Sunday, March 8, 2020

Redon essays

Redon essays The work of Odilon Redon (1840-1916) vividly illustrates the theories of Symbolism. In reaction to his Impressionist contemporaries, whom he accused of "aiming too low", Redon sought to combine "human beauty with the nimbus of intellect". In creating such works as 'Closed Eyes', 'The Birth of Venus' and 'The Chariot of Apollo', he unlocked the door to the invisible. Imbued with the music of Wagner, enraptured by the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire, and Mallarm, he lent expression to his obsessive fears and dreams in the prints and charcoals he called his noirs. Then, gradually, colour began to filter into his work, and the fallen angels, hideous monsters, gnomes, giants and fantastic forms gave way to women, bouquets of flowers, mythological subjects and butterflies. Oils, pastels and watercolours marked a turning point in his creative inspiration, bodied forth in a new and exceptionally sumptuous handling of colour. Serenity now took the place of fear. This new synthesis, this intimate fusion of the real and the symbolic, which was much admired by his young friends, the Nabis, calls to mind the famous maxim he had long since adopted, one that heralded the advent of Surrealism ...

Monday, February 24, 2020

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

System analysis and design - Essay Example Universities have been offering the courses to meet the increasing demand for professionals in data analysis. North Carolina State University that has been offering a similar course since it launched of the advanced degree program in analytics in 2007. In addition, the school is also expanding to meet the demand. Other universities too plan on launching the degree course. An example is the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas that plans on launching a master of science in business analytics program in the fall. There is also a growing interest in acquiring knowledge required in handling data as shown by the large number of people seeking enrolment in such programs. As the analysis above indicates, higher learning institutions have found it necessary to provide advanced degree courses in analytics to fill in the gap in society. There is a growing need to educate the society about the emerging trends in system analysis. In a rapidly changing information technology sector, a systems analyst must strive for professional improvement (Shelly and Rosenblatt 30). There is ongoing effort by universities and colleges to provide advanced courses in design to ensure that they fill up the gap that has been brought up by the demand for employees with skills and advanced training in analytics. Statistics, from North Carolina State University, indicate there are readily available and well-paying jobs available for those who graduate with big-data

Thursday, February 20, 2020

Semantic Web and Implications Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Semantic Web and Implications - Essay Example This paper stresses that you would also like to know how long the respective shops are open that day, hence, you start surfing the various websites of dealers and compile gathered information in a list. Although, the websites of the various dealers are designed very differently, it is still easy to gain information such as at the opening times of a branch. Gathering the list is a bit cumbersome, but an intellectually easy task to be accomplished. It is difficult to automatically retrieve content from various web shops, such as information like sales price are all formatted differently and embedded in different places. The Semantic Web helps to unify this complicated data in the background, without changing the layout. According to the discussion Semantic Web Semantic Web is the extension of current web which is better at enabling the computers and individuals to work in cooperation. User locates the information on the internet with the help of two main tools, search engines and catalogues. Catalogues were designed by humans who were accurate in terms of results but search engines were designed to elsewhere. Search engine skims the internet websites and searches for changed pages and mechanisms of indexing. The catalogues store the information on the basis of the usage of the words. The inability to comprehend the words and identify the relationship while searching for query is the drawback identified in search engines due to which semantic web is taking place. Anyone who enters the phrase sequence "Sales for Siemens in Germany in 2005" into a search engine receives all possible outcomes. However, no accurate answers are ever retrieved. Be it Altavista, Yahoo or Google - no search engine today is a ble to "understand" such a query. Search robots react to hidden tags on websites called metadata. If they do not properly classify it comes to "irrelevant results" or to a "too large outcome space†. Dissatisfied users complain about search engines, according to market research firm Jupiter Research, "Dr. Know", the all-knowing oracle of Steven Spielberg's "AI (Artificial Intelligence)", today's world of search is still far away. In the science fiction film, the protagonists asked a question, and if "Dr. Know" did not have an answer right, they simply asked again and marginalized by the context of the question further and further. Semantic technologies allowed computers to process the content of music, images and videos in a better way. Semantically means that content does not only have a meaning, but is also related to other meanings, thus forming hierarchical classes. Future of Semantic Web and Challenges The concept is regarded as an impractical concept presented by the Web Specialists.  

Saturday, February 8, 2020

What has been the impact on money supply in the U.S. of the recent Essay

What has been the impact on money supply in the U.S. of the recent mortgage crisis - Essay Example In America over the preceding few years, loads of home buyers had procured costly houses with out of the line mortgage products funded by unrelenting mortgage lenders. The incidents have wrecked the liaison between money supply growth and the recital of the US financial system. The current deceleration in housing trade, inferior house costs and the retuning of mortgage variable rates has initiated a downturn in the mortgage sector. The predicaments are principally manifested in the "sub-prime" sector and are imitated in swiftly growing delinquency, non-payment and foreclosure rates. This paper hereby briefly analyzes the impacts of current US mortgage crisis on money supply.It is an undeniable fact that Money Supply has an influential effect on economical commotions. Amplification in money supply inspires improved expenditure as it places added money in the hands of customers making them to feel richer and eventually inspiring them to swell their expenses causing temporary boost in financial activities and controlling deflation. (Handa, 2008) The phase of 2003-2006 witnessed exceptionally near to the ground interest rates along with consumer hopes of increase in double-digit house costs, assisted a record $3.2 trillion in house mortgages being written by lenders, with approximately 20% of this sum contribution towards subprime. The subprime mortgage sector also served supplicants having bad credit history at elevated interest rates. (Handa, 2008) It is now well known that in array to boost their profits, banks issued huge loans to investors engaged in US housing markets, but owing to sudden price decrease in housing sector, the quantity of loan defaulters increased causing liquidity crunch for banking institutions creating an environment of money crunch for the markets based on investor and end-user relations and eventually led the international markets to face mortgage crisis. (Ashdown, 2002) The mortgage crisis led countries to increase the money supply to control the sudden swell in economic inflation and increased interest rates. Faced with the slither in the actual economy and the crisis in the financial system, the Federal Reserve implemented extraordinary moves i.e. a $200 billion loan package was issued to stanch money constrictions. (Axilrod, 2009) In 2008, the majority of US money supply augmented noticeably as the governmental authorities interceded to infuse money into the system. Traditionally, an impulsive boost in the money supply resulted in a raise in interest rates to deflect price increases or inflationary prospects. (Ashdown, 2002) Source: New York fed The US government, up to now had issued huge amount of currency to assist procuring of lethal mortgage-backed securities and other badly performing resources from banks owing to the anticipated risk of price increases and dollar depression. Though, this risk is of a reduced amount of worry to the Fed as compare to the depression and languish growth as in 2008. Owing to the black economical month of March, 2007 in which over 25 subprime lenders declared insolvency, large losses or setting themselves up for sale, several lenders discontinue home equity as well as "stated income" loans. To control the total collapse of mortgage industry in July, 2007 Federal Reserve increased money supply by approximately $100 billion to facilitate retail financial institutions with credits at lower rate following with another $41 billion during late Oct - Nov, 2007 which was the biggest lone increase by the Federal Reserve since Sept 19, 2001 i.e. $50.35 billion. (Barth, 2009) In accordance with the review of literature provided by several economists, it is revealed that Money Supply is not dependable on the quantity of currency printed but it depends on the pace of flow i.e. "how many times it changes hand." (Mishkin, 2008) The trouble is that the rate of circulation had felled

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Strategic finance essay with word counts no less than 1500

Strategic finance with word counts no less than 1500 - Essay Example Like any other capital budgeting model, CAPM has its own weaknesses and strengths. In order to improve its usefulness, the standard capital asset pricing model has undergone various developments and modifications in the recent past. Since its conception about four decades ago, the Capital Asset Pricing Model has been used widely in applications to estimate cost of capital of firms and evaluate the performance of asset portfolios in companies. This report argues that CAPM has received such a wide support and use in the industry despite its strong assumptions because it provides powerful and reliable predictions about risk measurements and the relationship between risk and expected return. CAPM has several problems which are considered by many as the results of theoretical failures emanating from the strong assumptions of the model (Rubinstein 2006). However, they could also be caused by the difficulties of its empirical implementation. Although these problems are common, it is also understood that other models have their problems too. Therefore, the best model is the one which has proved to be successful in its application. Capital Asset Pricing Model is the model with such wide and successful application becaus e it provides powerful and reliable predictions about risk and returns of a given portfolio of assets. The Capital Assets Pricing Model (CAPM) suggests that the equilibrium rates of return of risky assets in the market have a linear relationship with the market portfolio. CAPM is used to establish a theoretical value of required rate of return of an asset in a diversified portfolio. This takes into consideration the systematic and market risks which are non-diversifiable risks (Rubinstein 2006). The model also considers the markets expected return and the theoretical risk-free assets expected return. CAPM draws from the portfolio theory developed by Harry Markowitz (1959). The formula of calculating expected return of an asset portfolio

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Movie ticket pricing Essay Example for Free

Movie ticket pricing Essay Household behavior forms an interesting area of study for economists given that the human aspect involved in making of economic decisions by a household vary a lot depending on the perception of a commodity or service in the market. This is done in the view of gaining a certain level of utility only known to the consumer. One such area that has attracted scrutiny is the consumption and pricing of movie tickets and goods sold in the movie theaters. An article by Jennifer McNulty titled â€Å"Concessions on Movie Ticket Pricing? details the tricks present in the pricing of movie tickets and products such as popcorn crisps and soft drinks sold in the movie theaters. This paper critically analyses this article and discusses the economic sense in the article plus a reflection on the whole issue. Article review In this article the writer is worried about the high charges of popcorn in movie theaters than in ordinary shopping outlets. This she poses as the introductory question in the article asking â€Å"why does popcorn cost so much at the movies? † She notes that despite the high prices, movie goers are always willing to pay the high prices charged for the popcorn as evidenced by â€Å"all the people standing in line waiting to buy popcorn, soft drinks, and candy†. The author notifies us of the findings of a research by Stanford and the University of California, Santa Cruz that reveals the trick behind this idea. The findings show that charging lower prices for primary products in this case movie tickets and charging higher prices for secondary products in this case popcorn, beverages, peanuts etc drives the customer into seeing the bargain in the primary product and not the overcharging in the secondary product. This will always keep demand for both high courtesy of low price tickets. The author says â€Å"If you want to bring more consumers into the market, you need to keep ticket prices lower to attract them†. Products sold in movie theaters are charged on concession basis in that there is an added price on the product as a â€Å"commission† to the vendor. They account a lot in term of revenue for movie theaters as Jennifer says that â€Å"movie exhibition houses rely on concession sales to keep their businesses viable†. The idea according to Jennifer is that movie theaters transfer some movie charges to the concession goods. This then increases demand for movie tickets and revenues high but profits low. From the article we see that â€Å"Although concessions account for only about 20 percent of gross revenues, they represent some 40 percent of theaters profits†. Therefore it would seem that it is better to charge low prices for tickets so as movie consumers are made to believe that they have â€Å"saved† some amount on which they can spend on the concession goods. Unfortunately, this is just an illusion as the moviegoer ends spending more. Economic analysis of the article The movie theaters have hinged their business sense on the demand elasticity in response to price changes. They have noted that a proportionate increase in the price of movie tickets leads to a more than proportionate drop in demand of movie tickets. Therefore we would say that demand for movie tickets is perfectly elastic to price changes. On the other hand, demand for concession goods is not affected, as per the article by change in prices thus perfectly inelastic. Nevertheless, we would normally expect perfect some degree of elasticity when prices are increased to inconsiderate levels. This would probably force moviegoers to carry along products that they could have otherwise bought at the theater. From another economic perspective, we can say that there is a level of complementarity between the movie tickets and the concession goods though it is one sided. This is because of the fact that concession goods will and can only be consumed after purchasing a movie ticket. However, one can consume a purchase/consume a movie ticket without necessarily having to purchase any of the concession goods on sale in the theater. For fully complementary goods, it is impossible to consume one good in the absence of the other. In such cases, the price and demand of one affects the other. In the case of movie tickets and concession goods, the demand for movie tickets leads to a considerable increase in the demand for the more profitable concession goods. Unfortunately, demand for concession goods does not in any way affect the demand for movie tickets as a consumer can make use of the movie ticket alone without the concession good. Reflection Consumption of leisure hours by households do not usually follow economic principles witnessed in other goods and services. Households attach levels of utility on leisure hours as determined by fashion trends and culture. The idea of purchasing and consuming goods such as popcorns and peanuts in the movie theaters is something that has been nurtured by today’s generation and fashion. This is what is demonstrated in the article in that there is no economic sense that can link any complementing aspect between concession goods and movie tickets but just a creation of our society. It is thus the movie theaters that have capitalized on this fallacy to gain profits. I would personally think that the movie theaters have succeeded in making the best use an economic opportunity and are creating and inducing demand for otherwise low selling products in the name of concession goods. Therefore, the article plays its purpose of informing the moviegoers of where they â€Å"cheated†. In economic sense, the paper shows the power of elasticity in action.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Media Technologies And Journalism Media Essay

Media Technologies And Journalism Media Essay In the second half of the twentieth century and early of the twenty-first, along with the advancement of new media technology, we have witnessed the dramatic transformation of journalism. There can be no denying that the technological revolution has exerted far reaching influences on news journalism and its production. In 2000, Pavlik (p.229) has asserted: â€Å" Journalism has always been shaped by technology†. Pavlik as well as many academics in the field of mass communication believe that the profound changing of journalism are technologically determined. However, there are some researchers who criticise the idea of technological determinism. They argue that technologies not only transformed journalism but also were shaped and operated in the news production process. As Cottle (1999,p.22) has stated: â€Å"news technologies of news production are in fact socially and culturally shaped and embedded within corporate and professional contexts and practices†. It could be argued that the relationship between technology and journalism is not simply a cause and effect relationship, in fact, they changed and determined each other. The aim of this essay is to examine the interaction relationship between technology and journalism, with a particular focus on how new media technologies transformed news journalism. This research paper will begin by consider the impact of technology on journalism, and then account for the way that technologies are operated and integrated in the news production process. In the second section, the proliferation of the internet and blogs will be taken as prime examples of technological advancement which has offered opportunities as well as challenges to journalists and news organisations. Finally, the assignment will discuss whether technological changes and the adoption of new technology have led to the improvement or deterioration of journalisms quality. 1. The interaction relationship between news media technologies and journalism For the purpose of this assignment, this section will briefly introduce the theory of technology determinism as well as critical arguments of modern social scientists. The impact of new media technologies on news journalism will be examined and references are made to the work of academic in this field. Furthermore, evidence is provided in order to account for the way technologies are shaped and integrated in news production process. 1.1. The impact of new media technologies on news journalism According to Pavlik (2000,p.229), journalism are transformed by technology in four broad areas: practices of journalists, news content, the organization of the newsroom, and the relationship between and among news organisations, journalists and their many publics. â€Å" Technological changes have had an impact above all on the immediacy and availability of journalism as it has proliferated as a mode of communication† (Conboy,2004,p.205). 1.2. Technologies are shaped and integrated on news production process With a critical argument, Cottle (1999) views technology as a â€Å"creature of our own making â€Å", in his words, â€Å"which inhabits, was born out of, remains dependent on, and is socialised and put to work within determinant social environment† (p.23). In his study of â€Å" A combination of political regulatory change and the arrival of the new media organizations and products has introduced considerable competition into the broadcast environment..this competition appears to be the immediate cause of organisational and technological change† (Ursell, 2001,p.194). New operations have adopted new technologies with different degrees of extent and intensity (Ursell). Consequences for journalist: demand for and pressure on journalistic staff have increased. 2. Technological changes and the quality of journalism 2.1. The internet and blogs: a nascent phenomenon Internet: how it changes the newswork -> journalist practice(Pavlik), mot-used new resources for finding imformation(Garrison), journalist easily interact with audiences Define blog Bloggers 2.2. Quality of journalism in era of new media technologies: deterioration or improvement Though there can be no denying that the appearance of the internet and blogs has changed news journalism in many ways, it is now essential to consider whether it is better or worse journalism. Thus, this question has been the subject of a great deal of research. Ursell (2001) in his study of Convergence: â€Å" I assert that convergence merely holds the promise of a better, more efficient, more democratic medium for journalism and the public in the twenty-first century† (Pavlik,2001,p.xiii) Multi-skilling: High-Speed: â€Å"Speed is in danger of becoming the ultimate aim of journalism. The post-telegraph compulsion to beat competitors to a story, accelerate by new technologies, can mean it becomes more important to be first than to provide an adequate assessment of context† (Conboy,2004,p.207) â€Å" The pace of breaking news drives the possibility of in-depth analysis further down the line† (Conboy, 2004,p.207) â€Å"All of this compromises the incredible speed and technological sophistication of the journalism produced as it is often lacking in analytical depth or political variety† (Conboy,2004,p.207) Journalists who are under the pressure of becoming multi-skilled and technically competent to produce multiple media production do not have much â€Å"opportunities for creative reflection or innovation†(Cottle,1999). To illustrate this point, Cottle(1999,p.41) has quoted a statement of one broadcast journalist: â€Å"We dont have time to be creative. Its not that the equipment will not let us be more creative as we used to be†. Pavlik (2001) states that, on the plus side, new media technologies has offered potential for improving quality of journalism as well as helped journalist do their jobs more effectively. In other words, journalists can use new technologies to create much more â€Å"engaging, navigable, contextualized† news productions which reflect everyday life more â€Å"accurately, fully, and dynamically†(Pavlik,2001,p.xvi). However, on the negative side, â€Å"We journalists are no longer the gate keepers in the market place of ideas. The doors have been flung wide open by the egalitarian nature of the Internet and when you look at the big picture you see chaos. You see a medium in its infancy, howling and kicking against the limitations of the world into which it was born. Conclusion To bring this paper to a close, I summarise the main points here: new media technologies have transformed news journalism and its production, at the same time are shaped and operated in news production process. This essay set out to examine the intertwining relationship between technology and journalism, consider it in both positive and negative side. In the first section, it produced some insights into how journalism is influenced by technology and answered the question of how technology are shaped and integrated in news production process. In an attempt to demonstrate this point, evidence was presented relating to the change in news-making activities of journalist in the era of the internet and blogs. Finally, the evidence presented in this paper suggested that technological changes have had diverse impact on the quality of journalism. In other words, technological innovations lead to improvement as well as deterioration of journalism performance and output.