a design ‘s reaction and configure the mark device with the coder.NIOS II Figure 3.4The NIOS II work bench environment Nios II is the most widely used soft processor in the FPGA industry. Nios II incorporates many sweetenings over the original predecessor, Nios architecture, doing it more suited for a wider scope of embedded computer science applications, from DSP to system-control. The development for Nios II consists of two separate stairss: hardware coevals, and package creative activity.

Social Security Disability

Social Security Disability The Social Security Disability Administration has Added Three New Compassionate Allowances Conditions The Social Security Administration put the Compassionate Allowance Program in place to properly identify claims where the applicant’s disease clearly meets the administrations standard of disability.Acting commissioner of Social Security, Nancy Berryhill, recently announced the addition of three new Compassionate Allowances conditions to the current list. These conditions include:Vanishing White Matter DiseaseCongenital Myotonic DystrophyKleefstrsa SyndromeNancy Berryhill explained, â€Å"Social Security is committed – now and in the future – to continue to identify and fast-track diseases that are certain or near-certain to be approved for disability benefits.†To read the full press release click here.The Compassionate Allowances Program does not cover all medical conditions, but there is still help out there for those in need of social security disability benefits.With the IT program in place, those who have been diagnosed with a medical condition not co vered by the program can utilize the benefits of the Social Security IT program. This program allows Social Security to obtain ones medical records much faster and more efficiently bypassing the wait of health care organizations.It is important for all applicants to keep detailed medical records throughout the application process. In order for the Social Security Administration to make an accurate determination of ones conditions the applicant must submit detailed medical records.Trying to secure disability benefits on your own is very complicated. Especially when significant medical conditions are a factor, it extremely beneficial to hire an experienced Michigan disability lawyer.There are many steps in the social security disability benefits application process, and an experienced disability lawyer can guide you through and handle many of the steps for you.If you are unable to work due a medical condition, mental illness or permanent disability call Disability Attorneys of Michiga n at 800-949-2900 for help today. And if you have tried to get disability benefits on your own, and have been denied, don’t give up, call us for help.Call Disability Attorneys of Michigan at 800-949-2900 for a free confidential consultation. We’ll let you know if we can help you get a monthly check. It is very difficult trying to get social security disability benefits on your own in Michigan. Don’t worry; just call Disability Attorneys of Michigan for help.If we do not win your disability case, you owe us nothing. We only get paid if we win your disability benefits claim.Disability Attorneys of Michigan works hard every day helping the disabled in Michigan get the disability benefits they need. If you are unable to work, contact Disability Attorneys of Michigan for a free consultation at 800-949-2900.Let Michigan’s Leading Social Security Disability Law Firm Help You Get The Benefits You Deserve.Disability Attorneys of Michigan. Compassionate Excellence.

Teachers are underpaid essays

Teachers are underpaid essays Numerous studies have previously raised concerns regarding the deteriorating quality of education in the United States. American students lag behind their counterparts in other developed countries in key subjects like reading, math, history and science. Furthermore, a comparison of present and past scores in standardized examinations shows that students today are posting lower scores compared to the previous generation. To address this problem, government education administrators have instituted reforms that put the onus of improvement on the educators themselves. The "No Child Left Behind" policy has increased the demands on teachers, in terms of their work and responsibilities. Teachers are also required to undergo more tests and evaluations, and to take expensive courses to earn their certification (Reising). Many analysts view this as a positive development, since educators are seen as public servants who perform a vital social duty. This view of education as a calling and a duty has led to criticism of teachers who go on strikes to agitate for higher salaries. This paper argues, however, that adequate compensation for teachers is an intrinsic part to improving the quality of education in the United States. The first part of this paper discusses teacher salaries, highlighting the discrepancies between the starting salaries of teachers and other professions. It also discusses the changing nature of the teaching profession, and the difficulty of retaining qualified teachers in education. The second part then looks at the link between proper or adequate compensation and the quality of education a student receives. In the conclusion, the paper looks at how some educators have used to address compensation, including unionization and performance pay. In a survey of teacher salaries across the nation conducted in 2002, the American Federa...

A Comparison Primark Vs Woolworths Marketing Essay

A Comparison Primark Vs Woolworths Marketing Essay In this report, we aim to compare and contrast the strategic planning and moves of two retail giants- Primark from Ireland and Woolworths from United Kingdom. Since both deal in the same domain and merchandise, their operation, processes and strategies provide a solid and a relevant ground for conducting strategic management studies. This will help in not only applying the theoretical concepts to some practical entity, but also in honing the skills to adopt a visionary outlook to perform future strategic planning. An overview of Primark History- Primark Stores Ltd. is a clothing retail giant with its headquarters based in Dublin, Ireland (34 stores). Its operations extend to Netherlands (1 store), Spain (8 stores), Germany (2 stores), United Kingdom (125 stores) and Portugal. Primark trades under the name of Penneys in Ireland and the entire chain is an ancillary of Associated British Foods. Products- Primark operates majorly as a clothing retailer with apparels and garments for eve ry age, size and group. Being a subsidiary, its merchandise id specifically built and not sold at other retail counters. As such, it has been able to create a brand of its own in apparels and clothing items. Its brands include women wear, girls wear, footwear, baby wear, menswear- both formal and casual, clothing accessories, cosmetics, young and old boys wear, lingerie, cheap items, luggage, home items, night wear and beach wear also. In a nutshell, you can find garments and clothes for almost any occasion or moment. Departments- as a logical move, since Primark deals in such a huge variety of merchandise, it has different departments in place, all under separate supervision which shows the clarity of its strategy and controlling function. The departments in Primark Stores Ltd. are health and beauty, hosiery, footwear, home ware, gift wear, menswear, children wear, accessories, women wear and nightwear. In all, there is a separate department handling an individual set of apparels. Evolution- originally Primark was established as a clothing store by Arthur Ryan and Micaela Mitchell in 1969. With piling success in apparel business, registering huge profits and elated at elevated gross income levels, both the partners decided to expand and open up new stores in local and regional areas. The success mantra of Primark is catering to the budget end of the market segment. Their strategy is to provide fashion clothing at reasonable prices. Their apparel designs are simple, made on simple fabric but are branded as of high quality and to fashion conscious young individuals below the age of 35. Recognition- Primark has been ranked as the second largest clothing retailer by TNS in terms of sales volume and has also received the â€Å"Best Value High Street Fashion† by GMTV. Primark’s business structure and management Primark’s business structure embarks not only upon clothing but other apparel and clothing accessories, which in a sense adds on to the diversity of the retail store. Its store operations are simply and efficiently managed by a dedicated team of professionals. Each store is managed by a manager to control and oversee the business operations. There are different levels of hierarchy within store management where big stores have managers and small or medium ones have deputy or assistant manager. There are separate sales floor officers for looking after cashiers, customer’s desks and support teams.

Banking System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Banking System - Essay Example Due to this banks started experiencing liquidity issues and were unable to have the amount of money required to remain in business and were on the verge of its default. As a result of this, the government came out with a bailout plan to help the banks from experiencing bankruptcy. The bailout can be both beneficial and disadvantageous at the same time. Mostly governments tend to bailout those banking institutions that are too huge too fail and their failure can further increase the economic crises (Scott, 2012). But such policies are anti competitive in nature. This is because when the government bails out an organization, it tends to hold certain shares of the entity and have the right to make decisions. Due to this the government may choose to be very secure in their policies and competition may decline as credit flow to different individuals and organizations may decline and this can slow the process of economic improvement and

INTERNATIONAL TRADE STRATEGY AND TECHNIQUES - FINAL CASE STUDY

INTERNATIONAL TRADE STRATEGY AND TECHNIQUES - FINAL - Case Study Example The new company concentrates on the manufacturing and marketing of polymers at 20,000 tons/year. The total investment for the ventures is 12 million Euros. The sections of financing are 4 million EUR by equity financing, Export credit obtained from COFACE up to 6 million EUR and other debt financing of about 2 million EUR. The favorable and the risk factors which would be faced by owing to its joint venture with Vietchem are elaborated in the report. Question 1 Vietnam Vietnam is a developing economy which is planned with a market well connected to the other parts of the world. The economy of Vietnam has shifted their concentration from centralized planned economy to socialist market economy that employs both indicative and directive planning. After the shift, the economy has rapidly grown. The Vietnamese population has been estimated to be 87 million. This estimation includes 3 million who lives in Hanoi and in Hochiminville; the estimated number has been 9 millions. About 11 millio n of the population are working in the industry or engaged in industry related works. The unemployment rate has been 2.3%. The GDP value amounts to $300 billion with a growth rate of 5.9%. The FDI inflows have amounted to $7.4 billion. The average tariff rate of trade has been 5.7% that includes some of the non-tariff barriers which had limited the gains of trade (The Heritage Foundation, â€Å"Vietnam†). Though there have been serious efforts from the FDI but it has been hindered by the government regulations by imposing various restrictions. With the evolving capital markets of Vietnam, the financial sector has also expanded (â€Å"China struggles with the way forward on reform†). Vietnamese Market Although the Vietnamese market has shown a rapid growth, it is still extremely price sensitive. Thus if the JV has to take place, Synthenia has to face this issue. Vietnamese market is a monopoly market with only a single producer of polymers i.e. Polyviet Company Limited. The company is based in Japan and sells 80% of its end products in the Vietnamese market. The company produces polymers and their main customers are the seekers of textile glues and formulators of buildings. Thus, the JV is looking for a reliable polymer supplier with a very good Research and Development department so that the products are adequately tested (â€Å"Investing in Vietnam – A risk worth taking?†). The favorable and unfavorable factors that Synthenia will probably run into while doing business in Vietnam are elaborated in the next section. Favorable factors for investment in Vietnam For establishing an investment plan in Vietnam the chemical giant group, Synthenia will have many advantages few of which are elaborated below. Synthenia has spread its existence in the Asian market. The Asian agents and the distributors have helped the company to develop their business in Asia. So with its expansion in Vietnam, it will provide a wider Asian market for the comp any. The country had a growth rate of 4.9% in 2009 which has increased to 5.9% in 2012 and has stabilized at that point. Thus

Disneyland Hong Kong Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Disneyland Hong Kong - Essay Example It helps the company to enrich its corporate values. Greater socialization allows the company to evaluate the cultural and traditional aspects and social preferences of a country, which helps the organization to innovate new services that would best suit the taste of the target consumers (Flamholtz and Randle, 2011). Disney on international forum The paper takes a look into the process in which the company has handled the cultural differences experienced by Disney in its course of expansion into the oriental world. Disney is an iconic symbol of entertainment amalgamating the western and the eastern culture through a highly innovative and customer oriented business strategy. The American cultural experience has been recreated in the Asian countries, and has become a controversial as well as hugely profitable model in Japan and Hong Kong. Although the company had not faced great success on opening the first theme park in Europe, in 1992, in the capital city of France, by 2003, Disneyla nd Paris had gained enough attention and has become a thriving business joint for the company (Aaker and Mcloughlin, 2010; Porter and Prince, 2007). More recently, The Walt Disney Company is taking an initiative to open a new theme park in India. The features of the Indian market are diverse which calls for a detailed study on the successes and hardships faced by the company in its previous ventures. Company background The Disneyland Park is a theme park originally based in America and embodying and representing the American culture. The company had made a humble beginning in 1923 with the Disney brothers, Walter Elias Disney and Roy Disney, starting the... It is present in different countries and is rated as one of the best elements in the global entertainment industry. Since 1955, The Walt Disney Company has set up different theme parks in the USA, France and in the Asian countries. All through these years the company has faced various hurdles and has achieved success by way of adjusting with the existing cultural background of the host countries and has made numerous adaptations in its own corporate culture. Disney has the potential to deliver such experiences that can go far ahead of the pleasure of watching cartoons. It aims at providing its visitors with an experience that is free from the hassle of the world outside the Disneyland. The company can make it possible due to its immense brand power and unmatched flexibility in the model of corporate culture that it follows. The parks have created a consumption culture that celebrates the middle-class virtues. This would help the park to find a booming market in the Indian sub-continent. Since India is a developing country, this process of business development would be beneficial for its expansion in India. Besides, India is a country with diverse geographical backgrounds, traditions and religions. Disney utilizes various strategies to make promotions of its services aiming the target groups and to design the theme of the localized theme parks in this country. A significant dissimilarity can be found between the cultures in the East and t he West. This is the root cause behind the diversity is the mentality of the tourists visiting the theme parks. Besides, the cultural elements present in these parks are different which might affect the response of the customers.

Visit museum and discuss this photo with your own words Essay

Visit museum and discuss this photo with your own words - Essay Example This part of the wall has elaborate edges. Moving to the bottom of the picture, the room is well-carpeted. At the left side is a bookshelf filled with books. At the further back, there is an ornately-designed cabinet with a flower vase. A door is beside it with a cherubim carving on top, like an angel guarding its inhabitants. A chair could be near it with fur hanging on it, which seems to have a sinister face. The wall beside it has mirror or a painting. There is another cabinet with a flower vase. The centerpiece where the light falls is the drawing board. This must be a table for an architect, painter, or engineer. An unlit candle is beside the table. A small book is on it, on top of ruler or a long thin object, with a tiny man on top of it. He goes to the direction of the door. On the top of the room is an open roof with slightly dark clouds. It is a cloudy day, but the sun peeks from the left. It is the sun that provides light for the shadows inside the room. I chose this work because it shows openness that is critical to mindfulness. The sky and the sun are symbols of openness. Their entrance into the room removes the boundaries of the world. The clouds are a bit dark because to learn is a difficult task. The man coming out of the books means that, through knowledge, he is reborn. He has become more mindful of his identity and mission in life. The sun shines on him because his path is clearer. He goes to the door, where his destiny waits for him. The man is

PED 131 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

PED 131 - Essay Example In the paper I got the second question wrong. The question was -When the command Cease Fire is given other than the range office. My answer to this was (b) Stop shooting immediately, lay the gun down on the bench and await further instructions. The reason I chose this answer was because when someone gives the command to cease fire it could be because there is some hazardous situation. Thus the best way to avoid any danger would be to stop firing and lay the gun down. But the correct answer is (d) since the correct thing to do would be to stop firing, point the gun in a safe direction and call or wait for the range officer to give further orders and if needed clarify as to why someone else gave the order. My answer to question 3 was because I felt that after notifying the range officer the best thing to do would be to open the action and remove the cartridge since in order to continue firing I would have to remove the faulty cartridge. But the correct answer to this is (d) since it is the range officer who is responsible to over see the removal of the cartridge. My answer to question 5 was (b) since in all the guns I have seen till date the safety switch has always been on the side and no where else.

Disneyland Hong Kong Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Disneyland Hong Kong - Essay Example It helps the company to enrich its corporate values. Greater socialization allows the company to evaluate the cultural and traditional aspects and social preferences of a country, which helps the organization to innovate new services that would best suit the taste of the target consumers (Flamholtz and Randle, 2011). Disney on international forum The paper takes a look into the process in which the company has handled the cultural differences experienced by Disney in its course of expansion into the oriental world. Disney is an iconic symbol of entertainment amalgamating the western and the eastern culture through a highly innovative and customer oriented business strategy. The American cultural experience has been recreated in the Asian countries, and has become a controversial as well as hugely profitable model in Japan and Hong Kong. Although the company had not faced great success on opening the first theme park in Europe, in 1992, in the capital city of France, by 2003, Disneyla nd Paris had gained enough attention and has become a thriving business joint for the company (Aaker and Mcloughlin, 2010; Porter and Prince, 2007). More recently, The Walt Disney Company is taking an initiative to open a new theme park in India. The features of the Indian market are diverse which calls for a detailed study on the successes and hardships faced by the company in its previous ventures. Company background The Disneyland Park is a theme park originally based in America and embodying and representing the American culture. The company had made a humble beginning in 1923 with the Disney brothers, Walter Elias Disney and Roy Disney, starting the... It is present in different countries and is rated as one of the best elements in the global entertainment industry. Since 1955, The Walt Disney Company has set up different theme parks in the USA, France and in the Asian countries. All through these years the company has faced various hurdles and has achieved success by way of adjusting with the existing cultural background of the host countries and has made numerous adaptations in its own corporate culture. Disney has the potential to deliver such experiences that can go far ahead of the pleasure of watching cartoons. It aims at providing its visitors with an experience that is free from the hassle of the world outside the Disneyland. The company can make it possible due to its immense brand power and unmatched flexibility in the model of corporate culture that it follows. The parks have created a consumption culture that celebrates the middle-class virtues. This would help the park to find a booming market in the Indian sub-continent. Since India is a developing country, this process of business development would be beneficial for its expansion in India. Besides, India is a country with diverse geographical backgrounds, traditions and religions. Disney utilizes various strategies to make promotions of its services aiming the target groups and to design the theme of the localized theme parks in this country. A significant dissimilarity can be found between the cultures in the East and t he West. This is the root cause behind the diversity is the mentality of the tourists visiting the theme parks. Besides, the cultural elements present in these parks are different which might affect the response of the customers.

PED 131 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

PED 131 - Essay Example In the paper I got the second question wrong. The question was -When the command Cease Fire is given other than the range office. My answer to this was (b) Stop shooting immediately, lay the gun down on the bench and await further instructions. The reason I chose this answer was because when someone gives the command to cease fire it could be because there is some hazardous situation. Thus the best way to avoid any danger would be to stop firing and lay the gun down. But the correct answer is (d) since the correct thing to do would be to stop firing, point the gun in a safe direction and call or wait for the range officer to give further orders and if needed clarify as to why someone else gave the order. My answer to question 3 was because I felt that after notifying the range officer the best thing to do would be to open the action and remove the cartridge since in order to continue firing I would have to remove the faulty cartridge. But the correct answer to this is (d) since it is the range officer who is responsible to over see the removal of the cartridge. My answer to question 5 was (b) since in all the guns I have seen till date the safety switch has always been on the side and no where else.

Ford Corporation Essay Example for Free

Ford Corporation Essay The manufacturing capabilities kept on improving and in 1917 he built the Rouge plant that put the whole operation, from the raw material, to the final product, under the same roof. In 1915 Henry Ford’s son, Edsel Ford joined his father in the company. Edsel brought to the company the desire of making a product not only functional, but stylish and beautiful. Ford became entirely family owned in 1919 when Henry, his wife Clara, and Edsel bought the outstanding shares for 5,820,894 (Chapman, pp. 128) . The company would hold to this status until 1956 when the company would allow outsiders to buy shares. For many years the image of the company was the same as its leadership. Henry Ford passed the presidency to Edsel Ford in 1919. Henry Ford reassumed the leadership after the death of Edsel in 1943. After Henry Ford resigned, Henry Ford II assumed the presidency. The company inherited by Henry Ford II was not the same. Ford had fallen behind General Motor (GM) and Chrysler. Henry Ford II knew he had to regain terrain, so he contracted the Whiz Kids (a group of former US Army Air Force officers), and created a â€Å"sophisticated management system including accounting and financial controls† (Chapman, pp. 28). With the finance side in check, Ford gained increased its position, and became the number 2 car company in 1950. Ford products were not fuel efficient, and when the gas prices rose in the 70s because of the OPEC embargo, Ford lost many consumers. The company responded by closing plants and cutting jobs. After the storm, the sun came out in the late 80s with the launch of F ord Taurus and Mercury Ford was on the top of the game once again. The desire to diversify made Ford buy other brands and include it in its family such as: Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover and Volvo. Bill Ford assumed the presidency of the company in 2001. It was the first time in 20 years that the head of the company was a member of the Ford family. Bill Ford drove the company through one of the worst times in history for the company: right after the extensive (and expensive) Firestone tires recall, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Bill Ford went to ups and downs during his presidency. He saw sales improving slowly from 2001 to 2006, but the increasing competition from foreign brands such as Toyota, Nissan and Honda made him realize that he needed help taking the company to the next level. Alan Mulally became the new CEO in 2006. He was a new face in the auto industry, coming from Boeing Corporation instead from inside Ford or from another auto company. Mulally â€Å"demonstrated leadership skills Henry Ford had established many years ago. † Mulally brought to the company new energy, and a brave new plan. His most risky decision proved to pay off in the end. He decided to raise money by mortgaging almost all of Ford’s assets including the brand. His audacity put Ford as the most trustworthy American company. The money raised by Mulally helped keep Ford out of the government bailout of 2009. Ford Motor Company: The Problem(s) Ford has been a pioneer in the auto industry but it still faces a lot of problems to make it the number one in the industry. The increasing competition from other car companies to creatively and efficiently attract and retain customers made it difficult to gain the number one position. The economic crisis also made it hard to sell new vehicles. The quality of Ford vehicles have also gone down compared to what it was before. The slow reaction to change in consumer taste made Ford lag behind its main competitors. It was also late in expanding in international market and opportunities were lost to other brands. Ford Motor Company: SWOT Analysis Strengths One of Ford’s biggest strengths is its leadership. Since Henry Ford founded the company, the leadership has been proven to help the company throughout difficult times. Every leader brought to the company a new idea. Henry Ford wanted the company to produce an affordable product. His successor, Edsel showed that innovation is always necessary in this industry. Edsel wanted stylish and beautiful vehicles to carry the Ford brand. Henry Ford II with he help of the Whiz Kids developed a â€Å"sophisticated management system† what helped the company after World War II. He also â€Å"revitalized Ford with modern engineering, manufacturing, assembly, and distribution facilities in the US and 22 foreign countries† (Chapman, pp. 128). The strong and visionary leadership style of Henry Ford was shared by many other leaders of Ford. T he new generation, Bill Ford and Alan Mulally also presented the traits of a Ford leader. Bill by navigating Ford throughout harsh times, and for seeing that the company needed a change, a fresh start. He then passed the leadership of the company to Alan Mulally who proved to be exactly what the company needed. Mulally discovered that Ford lacked â€Å"global synergy,† he was surprised by the way that Ford was operating its brands. He saw that the company did not have central control, it took him a while to find out what was really happening inside the company. He also made really tough financial decisions, and reorganized the amount of brands and models offered by Ford. â€Å"With his leadership and conviction, Ford Motor Company stood apart from its competitors by standing on its two feet† (Chapman, pp. 33). Ford’s reputation is also an incredible strength for the company. Ford is seen as a family company. Henry Ford wants the employees to be able to buy cars, increased their wages, and was interested in sharing a piece of his family with others. Weaknesses Ford has proven to be slow to respond to changes in the environment and consumer tastes. They felt that they â€Å"got it,† and felt comfortable with it. Since the beginning of Ford, with a delay to offer cars in other colors than black, they experience a tardiness to respond to changes. One example was the excessive attention to SUVs and other gas inefficient cars when the gas prices spiked. When consumers were looking for alternatives to the gas drinking vehicles, Ford was fully producing SUV’s. Although SUV’s are Ford bestselling product, the fact that they were slow to make them more efficient or give costumers other styles to choose from, made Ford to lose market share to other automakers. Ford also lost terrain when they did not address earlier the ecofriendly trend. Toyota had the Prius which did not have much of a competition until recently. Currently, Ford has â€Å"12 vehicles with best in class fuel economy and 4 models with at least 40 mpg† (Chapman, pp. 137), and is developing plug-in models that use a combination of electricity and gasoline that will compete against the Chevrolet Volt. Opportunities Ford has the opportunity to expand its presence and capture market share in India and China. It aims to increase its revenues from international sales from 20 percent to 50 percent. The expanding market of the two countries allows Ford to focus on small, light and fuel efficient cars that are needed in the market. Ford has also been slow to respond to demands for small hybrid or fuel efficient cars in the United States. There is also an opportunity to increase standardization of the platforms used in world-wide production of vehicles. If this happens the cost of production would significantly lower and it would be easier to introduce new cars into new markets without building new plants. Ford can also further trim down the number of models out in the market and focus on cars they are widely known for such as light trucks and expand its model for smaller and fuel efficient cars. To target the higher end market, it should continue to build its Lincoln brand as a better alternative in the US and once established, export that brand to new markets overseas. Production from union controlled plants could also be transferred to non-union plants that can give Ford plants a competitive edge or be at par with other auto companies in compensation for workers. Ford can also consolidate more dealership to become more competitive and give them incentives to attract more customers thru financing and offering excellent customer service. Threats The auto industry is very competitive and technology driven industry. Ford has to constantly monitor its competitors to know how it will make its own decision. Companies will outbid one another in attracting new customers by giving them a lot of rebates, incentives and attractive financing. The technology for clean, fuel-efficient cars and alternate sources of fuel is also changing and without proper funding for research Ford could be left behind and lose in this expanding market. Any increase in price of raw materials could also increase production cost for Ford and make their vehicles more expensive. Demands of union workers also affect the competitiveness of Ford. They are currently paying higher compensation and benefits compared to the rest of auto industry. Changing consumer tastes also makes it difficult for Ford to quickly address and create cars that the market needs. Any decline in the US economy would also greatly affect the revenues of Ford. Most of the revenues of Ford comes from the US market and if the US economy goes into another recession it would decrease consumer spending and make it difficult to survive without government help. Ford Motor Company: Five Forces Threats of Substitute Products – High in Urban Areas, Low in Suburban Areas * With the increase of gas prices and traffic congestion consumers are now looking for alternate ways to commute between work and home. Consumers are increasingly being aware of their â€Å"carbon footprint† and are looking for clean and energy efficient alternatives to commute. In cities, the availability of public tr ansportation such as buses, subways and light rail systems gives commuters flexibility. Car-sharing options such as Zipcar are now also available in cities and have become popular. Rivalry Among Competing Firms – High * Competition in the auto industry is very high. Different companies compete aggressively in increasing their market share by giving incentives to customers. It is also important for companies to satisfy the needs and tastes of consumers. Companies also try to run an efficient supply chain to limit the cost of producing and increasing profit margins. * Threats of New Entrants – Low * The threat of new entrants in the local auto industry is low. The auto industry is very capital and labor intensive and it takes time for companies to establish their operations. The current companies have established their presence and market share but competition from potential, new and growing car companies in big markets such as China and India is inevitable. * Bargaining Power of Suppliers – Low * The auto industry sources its raw materials from global suppliers. The suppliers market is also a competitive industry. Bulk of their sales come from the auto industry and companies have established relationships to give them access to supplies and new technologies. The relationship of auto ompanies and suppliers are intertwined given that as auto companies increase production, supplier companies increase revenues. * Bargaining Power of Buyers – High * Consumers now have more choices that gives them a higher bargaining power. The economy is also improving and giving them more buying power. Unlike before where manufacturers dictate what the dealers will push to the consumers, consumers now make the demand for manufacturers to make fuel-efficient an d environment friendly cars. Consumers are also well informed and by being well informed they can ask for more incentives to dealers and car manufacturers. Ford Motor Company: Recommendations Under the leadership of Mulally Ford has significantly made changes to improve the position of the company. We recommend that Ford increase funding on research for fuel efficient cars, alternate sources of energy for smaller cars that the market demands and will create sustainability in its vehicles. Ford should also maintain or increase the quality of its vehicles by standardizing its platforms and improving its technology to detect any safety issues with its vehicles to avoid costly recalls that not only is expensive but tarnishes the image of the company. The economic crisis has made it difficult for other car companies not to be bailed out but Ford was able to maintain its independence by using its assets and enforcing better control in its finances. Ford can continue to be competitive by maintaining or lowering its operating costs. Ford has been known in its proficiency in having a tight supply chain were it can control the costs of production. Ford should be quick to adapt in changing consumer tastes. It should not be content with making products that they are known for and lose market share in new vehicles that are small, clean and fuel efficient. It should also make its current models cleaner and more fuel efficient to maintain attractiveness to consumers. Ford has great potential in new markets such as China and India. The reputation it has built as a well know car manufacturer in the US can be used to tap new customers in international market. Ford has built by its strong leaders and will continue to thrive if more reforms are made.

Examining The Importance Of Computer Technology Information Technology Essay

Examining The Importance Of Computer Technology Information Technology Essay Why is the future of computer technology an important role in the society. Here are few of the reasons why it is an important role to the society. First it is important to the educational field, for the reason that most of what we do is based on computers. Second it is important to the business field; because it can help with the speed accuracy and relevant so that businesses can grow and less expenditure. Third; technically speaking it is important to our economy for the speed the connection around the world and also the communication. Lastly; technology is one of the important roles in our environment. What I mean by that is that technology helps us to maintain our environment by reducing wastes for example; papers, plastic etc. Now those are some of the importance and also the advantages of the technology. Technology also has its disadvantages and here are some. We all know that technology grow everyday and people inventing are just eager to invent the most compatible and reliable gadgets to be used by the end users, which is good but at the same time it has its disadvantages here are some of the disadvantages of the technology. The technology makes kids these days lazy and can place children at risk for harmful effects on their physical, social, and psychological development. Children need physical activity, social interaction, and the love and guidance of caring adults to be healthy, happy, and productive. Nowadays businesses are mostly connected to internet and do business online which is good; however there are people out there scamming people with fake businesses online and hackers to hack into your system and steal information or money. The use of computer also results into unemployment as computer can perform the task that might need nearly six to seven workers. Unemployment is likely to result into crimes. Continuous work with comput er causes loss of eyesight in the long run. Internet, which is widely used to see pornographic scenes, will lead to sex violences and more. To conclude it even though technology has its downside I still think that in the future it will be beneficial to our society and environment. The Future of Computer Technology Computer technology is spreading all over the world. Even though it might have few disadvantages but the advantages are still spectacular and very useful to our society. First up is the education field, in the United States Department of Education researched that children tend to learn more with computers than by reading books or do research using encyclopedias. Computers have ways to crab students attention by the animated graphics, sound and colors. It also allow student to communicate with their friends, families and the world. In addition educational field, computer is one of the must to know basic because everything we do is somehow related to computer and the technology. (Mr.Pandys article published 2010) states that the importance of computers in school will help students prepared and shape up for the future of technologies. He also says in his article that students who have knowledge in computer will have better chances of job opportunities than others that dont have experien ces in computers. Technology in the classroom is not just for the students. Teachers can use the technology to keep student records, plan lessons, communicate with parents that will save them time, or going around with heavy books, chalk, pen, papers etc. so the role of computer technology in the educational field is massive and still eager for more knowledge about the technology world. Majority of businesses today relies on the computer technology in so many ways. Like the convenience of the business, few years ago when you walk in to a office you see a lot of filing cabinet or drawers, fax machines, typewriters and papers all over the place. Todays office relies on a computer that you can send anything anytime store all your data or information on the external hard drive of computers, also you can just type and print using the computer. Computer helps us in many ways and businesses too. Computer technology also helps us in accuracy and time in the business and the offices. For example; the auditor, accountant, and finance there are numerous software for that kind of job that can help with the accuracy of the data and lessen the paper usage that will help our environment. Another importance of the computer and the business is the communication. These days communication is been one of the best thing that has happened in our life. Communication through internet has h elped the business in so many ways like meetings, information, updates, expenditures and more. You can set up a meeting with your staffs via web conference like youre sitting next to them. It also saves you time and money for traveling around the globe just for meetings or letters and also it updates you on whats happening in the world. Like (Scholasticus 2010) says, using computers in todays business has enhanced the performance of employees and the business. According to (Geeta Dhavale 2010) she says that computers are widely used in all the hospitals for numerous purposes apart from administration, accounting, billing, and appointments. It literally helps doctors in performing various surgeries; especially laparoscopic surgeries are possible because of computers where doctors insert the medical tools and small camera and conduct an operation with the help of computers monitors. Even X-rays, CT scan, Ultrasound etc they are all computer based. (Evens) says, that Computers are also important on the medicine field for the analysis part so that it will save time and will help you to find a cure for a specific illness. It also important for the doctors so that they can communicate via internet to see the latest updates on the medical field and also be able to do web conferencing with other doctors around the globe. To conclude it, computer technology has been spectacular for these past few years, by being as huge as a room to the size of a book. The importance of computer technology in our society and environment keeps expanding both needs and wants. Elementary schools, high school, college, universities, businesses are both connected to the use of computer and tend to want more. Information Technology programmers have been working finding a way to create the most compatible technology that the end user will be satisfied with it and yet it will all trace back to computers. See computer technology has its disadvantages but the advantages are far better and useful in our lives, it helps us with the speed time, accuracy and relevant. The speed of sending a message via internet is a matter of minutes and at the same time it saves your time. In the business field and medical field, and the NASA accuracy is their life they cannot afford to make mistakes and that is when the computer comes in handy to help them do the job. To summarize all the information and research are all relevant and useful for the society. Even though computer technology has its disadvantages but still the advantages of computer technology and its future will help our society and will save many life. Resources: Steve Furberhttp://www.Oxfordjournal.org http://www.articlesbase.com Evens Hospital Computer Technician PC world Magazine 2008 Sebastian Andersen 2009 http://www.uaseducation.com LynDel Randash, www.eHowcom.com Greeta Dhavale www.buzzle.com Scholasticus www.buzzle.com Futureforall.org

Essay --

The 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition (1902) was dedicated to the appreciation and celebration of Ludwin van Beethoven. The famous and renowned German composer that had influenced thousands with his music. Gustav Klimt created his Beethoven frieze for this exhibition. The work of art was originally intended to be destroyed after the exhibition. It was applied directly to the walls with light materials so that its removal would be quick and easy. The Beethoven frieze is painted along the upper half of three walls. The paintings of the walls tell a story with the left wall being the beginning and the right wall being the end. The work of art was a 34 meter long frieze and was applied onto the wall with casein paint, gold paint, chalk, and graphite on plaster. The Frieze survived because it was bought by a collector before the exhibition came to a close. The collector had it cut into 8 pieces for transportation and the Frieze was not seen for another 80 years. Later, in 1973 the Austr ian Republic bought and restored it and placed it on permanent display in the Vienna Secession Building. The first long wall of the Beethoven frieze marks the beginning of a story. It begins with a series of elongated female figures that seem to flow along the top of an empty space. Their eyes are closed and some have their arms extended in from of them as if they were trying to reach out to something. They almost seem to represent the soul’s longing for peace and tranquility. Flowing into the background of the first predominant painting. This part of the Frieze shows, a family praying or begging to a noble knight. The family is completely naked with an overlying sense of poverty and suffering. It shows the father and mother figure on their knees wit... ...e frieze find their place when they come upon a woman playing a lyre. The lyre signifies poetry and music while the woman is a muse to for the human soul. The Last portion of the frieze shows the female figures once again but their arms are no longer reaching out and their faces have a sense of satisfaction. Their bodies are curved as if dancing to the sound of music. To the right of them there is a choir of women that seem to be singing. Since the Frieze was painting for the celebration of Beethoven it is believed that the choir is singing ode to joy. In between the choir there is what seems to be an altar where a man and a woman are holding each other tightly. The sun and the moon hang on either side of the man and woman. This portion of the frieze has been titled â€Å"A kiss to the world†. Neither of their heads are visible and their feet are bound together by water