The Contemporary American Dream Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Contemporary American Dream - Essay Example The development of suburbia ‘starts’ with a farewell to Rosie Riveter as transition from World War II to the suburbs of the 1950s. The female factory worker needed to be sucked back into the home to make way in the factories for the returning soldiers. This is brilliantly portrayed through the innovation of the television set, which played a large role in reinforcing to women the concept that their proper roles were those of wife and mother. Rosie is sucked into the screen, losing her wrench while the well-manicured lawns and white orderly house fronts of the suburbs can be seen below her as she is overwhelmed by the messages of TV advertisements and popular shows such as Leave it to Beaver. To be sure this point isn’t lost by the mural viewer, the stereotypical white suburban family can be seen standing behind the television. The rows of suburban houses are divided in the middle by a column of moving trucks, presumably bringing more blonde, blue-eyed suburban per fect families away from the distant city to the white-washed neighborhoods. Finally, a deep ditch separates these perfect neighborhoods from the poor, rural black people that pass by heading in the opposite direction in broken down cars and on bare feet heading into the city. They are allowed to look, but not to stop or stay. While the American Dream is being defined for and realized by the white people, the only hope of achieving it for the black people is to head into the inner city slums in the hopes of finding work.

An Investigation Into the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Among Veterans Essay Example for Free

An Investigation Into the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Among Veterans Essay Introduction There are numerous issues facing American veterans returning home from war, both past and present. They are taught how to transform themselves into different people who are better adept at performing under severe war-zone stressors. They are prepared physically and sometimes mentally for what they will be entering into on foreign territory but not often enough for the challenge of re-entering civilian life. Soldiers are falling through the cracks in our system upon returning home, shown through an increase in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse among veterans. Two theories that I will be exploring in this paper are Conflict Theory and Phenomenology Theory. There is more conflict everyday over what our troops should be doing and why. Any doubt of following the path to become a soldier is critiqued as going against the protection of our country, yet once they come out the other end of this journey the supported soldier is gone and in its place is either the glorified hero or sympathized victim. The phenomena of PTSD can create confusion for everyone involved. There is rarely a great understanding of a soldier’s mind and how it interprets their experiences into reactions after war. These experiences have a real effect on their lives and how they care and handle themselves after war. The way society has constructed what a soldier should represent does not include asking for help and makes them appear weak when if they show vulnerability. This issue is important because even today with easier access to treatment, many veterans today won’t or can’t seek out help. To many it is easier to turn to substance abuse to self-medicate and erase confusion from past experiences. Book Examination In the book Fields of Combat, stories are told of how soldiers are trained to kill and understand that to be a true soldier you must accept you own death. Author Erin Finley describes what it is like for soldiers who came home and developed PTSD, and puts their experiences into a social and cultural perspective. She paints a portrait of PTSD to reveal to readers that there is no comprehensive way to understand or experience it. â€Å"As an anthropologist, I find the web of tangled arguments over PTSD fascinating because these conflicts are in many ways about the nature of war-related suffering itself† (Finley, 2011). She describes how to understand PTSD, we must listen to the experience and concerns of the veterans before we can begin to help them. Theory Exploration The Conflict Theory can be applied to many aspects of a veteran’s life, the individual, their families, communities, and organizations around them. These troops return home without knowing how to integrate back into society. The families who should be overjoyed about the safe return of one of their members are displaced without having proper resources to help their loved ones mental health. They are not given the same stress and trauma training the soldiers is given, nor do they know of the experiences causing change in the soldier. There is not often enough knowledge available to the family of what it will be like for the family to have a soldier return home and can be caught off guard by what the soldier will experience upon return. Communities are affected by having one of their members experiencing side effects of war form attempting to re-enter the work force to social events and even the death of such troops of veterans. There is much debate about how war is handled in t he United States. It is generally agreed upon that protection of American citizens is of importance, but from there on out there is little agreement among groups. When thinking about this debate I cannot help but recall driving up to an intersection in my hometown and seeing picketers on either side of the street. Pro-war protesters held signs on one hand that said â€Å"FREEDOM IS NOT FREE† while anti-war protesters fought back with signs that reminded drivers of the ever-growing death toll of soldiers and civilians. Each side questioning the motives behind the other, from wasting America’s resources to question one’s loyalty to America. While these groups have different interests about sending our troops off to war, they should be able to come together when the troops return in order to offer services to help return to a life as normal as possible. From a Marxist view, veterans can be seen as an exploitation of the government by using the troops to their advantage and profit. While the troops are deployed the government basically owns them, but when they return they must often fend for their own mental and physical well-being. Capitalism has created a class division in this case. The bourgeoisie of our government sit back passively and brush off the symptoms of PTSD as a common experience expected after war. The most common symptoms of PTSD for veterans are thoughts of suicide, domestic violence, substance abuse and panic attacks. These symptoms would cause concern from anyone else but they are brushed under the rug for veterans because it is simply assumed that war experiences will have these kid of severe affects on those exposed. To critique the theory that a small elite group is responsible for deploying troops, we must acknowledge that many groups with similar interests come together to enable war to take place. Propaganda is imposed among society from interest groups on either side of the fence on war. Troops do not simply decide to pack up and head overseas to kill people, nor are they currently forced into deployment; it is their choice to enlist. The people in higher government position who can declare war do not just wake up in that position, they are elected there by the people of this country knowing, for the most part, what views they stand behind. This theory is consistent with social works ethics because it represents the working class and wants to bring consciousness to those who hold power and how we can reduce conflict, ignorance, and inequality. Article Examination In the book, David Grossman tells readers how soldiers killing patterns have changed over time. During previous wars years ago soldiers were more reluctant to kill and fired their weapons more as a warning instead of a kill shot. The Army has since taken steps to increase the percentage of shorts fired to be directed at the actually enemy. Since it was shown to have be easier to get soldiers to kill from a distance instead of up close, machines were provided to allow for distance physically and mentally. The soldiers are basically be dehumanized to be better weapons to the government. He refers to this as Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency, where people have such a fear of what they are experience that their brain reverts to classical and operant condition, which the government has replaced by weakening the part of the soldier that does not want to kill and inserting the actions they prefer. Theory Exploration This action represents yet another way that higher ups are using soldiers as their own material resource, in context to the Conflict Theory. The exploitive subordination of soldiers allows the government to profit by actually influencing how the soldiers think. The government understands that changing the social behavior of a soldier will lead to more power over them and their actions. This theory would show clear winners being the government who benefits from soldiers subordination and the soldiers who suffer. In contrast, you cannot presume that every action the ruling government takes over soldiers is for their benefit alone. The actions, while not always moral, are taken to protect the entire country. Treatment is provided for returning soldiers, even if it is not know or easily accessible to all. The emphasis is not solely social control but consensus and conformity. To go to war is a decision made by different group, not only elites, and a general agreement must be reached before actions are taken with soldiers or deployment. Soldiers are not forced into employment; they conform to the position because their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors are similar to those around them in the Army. Article Examination In the article by David Zucchino, it tells about a soldier who opened fire from his home without warning because he felt he was under attack. This event took place after he received inadequate treatment for PTSD after being diagnosed at â€Å"high risk† for the disease. He was sent to a prison that did not offer him any further treatment for PTSD since they were not affiliated with the military. He is one of the many veterans that has not being given proper treatment after being diagnosed to be at rick for PTSD and ending up in civilian prison where they cannot access further help. He is now left in prison where his symptoms and condition will only worsen. Theory Exploration From the Phenomenology standpoint we would look at expectations of his experience to understand and describe this phenomena. Looking at what appears to be instead of reality, his subjective experiences show emotions he is not fully aware of. His actions, like those of other veterans, stem directly from past and present sensory experiences and cannot defined the same way for each person. The appearance of returning veterans is seen as this joyous moment where they step off a plane in to the loving arms of family and are then forgotten about by most of the culture. Families and communities are left to deal with the veteran’s actions without knowing the driving forces behind their appearance of their actions. The government sees what it wants to see and transfers that to the public. We are shown this ideal soldier who is deployed to protect us and comes home a hero, which our consciousness retained as a singular memory of a soldier. That is what society wants to believe about war because our consciousness does not want to identify killing, death, and destruction with our freedom or it would not be as easy to ship off members of our own community to their impending death. Once they return they are given a pat on the back for a job well done and turned over with the intention of re-entering a community as a normal member once again. We define the content of our consciousness as making this place, America, better by using an object, the soldier, to do so. â€Å"Central Prison has done a good job of treating Eisenhauer’s physical wounds† (Zucchino, 2012). We treat what we can see, but leave what we do not understand unattended. In this theory we can only see one side of the situation at a time, and we are stuck on this glorified soldier but cannot combine with him the vulnerability and confusion he returns home with. In critique to this theory, there are things outside of our memory and consciousness that do exist. Just because we cannot fully grasp what is happening to these veterans does not mean that it is not happening. They are sent essentially sent to another world to deal with hardships and are thrown back into reality without being reprogrammed. There are not always theoretical structures that will allow us to understand the phenomena of what the veterans will go through. References Carter, A. C., Capone , C., Eaton Short, E. (2011). Co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder and alcohol use disorders in veteran populations. Journal of Dual Diagnosis, 7(4), 285-299. Finley, E. P. (2011). Fields of combat: Understanding PTSD among veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Grossman, D. (2009). On killing: The psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society. New York: Back Bay Books. Levinson, N. (2012). What really happened to america’s soldier, The Nation. Retrieved November 20, 2012 from http://www.thenation.com/article/168652/what-has-really-happened-americas-soldiers# Litz, B., Orsillo, S. M. (2010). Iraq war clinician guide . (pp. 21-32). Department of Veteran Affairs. Retrieved December 1, 2012 from http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/manuals/manual-pdf/iwcg/iraq_clinician_guide_ch_3.pdf Stecker, T. (2011). 5 Survivors: Personal stories of healing from PTSD and traumatic events. Center City: Hazelden Foundation. Zucchino, D. (2012, June 24). Accused soldier is a prisoner to ptsd; believing he was under attack by insurgents, he started firing from his home. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on December 1, 2012 from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uvm.edu/docview/1021854523/13AE8FF837D23A623BE/7?accountid=14679

Data Application Development Earthquake and Breast Cancer

Data Application Development Earthquake and Breast Cancer Data Application Development for Earthquake and Breast Cancer Datasets Abstract-This report is a general study of two datasets, the first contains data from the earthquake occurred in the region of Marche, Italy in the year 2016 and the second dataset is mammography data, with mean values of measurements and structures of tumors found in patients, for both studies different techniques related to data science were applied, with the intention of revealing conclusions that a priori are impossible to visualize. Keywords-Italy Earthquake, Mammongraphy studies, MapReduce algorithm, Python. With the high processing power that modern computers have acquired, one of the scientific branches that have been most developing is data science, which consists of the generalized extraction of knowledge from information and data. Unlike statistical analysis, data science is more holistic, more global, for using large volumes of data to extract knowledge that adds value to an organization of any kind. In this project, the breast cancer dataset contains information on the geometry, size and texture of tumors found in approximately 5100 patients. The main idea with this database is to construct a predictive model that will be able to detect when a tumor is carcinogenic in other words, predict whether the cancer is benign or malignant, from the descriptions of the same one. In the other hand, the second dataset contains information about the earthquake that occurred in Italy in year 2016, contains all the replicas that occurred by three days after and all earthquakes are geotagged, with this dataset the main idea is to do data mining, to visualize the information of an innovative way, applying geospatial theory and statistical techniques specific of data science. A. Italy 2016 Earthquake Dataset This database is Open-Source accessible to the community and is part of the extensive catalog offered free of charge by the Kaggle website, its structure is as follows: template dataset Time Latitude Longitude Depth Magnitude UTC time WGS87 WGS87 Km Richter scale It has 8086 records with full data history, each row represents an earthquake event. For each event, the following properties are given: the exact timing of the event in the format Y-m-d hh:mm:s.ms the exact geographical coordinates of the event, in latitude and longitude the depth of the hypocenter in kilometers the magnitude value in Richter scale The dataset was collected from this real-time updated list from the Italian Earthquakes National Center. From now on we will call this dataset A B. Breast Cancer (Diagnostic) Data Set Features are computed from a digitized image of a fine needle aspirate (FNA) of a breast mass. They describe characteristics of the cell nuclei present in the image. n the 3-dimensional space is that described in [1]. Attribute Information: 1) ID number 2) Diagnosis (M = malignant, B = benign) 2)Ten real-valued features are computed for each cell nucleus: (a) radius (mean of distances from center to points on the perimeter) (b) texture (standard deviation of gray-scale values) (c) perimeter (d) area (e) smoothness (local variation in radius lengths) (f) compactness (perimeter^2 / area 1.0) (g) concavity (severity of concave portions of the contour) (h) concave points (number of concave portions of the contour) (i) symmetry (j) fractal dimension (coastline approximation 1) 3) The mean, standard error and worst or largest (mean of the three largest values) of these features were computed for each image, resulting in 30 features. For instance, field 3 is Mean Radius, field 13 is Radius SE, field 23 is Worst Radius. 4) All feature values are recoded with four significant digits. This database was obtained from Kaggle website. It belongs to their repository and is open to scientist of the world that want to study it. From now on we will call this dataset B Knowledge extraction is mainly related to the discovery process known as Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD), which refers to the non-trivial process of discovering knowledge and potentially useful information within the data contained in some information repository [2]. It is not an automatic process, it is an iterative process that exhaustively explores very large volumes of data to determine relationships. It is a process that extracts quality information that can be used to draw conclusions based on relationships or models within the data. A. Data selection Both databases were carefully chosen based on the following details: Reliable source or repository, which guarantees the reliability of the data, for this report the source is Kaggle who maintain a database open to the public and that users can comment. Data without an excessive amount of white space, since having to fill this spaces with 0 can cause distortions in the model, making the predictions or conclusions of the studies are invalid. That they contain at least 5000 rows, to make substantial the study and the conclusions had measurable. B. information preprocessing For both datasets, some simple statistical tests were performed with the intention of filling the missing data in the most effective way. For example, for the data of the B the standard deviation and the mean value was calculated, besides raising a frequency histogram to check that the data followed a Gaussian distribution, in fact the data is distributed in this way, so it was completed with values taken randomly based on the mean and standard deviation of the data, this way ensures that the missing data does not provide incorrect information. For the data of A, the average values were obtained and the latitudes and longitudes of each exact point where the earthquake occurred, rounded off in order to be able to made a geospatial label with a region of each Italian province. C. Transformation For both datasets, MapReduce algorithm was applied it is based on the HDFS data architecture. The idea is to be able to map key values, with each of the data and its header, so that the access to them is efficient, with this it is tried to give robustly to data, in addition to reducing the processing times. The main idea of this type of algorithm is to be able to maintain the data in distributed systems, although for this project only a single node was configured. D. Data Mining At this stage of the process, it is already clear how are data distributed, and it is where we decide which Machine Learning or Data Mining algorithms to apply. For the case of data set B, we decided Machine Learning algorithm based on logistic regression, starting from the following arguments: It was verified that the data follow a linear distribution and are correlated with each other. As the result is a decision, Benign or Malignant (1 or 0) The most intuitive is to apply the logistic regression to predict the diagnoses. For the second set of data the technique used will be the a posteriori study of the cataclysm with the intention of revealing conclusions about earthquake, focused on the geospatial area, starting with the labeling WGS87 and with the coordinates of each earthquake it is possible to construct a density of earthquakes by region, With this data it is possible to determine which region was most affected, which was the epicenter of the earthquake and to determine if there is a correlation between the depth of the earthquake and the magnitude. There is no period after the et in the Latin abbreviation et al. The abbreviation i.e. means that is, and the abbreviation e.g. means for example. The implementation was made in Python version 2.7. There are a few key libraries that will be used. Below is a list of the Python SciPy libraries required for implement algorithms for B: Scipy, numpy, matplotlib, pandas sklearn, patsy and statsmodels. And other few more for implement A: Pandas, Numpy, Matplotlib, Basemap, Shapely, Pysal, Descartes, Fiona, Pylabs and Statsmodels, and the architecture for store and read the data is the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is the primary storage system used by Hadoop applications. HDFS is built to support applications with large data sets, including individual files that reach into the terabytes. It uses a master/slave architecture, with each cluster consisting of a single NameNode that manages file system operations and supporting DataNodes that manage data storage on individual compute nodes. In the next image, Fig. 1 are exposed the workflow diagram for the Machine Learning algorithm applied to B dataset Figure 1: Workflow for Machine Learning algorithm And in the second one, Fig. 2 the workflow for dataset A, this workflow was constructed from the selected methodology, the idea is to follow this pattern of work to increase the productivity of research as they are work frames highly tested by qualified researchers in the area. Figure 2: Workflow for Data Mining research For the data set B, a recursion stage is considered in case the final predictions are not satisfactory, this would entail rethinking the model and to get everything values again. For data set A, the diagram is focused on maximum representation of the data to extract a substantial number of conclusions from graphs. A. Dataset A The first result obtained is a map of the central region of Italy with each of 8000 points where earthquakes occurred. Figure 3: Scatter ploting with administrative subdivision Weve drawn a scatter plot on Italy map Fig. 3, containing points with a 50 meters diameter, corresponding to each point of A dataset. This is a first step, but doesnt really tell anything interesting about the density per region merely that there were more earthquakes in Marche Italy region than in the outer places. Figure 4: Density ploting with administrative subdivision Now we can see how was the distribution Fig. 4 of the earthquake. It is clear on the map that the regions most affected were Lazio, Marche and Umbria. Figure 5: Magnitude rolling mean Most of the earthquakes occurred at a depth of 10km. This can be seen in next graph Fig. 6 by a frequency histogram of depth. Figure 6: Frequency Histogram The following table shows the 5 earthquakes with the greatest impact and their regions where they occurred. table II: Greater magnitude earthquakes Time Region Depth Magnitude 2016-08-24 Lazio 8.1 6.0 2016-08-24 Umbria 8.0 5.4 2016-10-26 Umbria 8.7 5.4 2016-10-26 Brescia 7.5 5.9 2016-10-30 Brescia 9.2 6.5 B. Dataset B We are going to look at two types of plots: Univariate plots to better understand each attribute. Multivariate plots to better understand the relationships between attributes. 1) Univariate Plots: We start with some univariate plots, that is, plots of each individual variable. Given that the input variables are numeric, we can create box and whisker plots of each. Figure 7: whisker plots Fig. 7 gives a much clearer idea of the distribution of the input attributes It looks like perhaps most of the input variables have a Gaussian distribution. This is useful to note as we can use algorithms that can exploit this assumption also this can be seen in Fig. 8. Figure 8: Frequency histogram 2) Algorithm evaluation: In this step we evaluated the most important algorithms of Machine Learning in search of which is best adapted to the data. we used statistical methods to estimate the accuracy of the models that we create on unseen data. We also want a more concrete estimate of the accuracy of the best model on unseen data by evaluating it on actual unseen data. That is, we were held back some data that the algorithms will not get to see and we will use this data to get a second and independent idea of how accurate the best model might actually be. We split the loaded dataset into two, 80% of which we used to train our models and 20% that we will hold back as a validation dataset. We evaluated 6 different algorithms: Logistic Regression (LR) Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN). Classification and Regression Trees (CART). Gaussian Naive Bayes (NB). Support Vector Machines (SVM). This is a good mixture of simple linear (LR and LDA), nonlinear (KNN, CART, NB and SVM) algorithms. We reset the random number seed before each run to ensure that the evaluation of each algorithm is performed using exactly the same data splits. It ensures the results are directly comparable. Figure 9: Algorithm comparison LR: 0.658580 (0.027300) LDA: 0.661676 (0.026534) KNN: 0.606749 (0.023558) CART: 0.569616 (0.041578) NB: 0.621194 (0.032784) SVM: 0.641823 (0.025195) The LR algorithm was the most accurate model that we tested. Now we want to get an idea of the accuracy of the model on our validation set. This will give us an independent final check on the accuracy of the best model. It is valuable to keep a validation set just in case you made a slip during training, such as overfitting to the training set or a data leak. Both will result in an overly optimistic result. We can run the LR model directly on the validation set and summarize the results as a final accuracy score, a confusion matrix and a classification report. The accuracy is 0.75 or 75%. The confusion matrix provides an indication of the 25 errors made. As we can see the data science has a wide field of work, in areas so diverse that for the case of this report ranging from medicine to cartography and seismology. With this report, it is evident how important the Machine Learning algorithms in cancer diagnosis, although this small case in study is not perfect, there are more advanced tools and more sophisticated algorithms that allow penetrating in this field of An amazing form, the author recommend a degree project where Deep Learning algorithms and deep neural networks are applied in the diagnosis of diseases. It is certainly a prominent field. On the other hand, in the first dataset, it was possible to explore tools for the management of maps and the placement of big amounts of data on these, with the main idea of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹exposing results that looking at the raw data is impossible to observe. This allows you to find new points of view about phenomena already happened and learn from them to improve infrastructures or tools. In short, data science is a field in full swing that will give much to talk about in recent years, we live in an age where information is power and manipulate and understand information are the tools of the future. References K. P. Bennett and O. L. Mangasarian: Robust Linear Programming Discrimination of Two Linearly Inseparable Sets, Optimization Methods and Software 1, 1992, 23-34 Williams, G. J., Huang, Z. (1996, October). A case study in knowledge acquisition for insurance risk assessment using a KDD methodology. In Proceedings of the Pacific Rim Knowledge Acquisition Workshop, Dept. of AI, Univ. of NSW, Sydney, Australia (pp. 117-129).

Investigating The Economic Impact Of The Olympic Games Tourism Essay

Investigating The Economic Impact Of The Olympic Games Tourism Essay Every year millions of people around the world travel either for business, vacation or a combination of both. Tourism is the biggest industry in the world and is continually growing (lecture 1). By the end of the 20th Century total global tourism (international and domestic) has been estimated to be worth at around U.S $3.5 trillion. Tourism has been widely accepted as growth industry and is expected to grow at an average rate of 4% per annum (sharpley and telfer). Both developed and developing nations all around the globe try to take advantage of this fact and in order to achieve greater economic growth and in the case of developing nations to achieve a higher standard of living as well. This makes the tourism industry a very competitive one, with nations trying to attract as many tourists as possible and reap the benefits. One way for countries to capture these benefits associated with tourism is to host different events. Getz (2007) identified and categorized them into different scales of events. These range from local and regional events like the Nottingham Music Festival and the European Youth Olympic Festival respectively to periodic hallmark events like the Formula One Grand Prix. The biggest category however is that of the Mega Events which include the Olympic Games and the World Cup. These events are of high tourist demand and have a high value for the host city in terms of economic, environmental, social, cultural and political impacts. It is important for the government of the hosting country as well as the hosting city to use policies to get as much positive effects as possible from these impacts whilst decreasing the negative ones. Roche (1994) defined mega events as short term events with long term consequences for the cities that stage them. He claims that if a host city is successful in programming the events correctly, a new or renewed image will be projected which would bring long lasting economic benefits in terms of tourism, investment and business. Moreover, he claims that with this new or renewed image the host city is able to become a center of capital and labor, production and exchange in the national and global economy (Roche, 1994). Therefore, it can be argued that the economic aspect of the Olympic Games is the most significant one and the economic legacies left behind by such events can change and reshape entire cities. In order to gain a better understanding of the economic impacts of mega events, and more specifically of the Olympic Games, these impacts must be separated in accordance to whether they happen before, during or after the event (Li S. Blake). An analysis will follow that will explain these different stages in terms of the Olympics and the relevant economic impacts as well as the policies the government can adopt to gain the maximum positive outcomes of the event. The pre-game period is a time of planning and deadlines, investments both private and public and construction. Moreover, once the city wins the bidding process the news of this fact are echoed all around the world. This may tempt tourists to visit the country prior to the event. The period during the Games has certain economic impacts that come from the tourists and the revenues the event brings and it is a way to show the world the change that the city underwent through the media exposure that surrounds the Games. The most important period is after the Games however, since it is when the results will start to take effect. This is the aim of the host cities, to capture the long term economic effects or the economic legacy the games create. The economic legacy involves the extra tourists that will want to visit the host city; businesses may be attracted to relocate there; the establishment of the city as a business hub and generally the increased economic growth to the host city as we ll as the whole economy of the country. First of all, one of the characteristics of the Olympic Games is the amount of money it attracts that is subsequently invested in them during the pre-game period. These funds come from the public and private sector and are spent on the construction of sport venues, tourism facilities and infrastructure (Sakai, 2006). These funds are different from the organizational costs the Olympic Organizing Committee has. The organizational costs relate to items not usable after the Games whereas the investments mentioned above will continue to serve the city in the future. The Barcelona Olympics of 1992 had total organizational costs of 1.364 billion U.S Dollars ($) and investments amounting to $8.012 billion (Poynter, 2006). By looking at this from an economics point of view, investments are part of the circular flow of income, it is an injection, and as such bring economic growth and job creation and has long term effects (Sloman, ). Barcelona for example, focused 61.5% of these investments for construction work which includes transport infrastructure, housing, offices and business premises, telecommunication and services, hotels, sports facilities and environmental infrastructure. This is a clear indicator of Barcelonaà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s restructuring effort (Brunet, 2005). Furthermore, the construction effort that is being funded will bring increased employment in the city, decreasing unemployment and as a result increase the standard of living of its local citizens. In Barcelona, unemployment rates fell from 18.4% in 1986 to 9.6% in 1992 (Brunet, 2005). If the standard of living is raised, there will be great social effects (a decrease in crime due to the rise of employment, people would want to live in better conditions and will be able to afford them as well as many more). These in turn can bring greater economic impacts because tourists visiting the city will be able to see the change and difference and the probability of experiencing an enjoyable stay will increase substantially. This might affect them to consider visiting the city again, during the games or after, and they may spread their experiences through word of mouth, indirectly advertising the city. These benefits however all depend on how the government decides to invest the money. Barcelona invested heavily in infrastructure $8.012 billion and the benefits can still be seen today, whereas Sydney only spent $3.03 billion (Poynter, 2006). In addition to this, it is important to include the opportunity costs associated with the building of Olympic Venues. According to Owen (2005), these investments must not be considered as benefits for the economy but rather as costs. This is because opportunity costs are very high since the money spent on Olympic venues could have been spent on other public needs like health and education which also leads to long term economic growth (Li, Blake). Taking the example of Barcelona again, the spending associated with Olympic venue construction (9.1%) is insignificant compared with the 61.5% allocated for other infrastructure. As stated above, investment in infrastructure is an injection which brings long term economic benefits and Barcelona investe d heavily in that area. This may be one of the reasons why Barcelona has had steady economic growth the twelve years after the games.

Kenneth Fearing’s Dirge Essay -- Kenneth Fearing Dirge Essays

Kenneth Fearing’s Dirge Traditionally, dirges are composed in the form of a song or hymn of mourning as a memorial to a dead person. The very definition suggests that the particular qualities of the dead individual deserve recognition. The dirge is not just written for anyone, but for those deserving of glorification, who survive in the memories of the living as testaments to the greater capacities of humankind. It is against this traditional definition that Kenneth Fearing’s poem, â€Å"Dirge†, is working, not only as an overt commentary on the social, cultural, and political factors surrounding the destabilization of 1930’s America but also as an abstraction of the prevalent views of reality: the dehumanization of the human. Fearing superimposes these thematic projects onto the context of the Great Depression, a period of American history often seen as representing overarching society decline, the dull malaise of futility, and the alienation of the individual. Through an exploration o f the structural elements of â€Å"Dirge†, one can find just how Fearing constructs a particular vision of modernism. As a prelude to an inquiry into thematic elements of the poem, it is first necessary to draw out the importance of Fearing’s use of experimental form. Fearing â€Å"adheres† to the conventional use of strophic poetic construction, making use of epigrammatic style, where the seven stanzas separate the lament into isolated combinations and experiments on language and the content suggests each might stand alone as organic entities. Putting these highly-varied units into a single poem reflects on the incoherence of broader theme of death and the response to death, the dirge, as well as the notion that such a broad topic as death contains many sma... ..., the content and form has self-deconstructed, resulting in a meaningless reduction/manifestation of repetition. The primary focus of the poem on the death and memory of a man has been sacrificed, leaving only the skeletal membrane of any sort of focus in the poem. The â€Å"Dirge† which initially was meant to reflect on the life of the individual has been completely abstracted. The â€Å"Dirge† the reader is left with at the end of the poem is one meant for anyone and no one. Just as the internal contradictions in Kenneth Fearing’s poem have eliminated the substantial significance of each isolated concern, the reader is left without not only a resolution, but any particular tangible meaning at all. The form and content of this poem have quite effectively established a powerful modernist statement, ironically contingent on the absence and not the presence of meaning in life.

Graham Greenes The Human Factor Essay -- Graham Greene Human Factor

Graham Greene's The Human Factor "Love was a total risk. Literature had always so proclaimed it. Tristan, Anna Karenina, even the lust of Lovelace - he had glanced at the last volume of Clarissa [13]." People are torn apart from one another simply because of a lack of understanding or a difference in each individual's definition of life. The highest hopes, dreams, and aspirations of one person may be trivial in the eyes of another. The way that one would define love, good, and evil could very well be the exact opposite of another's definition. To one society or culture, a man may seem to be a god because of his beliefs and values; while, to another, that man may appear to be a devil. In his The Human Factor, Graham Greene makes the reader question his or her own values and definitions while following the fast-paced and mysterious life of an English double agent. The binding power of love, the true determent of evil and the cleansing force of good are shown to be all in the eye of the beholder. As Castle, who could e asily be paralleled to both the author and the legendary and fictitious James Bond, says in the novel, love of anything is a total risk. But, it is that binding power of love, whether it is love of another or love of a country or society, that acts as a stabilizing force in society's comprehension and balance of good and evil. The character of Castle is as complex as his interpretation of the meanings of love, good, and evil as well as the connection between the three entities. Throughout the entire novel, Greene plays on the reader's assumption that Castle is not the double-agent. More importantly, he is perhaps the only character in the novel that the reader instantly associates with and perce... ...ions are just like those of Castle in the novel. Therefore, it is almost plausible to conclude that Greene personified himself as Castle. Since Castle seems to believe that he is the perfect spy or hero - James Bond, then Greene also believes this about himself. The beliefs of Castle would then be representative of Greene. By taking advantage of man's natural tendencies to apply their knowledge of good, evil, and love to any given situation, Greene has made a spy mystery that requires the reader to challenge his or her own definitions. The simple story of a lone crusader in the sea of enemies becomes a battle between good and evil, God and the Devil, and love and hate through the mastery of Greene's poetic hand. In the words of Davis, the reader has become "an actor who has been miscast: when he tried to live up to the costume, he... fumbled the part" [4].

Ambition in Macbeth by William Shakespeare Essay

What is ambition? Ambition is described as eager for success, power or fame. For Macbeth. Ambition was what drove him to become great, it forced him to change his nature towards evil. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth was portrayed as a courageous soldier who fought for his King without mercy. But once the witches planted the seeds of greater things and Lady Macbeth fuelled his ambition, which lead him to become greedy and power hungry. Macbeth was led down to an unescapable road of doom by an outside force, namely fate in the form of the three witches. There was no supernatural force working against Macbeth, which therefore makes him responsible for his own actions and inevitable downfall. Macbeth is indeed responsible for his own actions, which are provoked by an unwillingness to listen to his own conscience, the witches, and his ambition. The witches tempted Macbeth with their prophecies, which made Macbeth ¡Ã‚ ¦s heart and mind slowly filled with ambition and his huger for power. The witches predicted, at the beginning of the play, that Macbeth would soon become the Thane of Cawdor and eventually the outright King. They tell Macbeth this, simply to ignite what would finally end up in him taking the life of King Duncan. Ambition, no matter how small, builds up, and becomes a need. When this ambition is built up and encouraged, it can influence a person’s decision. Macbeth went to three witches, who prophesized that he would become King. This got Macbeth thinking of how he can become King. At this time, he was still unsure of whether he would take any action toward gaining the crown. When he comes back to his house, Lady Macbeth convinces him to murder King Duncan, through emotionally degrading him, shown in the quote: â€Å"Art thou afeard/ To be the same in thine own act and valour/ As thou art in desire?† (Act I, Scene IV). This quote shows how Lady Macbeth influenced Macbeth’s decision, because after hearing about the prophecy, she also had the ambition for her husband to become King. Macbeth slowly becomes accustomed to killing and does it more easily and without remorse. For example, after Macbeth becomes king, he begins to worry about the second part of the prophecy, when Banquo’s sons become kings. Knowing that he will not have any heirs, Macbeth dreads the idea of â€Å"the  seeds of Banquo kings. Rather than so, come fate into the list, and champion me to the utterance†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (3.1.70-73). Since he committed a sinful act to fulfill his desire become king, Macbeth does not want to lose everything he got to Banquo’s royal bloodline This shows how corrupt and villainous Macbeth has become; he will not let anything, not even friendship, get in the way of his desire to be the King of Scotland. And if the destruction of friendship is not a symbol of how strong Macbeth’s ambition truly is, then the manslaughter of an innocent man’s entire family is. When Macbeth sees the three apparitions, one of them tells him to beware Macduff . Surprisingly, after Macbeth learns that Macduff has fled to England, he responds by declaring that he will â€Å"give to the edge o’ the sword his wife, babes, and all unfortunate souls that trace him in his line.† (4.1.151-153). This shows how corrupt and evil Macbeth has become; he doesn’t even care about who he’s killing anymore. A wife and kids symbolizes purity and love in a man’s life; the fact that Macbeth doesn’t even consider the moral consequences of destroying a loving family and killing children shows how filled with ambition he has become. Macbeth is so afraid of losing to Macduff that he believes that by killing his family, Macduff will be broken beyond repair and not be able to face Macbeth. Unfortunately, he does not count on a certain someone to heighten Macduff’s hopes to slaying Macbeth by using his sorrow to his advantage. That certain someone is Malcolm, the son of Duncan. After the murder of his father, Malcolm’s ambition to destroy Macbeth becomes so strong that he forgets all moral values and disregards the feelings of others; this ambition represents revenge. Though Malcolm is able to understand the feelings of others, he lets nothing stop him from achieving his goal; this is either due to his inexperience of the world, or because he is too bent on revenge to think about anything else. When Macduff learns that his family is murdered, he begins to despair. Malcolm, not wanting to let anything get in the way of his ambition, tells Macduff to â€Å"dispute it like a man.† (4.3.221). Since Malcolm is a young man; he does not have a wife or kids and disregards Macduff’s pain as a sign of weakness. Note that even if Malcolm had a family and understood Macduff’s pain fully, he would still have been reckless and put revenge above anything else. Malcolm’s  father was a good man who lost his life at the hands of the man h e trusted the most; Malcolm is not going to let Macduff’s personal tragedy get in the way of his goal of destroying Macbeth. When Macduff responds by saying that first he must feel pain like a man, Malcolm responds by telling Macbeth to make his grief â€Å"be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.† (4.3.230- 231). While Malcolm is more understanding of the pain Macduff feels, he still convinces him to move on. When he says â€Å"let grief convert to anger†, he means for Macduff to use his sorrow as his anger so he can move on with his life and destroy the man responsible for his sorrow: Macbeth. Malcolm truly does feel bad about Macduff losing his family, but unlike Macduff, he has no family to worry about and has not experienced every pain and sorrow Macduff has been through. Given this evidence, it is evident how much ambition Malcolm has for destroying Macbeth. Macbeth is not fully to blame for his ambition clouding his judgment since the audience knows that Lady Macbeth has him kill Duncan so she can be Queen; this ambition represents power. While Macbeth is to blame for all he has done to his country, his wife started a chain reaction that sent Macbeth down this dark path. Had Macbeth not told his wife about the prophecies, she would not have become so obsessed with power and she would not have sent her husband to kill Duncan so she could be Queen faster†¦and all of Macbeth’s victims would be alive and well. Lady Macbeth wants so desperately to gain power, she begs of the immortals to â€Å"unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty!† (1.5.41-43). Lady Macbeth is asking the spirits (or gods†¦I’m not quite sure; it’s pretty vague) to make her cruel and unforgiving so she can do the terrible deed of killing Duncan. This shows how evil and impatient Lady Macbeth is; ha d she waited for Duncan to promote Macbeth, she could have been Queen without her husband having to kill anyone, Macbeth would still have been a good person, and they would not have had to suffer so much guilt for all they did. Later, after Lady Macbeth drugs the guards, she boasts about the drugs â€Å"that which hath made them drunk Sprouse  hath made me bold; what hath quenched them hath given me fire.† Now Lady  Macbeth is almost certain that they will not fail; her ambition has clouded her better judgment and ignored the possibility of guilt haunting her and her husband. This ambition, the ambition of power, is by far the most deadly of all ambitions. If you want power so badly and very quickly, you forget about all the consequences that might come from it. In Lady Macbeth’s case, her consequence for her actions was the loss of her sanity and restless nights thinking about what she made her husband do, eventually causing her to take her own life. This being said, I think it is safe to say that too much ambition is NOT a promise of power or a sign of greatness.