Creative Process Essay

When I think about artistic profession I often wonder why artists want to be artists. The very idea of beginning every day with the obligation to create something of strong value, something that never existed before, seems really hard work and at the same time activity that has a strange beauty in itself. How does an artist engage in the creative process and make something-out-of-nothing to come into existence? How does the creative process begin? Does it have structure, or the creative process consists just of imagery and an elusive sparkle that lights the creative fire in the artist’s mind? I spent a lot of time examining professional life and work of many creative artists and how they are engaged in the creative process. This paper will make some generalizations about creativity and genius that are fundamental to the understanding of the creative process and then will analyze the creative process in the lives of four notable artists who are Langston Hughes, Alvin Ailey, Quincy Jones, and George Lucas. The insights of the creative process then will lead to the exploration of creative process in my own life. The Creative Process Creativity is a constantly stimulating process and ultimately causing excitement. To observe and experience it fully is some of the most gratifying aspects of the artistic life and professional activity. One of the possible difficulties of exploring or analyzing the creative process is that it can become uninspired. Really, one of the most recent debates in this sphere is whether or not creativity is simply an instance of rational and analytical problem solving or consists of other, more magic processes. Nevertheless, one thing is obvious – the main benefit of exploring creativity and the creative process is that one will ultimately come to the understanding of the processes experienced and more importantly will be able to improve the development and stimulate cultivation of creativity in himself and other people. What is known about the creative process? Let us consider the main components of the creative process. At first, one should know difference between the creative product and the creative process. A general distinction is that the creative product is the output of the artistic activity. It is the artistic output that is to be determined as creative or not creative. What are the characteristics of a product that is considered as creative? Torrance (1988), for example, in an analysis of definitions of creativity, stated that newness is a principal defining characteristic of the creative product. Newness, however, is not the only criteria. It is also of great importance that the product is good (that is, artistically appealing). Vernon (1989) proposed a more comprehensive definition of the creative product stating that, â€Å"Creativity means a person’s capacity to produce new or original ideas, insights, restructuring, inventions, or artistic objects, which are accepted by experts as being of scientific, aesthetic, social, or technological value† (p. 94). It can be seen that cultural values and norms are a necessary part of the criteria for considering some artistic output to be creative. A major question then that emerges is â€Å"what are the creative processes that lead to the creative output? † What the creative process is involved that increases the chances that an artist will generate a creative output? If one can recognize the constituting processes involved and the character of their interaction, then one can begin to get a picture of the fundamental essence of the creative process. To do this, I will examine the major stages of the creative process in the next sections. One of the first well-known attempts to study and theorize the creative process was by Wallas in 1926. Wallas proposed the major stages that reflect different processes of the creative process. Although the stages proposed by Wallas are generalized and global, his model provides a good foundation for the understanding of the creative process. This two-stage model involves the following creative processes: 1. Preparation Stage. In this stage the artist gathers different information, becomes thoroughly proficient, and identifies the problem. It is in this stage that the fundamental techniques and knowledge base for realization of a particular goal are mastered. Usually, the fundamental cognitive processes of logic, associations, and creative problem finding should be primary in this first stage. The first creative problem finder I would like to mention is named Langston Hughes. Like many other noble artists, Langston Hughes found problems to solve with art. Langston Hughes found problems to solve with his creative writing. He loved to communicate with people and observe the sights and sounds of his district in Harlem and then incorporate this experience into his works. The artist found many fascinating ideas for poems during this process. Actually, some of his most renowned poems tell about the things he perceived with his creative mind and people he met in Harlem. In the same manner, Alvin Ailey found problems to solve with his own choreography. Thus, for example, Ailey made Afternoon Blues (1953), his first creative dance work. Working with a musical piece from Leonard Bernstein’s On the Town, Ailey performed the hypersensual, animalistic role of the Faun (Latham, pp. 481–482). In this great work of the artist, Ailey produced a mental image of dance as a liberation from heterosexual white domination, he found a safe place in his creative work where he could travel into his inner world as a fully sensual human being free from usual problems of race and sexuality. Another example of problem solving by the artist is Ailey’s creative reaction to Horton’s death (he was Ailey’s mentor): the artist decided to make dances that tell dance stories about dear people he knew. He created his first choreographic works to â€Å"pay tribute to Lester Horton, to demonstrate the strength of James Truitte, and to emphasize the beauty and dramatic ability of Carmen de Lavallade† (Latham, pp. 485–486). Ailey was creative problem solver: â€Å"I knew nothing about making dances for a group so I put everything about modern dance which I had read or seen into the work. In addition, I did everything the way that I thought Lester would have done it†¦. I was just trying to be like Lester because I thought that was the way to be creative† (Latham, p. 488). 2. Illumination Stage. In this stage of the creative process ideas are generated using the analytical thinking and logical working on the problem. It is in this stage that Wallas introduced the process of the unconscious associations. Creative problem solving is not consciously made, but much organizing in a different way and free associating takes place outside of conscious awareness of the artist. In the next sections, there are several descriptions of creative artists and their experience in this illumination stage. During this process thoughts are permitted to roam in an uncontrollable manner. It is here that creative processes may play a particularly important role. Artist may want to examine works of the past centuries or creations from different cultures for generating new images that are based on the already created idea. This type of exercise can be thought of as an essential part of the analytical and associative skills necessary for the creative process. To better understand how this works let us examine the history of film that is full of analogical and associative thinking. One of the most famous and popular examples of movie creativity is George Lucas’s original Star Wars film of 1977. The success of the film is legendary. Moreover, it completely changed how movies are produced. Interestingly, none of the visual images that the film producer used during the writing of the plot were themselves original. Film observers state that most of Lucas’s imagery was taken from previous film stories and George Lucas himself admits that his original models were the Flash Gordon movie serials and Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars series of books: â€Å"I wanted to make an action movie – a movie in outer space like Flash Gordon used to be. . . . I wanted to make a movie about an old man and a kid. . . . I also wanted the old man to be like a warrior. I wanted a princess, too, but I didn’t want her to be a passive damsel in distress† (Interview with George Lucas). It seems that the screenwriter wanted to return to the sense of wonder and adventure movies that had expired him as he was a child but to update that sense for popular tastes of contemporary public and make good use of all the technological and cinematic new methods and devices that developed in the period that had passed since Flash Gordon. He one can see how Lucas was truly creative in this stage by incorporating in Star Wars the myth narrative; the screenwriter used a creative analytical and associative thinking and he succeeded. But this process was not a burst of inspiration; it evolved over a five-year period of rewriting and editing of the script: I began writing Star Wars in January 1973 – eight hours a day, five days a week, from then until March 1976, when we began shooting. Even then I was busy doing various rewrites in the evenings after the day’s work. In fact, I wrote four entirely different screenplays for Star Wars, searching for just the right ingredients, characters and storyline. . . . What finally emerged through the many drafts of the script has obviously been influenced by science fiction and action adventure I’ve read and seen. And I’ve seen a lot of it. I’m trying to make a classic sort of genre picture, a classic space fantasy in which all the influences are working together. There are certain traditional aspects of the genre I wanted to keep and help perpetuate in Star Wars (Zito 1977, p. 13). Important analyses on the cognitive processes involved in the creative process have been performed by a number of researchers. For example, Sternberg (Sternberg & Davidson, 1982) gave emphasis to the importance of insight in creative process. Sternberg and Davidson (1982) indicate that three types of insights are found in the creative process. First, the artist selectively separates relevant from irrelevant images. Selective union of separate parts brings about synthesizing isolated pieces of images into united wholes. In this way images are organized in new ways. This type of information gathering sets the stage for creative insights. Usually, creative artists have been transformed, have been inspired by, and often have plagiarized the ideas of other artist and from various cultures through the whole of history. This process can also be seen in Ailey’s work that echoed literary traditions of black cultural heritage, registering â€Å"the existence of a ‘black self’ that had transcended the limitations and restrictions that racism had placed on the personal development of the black individual. † Incorporating African American tradition and culture, Ailey’s creative work became an embodiment of African American culture. The artist’s creative process into concert dance was built on African American works and childhood memories. Ailey wrote about Redonda, later retitled Cinco Latinos (21 December 1958) that: â€Å"The innate sense of melodrama of the primitive ritual is exploited in this interpretation of an Afro-Brazilian fetishistic ritual, with movements based on both the sensual and animalistic elements of these rites† (Ailey program note). Ailey succeeded in the connecting the whole generation of African-American individuals with the mainstream U. S. culture. It is perhaps the ability to shift between stages that is important to the creative process. Such ability allows the artist to gain access to creative cognitive and affective processes. It enables the artist to transform or revise what he or she knows and to find new patterns. Like so many others in his time and after, creative record producer Quincy Jones in his creative process is both fascinated and inspired by the new media. He is enthusiastic about technology’s potential to move musical art one step further. This allowed Quincy Jones to succeed in creating real hits from ordinary singers and songs. When artists are engaged in these creative processes, they feel they are performing at the peak of their abilities. In my life I also feel that my creative work gives me insights and makes my live rich. Moreover, I think that creativity is part of what makes me really human allowing me to reach the highest levels of creative performance. Analyzing the creative artists’ professional life and creative act I identified the major personality traits that relate to tests of creativity and that I also try to develop. They include: †¢ openness to experience; †¢ independence of judgement; †¢ curiosity; †¢ preference for challenge and complexity; †¢ self-confidence; †¢ natural tendency to risk-taking; †¢ and strong motivation. These personality traits allow me to bring together various ideas and generate a new point of view or to create a new combination. I believe that analogies and associations are among the most powerful tools of the creative process because they can produce a great variety of ideas. Conclusion Study of the creative process is important for many reasons. Explaining the creative process helped me identify and realize noble artists’ unique creative talents. It is true that the creative artist may prefer to ignore the stages of the creative process and break all of the conventions. But my point of view is that this is the wrong way to think about creativity. Instead, I think of the creativity as a kind of the creative process language. Obviously, one has first to learn a language before he or she can talk. Similarly, it is nearly impossible to create anything without the foundation. And just because the artist uses the background from previous works or different cultures does not mean they are not creative. Examination of the artists’ creative process in this paper suggests that analogical thinking is important to the creative process. In general, access to and use of history, myths, legends, experience of other people and different cultures and creativity are related processes. For me, creative process is really a form of problem solving – not a miraculous, unexplained process. Wallas’ model of the creative process is a good start for analyzing creativity of other people. References Ailey program note, Kaufmann Concert Hall Dance Center of the 92nd Street YM-YWHA, 21 December 1958. Interview with George Lucas printed in the Star Wars souvenir program (New York: S. W. Ventures, 1977). Latham, Jacqueline Quinn. â€Å"A Biographical Study of the Lives and Contributions of Two Selected Contemporary Black Male Dance Artists: Arthur Mitchell and Alvin Ailey. † Ph. D. diss. , Texas Women’s University, 1973, pp. 481–482. Sternberg R. , & Davidson J. (1982, June). â€Å"The mind of the puzzler†. Psychology Today, 16, pp. 37-44. Torrance E. P. (1988). The nature of creativity as manifest in its testing. In R. Sternberg (Ed. ), The nature of creativity (pp. 43-75). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vernon, P. E. (1989). The nature-nurture problem in creativity. In J. Glover, R. Ronning, & C. Reynolds, R. (Eds. ), Handbook of creativity (pp. 93-110). New York: Plenum. Wallas C. (1926). The art of thought. New York: Harcourt Brace. Zito, Stephen. â€Å"George Lucas Goes Far Out†, American Film, April 1977, p. 13.

Father Son Conflict in Death of a Salesman and All My Sons

In the sass, French philosophers such as Roland Farther, Gilles Delude, Jacques Deride, Michel Faculty, and Jean- Franà §ois Leotard departed from conventional studies in the history of philosophy and Egan to address the epistemological crisis reinforcing Western philosophical thought. Their early scholarship focused on the structure of language and its role in forming world-views. The work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand De Assures, especially his posthumous text entitled Course in General Linguistics, presented the Intellectual Insight Tanat was necessary In order to separate ten synchrony Ana diachronic elements of language.Dividing language and, in effect, freeing the sign from the signified, permitted obstructionists to redefine language as a system of differential signs. Jacques Dermis's early writings obfuscate Creature's linguistic turn. Deride could not stand the fact that the Western philosophical tradition privileges spoken (the sonic) over written language (the graphic). It is within this pyramid that the speaker is accepted to be self-authenticating and in control of meaning. The writer, within this representation, is displaced and, presumably, is not in control of meaning.Assures, according to Deride, continues the Western tradition by giving more importance to the spoken word over the written word. Deride describes this as phonetics's, a oppression of writing. His work seeks to invert the hierarchy and so present writing as a necessary displacement of meaning within language. Dermis's innovative variations on Creature's linguistic turn inaugurated postmodernism sustained dismantling of the metaphysics of presence in the Western philosophical tradition. Dermis's critique of language was followed by critiques of truth and meaning in philosophy.Drawing on the work of the German philosopher Frederica Nietzsche, Deride has disrupted the visualized belief that authors intend meaning and that there is a certain truth to be uncovered in texts. Deride, i n the Nietzsche tradition, views philosophy not as a search for truth, but as a rhetorical engagement with the world. Truth and meaning are not fixed: they are metaphorical. Others have extended Dermis's insights to the study of culture, literature, politics, and psychoanalysis, and, indeed, the displacement of meaning and truth characteristic of postmodernism has proved relevant to diverse academic disciplines.Cast in the best possible light, postmodernism challenges hierarchies and presents a multiplicity of interpretations with an optimism that is not shared by the majority of scholars. Postmodernism anti-foundations is often linked to, if not actually equated with, the logic of late capitalism (Frederic Jameson) and political conservatism. Emphasis on epistemological undesirability and the loss of the subject appears to have persuaded many scholars to view postmodernism as nihilistic and irrational.Nevertheless, postmodernism has come to be considered a significant endeavor in c ulture studies. The French philosopher Jean-Francis Leotard has articulated postmodernism within the aesthetic and political spheres. Leotard's postmodernism critiques the totaling tendency of modernity's monolithic world-views. Where there is completion and unity in modernism, one finds deferment and fragmentation in postmodernism. Leotard's major contribution toward a definition of postmodernism is his theory of intransitives.Modernity, according to Leotard, privileges all- encompassing narratives such as fascism, Marxism and capitalism. Leotard's postmodernism encourages little narratives that claim to avoid utilization and preserve heterogeneity. Leotard's challenge to the tendency to conceptualize history as events in a linear sequence means that, for him, postmodernism never can be represented in language or in history. Postmodernism for Leotard is neither a style nor an historical period. Instead, postmodernism is an unrepeatable deferment of conceptualization and totality.Th is is coming from us. And we have not come close to even confronting this thing† (CTD. In Abbots, 2007: 94). Miller by his drama conveys the necessity of a humanistic response to the contemporary world. Such a description closely resembles the objectified picture the postmodern critic, Jameson, creates of contemporary society, where he announces the death of individualism, â€Å"symbolized by the emergent Anoraks Hoot; Profaner Zipper/Studies in Literature and Language Volvo. L No. 8, 2010 primacy of mechanical production† (1991 5), by which all becomes identical and exists without individual identity, choice, or spirit.Miller carefully criticizes the consumer society and its capitalist logic. In fact Wily himself as salesman uses the language of advertisement to earn money. But this consumer world has harsh rules; it exploits everybody and as Wily affirms: â€Å"eat the orange and throw the peel away'(Miller: 61) although † a man is not a piece of Trust† ( 61 In Tact man must struggle Tort survival In a consumer collect, wanly Is Like a consumer industry produces not things, but dreams disguised as things. Wily by the harsh machinery of the contemporary consumer world is beaten down.He cannot get up back. Linda exhorts â€Å"But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid†(40). Wily is the victim of the American Dream and materialistic condition. Wily loan's condition is so close to everybody in the consumer world that develops a sense of kinship to each person. He makes the audience aware of a common fatality and vulnerability. The society that Wily belongs to, is the business world. His boss, Howard, is the representative of the business world, which rejects Wily.Unwilling to accommodate Will's inability to travel anymore, Howard says, â€Å"No, but it's a business, kid, and everybody's goat pull his own weight† (60). Indeed Wily is born as a salesman. Murphy defines this ide a: In the scene between Wily and Howard, he nearly sells Howard on the myth of Dave Signalman before he sabotages his sales pitch by losing his temper. Wily Leman is a very confused man, but his confusion about what it means to be a salesman and what it takes to succeed at the Job is as much cultural as personal (CTD In Abbots, 2007:108).Wily is fired, in the end, not because a hard-nosed employer wants to eat the fruit and throw away the peel but because Wily cannot even sell himself. Bigly(2005) describes Wily Leman â€Å"as agent of an intrusive commercialism victim ND martyr creature touchingly, tragically doomed by the business culture he represented but which also leaves him as solitary figure in the social landscape†(110). In the contemporary consumer world the problem of postmodern man is, he is not being himself. He becomes vehicle for participation in a cycle of production and consumption.He sells a commodity and becomes a commodity. When man thinks he can acquire e verything, material or immaterial by buying it, he regards his personal qualities and the result of his efforts as commodities that can be sold for money. Thus man misses the experience of the activity of the present moment and chases the illusory happiness called success. There are many like Wily, who put all their faith in personality, friendship, and personal loyalty-?†Be liked and you will never want† (Miller: 21), but by coming a new way of thinking about salesmanship everything has changed.Mass production and consumer culture have begun to alter his business economy, therefore, salesmanship has been treated as a profession to be learned. With mass production and increasing competition, buyers and merchants have begun to think more about profit. Murphy s idea about competition is interesting: With the stock market crash in 1929, and the Great Depression that followed it, the competition among salesmen became more and more cutthroat.As Wily tells Ben in one of the da ydream sequences that takes place in 1931, business is bad, it's murderous . Using all of the tricks that Wily has learned in a lifetime of selling, including seducing the buyer's secretary and bribing her with stockings, Wily is barely able to eke out a living for his family (CTD In Abbots, 2007:110). But during this period, the prevailing idea was still that, as Wily puts it, â€Å"the man who sakes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead† (21).According to Murphy: in the post-war period, there was a pent-up demand for things like new cars, tires, Dragon-name liquor, Ana nylon stockings, wanly Ana not Eden available ruling ten war. The enormous war industry was being retooled to produce consumer goods, and the advertising business was expanding rapidly as Americans were â€Å"educated† into desiring things like Anoraks Hoot; Profaner Zipper/Studies in Literature and Language Volvo. L No. 8, 2010 vacuum cle aners, television sets, and air conditioners, which had not been manufactured in large quantities before the war. CTD. In Abbots, 2007:111). Death of a Salesman does not simply show the predicaments of the modern man stuck in a postmodern world, but also displays the conflicting views of these two worlds. Bigly(2005), suggests: Wily Loan's American dream is drained of transcendence. It is a faith in the supremacy of the material over the spiritual. There is, though, another side to Wily, a side represented by the sense of insufficiency that sends him searching through his memories looking for the origin of failure, looking for expiation.It is a side, too, represented by his son Biff, who has inherited this aspect of his sensibility, as Happy has inherited the other. Biff is drawn to nature, to working with his hands. He has a sense of poetry, an awareness that life means more than the dollars he earns. Wily has that, too. The problem is that he thinks it is irrelevant to the imperat ives of his society and hence of his life which, to him, derives its meaning from that society (105). The Leman family is caught up in mindless consumerism, â€Å"whipped cheese† (6) and that these new products disrupt attempts at meaningful human interaction.Shockley states: Miller shows the power of advertising and consumerism, and the contradictions of attitudes toward products in the Leman family by having Wily call his Chevrolet both â€Å"the greatest car ever built† and â€Å"that goddamn Chevrolet† in the space of only a few minutes, and in Willis remark that â€Å"Once in my life I would like to own something outright before it's broken! † But while Wily utters these remarks, he still is completely caught up in the pursuit of the dream. (CTD. In bloom, 2007:86) I HAVE MONEY THEN I AM In Death of Salesman the Becoming of man is weighed through his bank balance.It is the strength of his bank account, which accordingly mirrors the importance of his existence as a being. The alienation that the industrial era brought upon men is witnessed in the character of Wily Leman. Through this alienation, Will's connectivity to society is severed and his tie to moral responsibility on behalf of mankind is weakened greatly. He brushes with the uglier side of capitalism, and yet seemed unable to recognize or condemn this brutal side. Shockley asserts: In competitive society the rewards of being successful for Wily is to be well liked and to be rich.To be rich also means to be â€Å"free† in the two senses above, with the added goldfinches of being admired, a model for others (CTD. In Bloom,2007: 84). Miller in Death of a Salesman gives the bitterest satire on human condition in contemporary century. He writes about demutualization result from Enlightenment. Miller criticizes the universal values of Enlightenment humanism. In the capitalism society, consumer culture shows the end of Grand narratives and western metaphysics, which brin g tremendous rifts and disintegration among people. Wily represents the reduction of

Can we ever know the true level of crime Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Can we ever know the true level of crime - Essay Example However this seems to be an on-going tale which does not find any end at all. Wherever there is crime, there is punishment and this is because crime has its specific ramifications if understood in the most apt manner. One must understand that punishment and crime are inter-related and hence the former is something which shall directly or indirectly affect an individual within the moral and ethical concepts. The true level of crime must be ascertained before one can suggest where the ramifications and consequences could be deciphered. This paper discusses how crime is a deterrent to the different societies of the world and that its extent cannot be gauged in an easy way. An effort has been made to find out the true level of crime as it happens within the different terrains of the society and for that all-out measures are in place to tackle this menace from its roots. Crime exists because people who are its stakeholders believe in its existence. What this means is the fact that crime h as a definitive place and position within the different domains of a society and it would be very difficult for a commoner to run away from either the crime or the one who is committing one such act – the criminal itself. ... the view that this (crime) can be curtailed while others opine that it an uncontrollable aspect and should therefore be given more significance and consideration within the related aspects of human society, punishment and morality. Whatever it is, crime exists to thwart the basis of proper conduct amongst the people, bring about problems for the mankind and basically disrupt the basis of smooth sailing within the people on a societal level. The hierarchies get affected and hence criminals are given more significance than was necessary on their part. The authorities run after them yet they hardly find a criminal much to their dismay. This is the world of present times where criminals are more famous than the ones who perform the good tasks and are basically the saviors of the society. Moving on with the aspect of crime, the concepts of civil rights and civil law are both significant functions of civil society as it is the bubble of private action independent of the control of the gove rnment. One must remember that this is not free of governmental action because this secures the nature of the civil society through the protection of individuals against the criminal wrongdoings. It is essential to note here that the civil society is comprised of the people who are left by the government to regulate their respective pursuits with regards to the industry and improvement, however the protection brought forward by the government is in the form of the citizens from the criminal wrongdoings in the form of violence, fraudulent activities, robbery and thefts. The civil society always finds a way to keep away this criminal element from its domains. If the civil society does not play its part in an imperative manner, the crime rate increases and the sanity within the ranks of the

Starting and Developing a New Venture. Nature of Entrepreneurship Essay

Starting and Developing a New Venture. Nature of Entrepreneurship - Essay Example Improving further the existing ideas using creativity and innovation seems to be the most appropriate way of coming up with such ventures. In spite of this, some entrepreneurs still find opportunities around them, which they develop as new ideas. A new venture does not necessarily have to mean a new business altogether. It could be a new idea in a big company’s department, or a new product developed by an existing company. Improving on an existing product still encompasses entrepreneurial skills and innovation. However, starting a small business entity requires patience and strong entrepreneurial skills. The development of an idea to a big venture requires patience and courage. Big and established businesses in the same industry will try to push the new entrepreneur out of the business through packaging and price battles. Additionally, the giants will try to prove of experience in the industry which they already have their customers. To win customer confidence, the entrepreneu r should ensure quality in their products and competitive pricing. Waging such a tough war requires commitment and dedication by the entrepreneurs. In exploring this topic of starting and developing a new venture, this paper will look at the entrepreneurial skills and careers of two of the worlds’ most successful entrepreneurs, Stelios Haji-Ioannou of Easyjet and Richard Branson of Virgin. Many scholars have written about entrepreneurship. According to oxford English dictionary an entrepreneur is a person who attempts to make profit by taking risk through an initiative. Richard Cantillon is credited to be the originator of the word â€Å"entrepreneur† in the year 1755 in his book â€Å"Essai sur la nature du commerce en general.† Stokes & Wilson (2010, p. 1) believes that entrepreneurship is more than just the business of making money. According to Sjovoll & Skogen (2010, p. 8), the creativity and innovation exhibited by the members of a society and at family le vel are forms of entrepreneurship. Hardly do these talents get noticed however, until an idea is put into action. A visible entrepreneurial idea is called a venture. The different skills and attributes portrayed by a person makes them entrepreneurs, while the ability of a person to see an opportunity where other people cannot see one defines the person’s entrepreneurial skills (Sarasvathy 2004, p. 521). There exists a distinction between entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship, which is a rather new term in the corporate world. While entrepreneurship defines both the act and the art of undertaking innovations that include introducing new things especially in the business acumen, Intrapreneurship is the act and art of entrepreneurship in large organizations. Employees who undertake to develop their organizations through creative ideas such as product development are referred to as intrapreneurs. Nature of Entrepreneurship A lot of arguments have been raised regarding the nature of entrepreneurship. While some experts believe that great entrepreneurs are born, others believe that the best entrepreneurs are trained (Pittaway & Cope 2007, p. 212). However, the argument of whether entrepreneurial skills are an inborn talent or are a learned and acquired through the process of experience and education, different accounts of the careers of successful entrepreneurs provides answers to this. According to scholars though, the best entrepreneurs are trained. Greene & Mole (2007,  p. 14-20) strongly believes supports this. According to them, entrepreneurship as a process does not end in a person’

The Impact of Global Recession on Small Businesses Dissertation

The Impact of Global Recession on Small Businesses - Dissertation Example Prior research done by John Kitching mentioned that small businesses are treated as highly susceptible to external shocks, such as recessions, with firm performance declining in line with GDP. Small firms possess limited resources, customers and product lines across which to spread their risk – all of which restrict a firm’s capacity to withstand competitive pressures in adverse macroeconomic condition. They are also much more likely to cease trading than larger enterprises. Falling GDP at the macro level causes performance decline at the micro level and, in severe cases, business closure. Many economists have now been predicting the world global recession since the 1930s. Such grim warnings discovery spending by households and businesses, depressing output even more. America, Britain, the Euro area and Japan are almost certainly already in recession according to the popular rule of thumb of two successive quarters of falling GDP. In an updated World Economic Outlook, published on Nov 6th 2009, the IMF predicted the world GDP would fall to 2.2% in 2009, based on purchasing power parity weights, from 5% in 2007 and 3.7% in 2008. GDP is a measure of the total value of production of goods and services by all resident producing units in an economy during an accounting period, which is usually one year or one quarter. While recessions involve falls in GDP, they are namely characterized by rising unemployment. Fear of a long recession stems not just from the distressing developed country figures.

My Working Experience in Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

My Working Experience in Business - Essay Example I also provided ideas about advertising and furniture design. Running a business became art by itself for me. I felt more interested in learning to run a business that makes good money promoting art, than doing artistic work alone. While the work experience developed my interest in business, I believe that the Business and Economics program offered by the University of California would provide me the essential knowledge needed to pursue a business career to the next level. As a person who grew up as an aspirant of art, innovation and communication skills will be the two most significant personal attributes that I will bring to the University of California. I believe that my work experience as a sale representative where I was involved in renovating the product lines and the showroom, has demonstrated my ability to introduce and implement new ideas. On the other hand, my experience as an officer of the International Business Club at the Mountain Sac College also enabled me to develop the communication skill needed for a successful career in the business world. When I first started working for the furniture store as a trainee, I was in fact among a group of young people who were hired to bring new ideas to an aging business. At that time, my boss just inherited the store from his uncle. He was trying to revive the fortune of a furniture store whose products were big, well-crafted, durable, but not attractive to new and young customers. To better understand the need for young customers, my boss decided to hire a group of young people, including myself, to give him a new direction of improving his business. Since I did not have any sales or office experience, I was hired as an apprentice. My boss not only wanted me to learn about crafting skill but also made good use of my artistic background to help him refresh our furniture design philosophy.  Ã‚  

Jim Crow Segregation in Mississippi Research Paper

Jim Crow Segregation in Mississippi - Research Paper Example The African-Americans were reduced to second class citizens. The churches claimed the whites were the chosen people and the blacks were cursed to be servants for white people. This implied that God supported segregation. The newspapers referred to blacks as Niggers, darkies, coons and even the articles and games played by children were stereotypic. Violence was used to maintain the blacks at the bottom of the hierarchy. The segregation rules came to ultimate end in 1965 when every individual was allowed full rights. This included voting but after a long tussle and struggle by the rights activists which included the civil war between the federation and the southern states (Kay 210). Essie’s family lived in a shack with two rooms. The shack was not enough for them and the conditions were dilapidating. The parents tried to make it comfortable by decorating it using mismatched wall papers with cardboard pieces stacked in the numberless cracks on the walls. The state of the house w as a clear example of the real conditions that the blacks in the southern states like Mississippi lived. The kids stayed alone at home because the parents stayed in the fields working for their white master all day. However, the wages were not even enough to fend the small families. This situation is aggravated by burning of the shack by Ed who was left to look after Essie and her siblings. Thereafter, Mae is blamed for the tragedy and thoroughly beaten (Moody 167). Mae’s father used his free time gambling although it was very difficult. This made him see another mulatto woman thus, a second marriage. Therefore, Mae was left alone to fend for the family. Later, the family decided to move to a house near a swamp. The place had several snakes which occasionally sneaked into the house. Mae’s mother was now working at a cafe for the blacks. She discovered that the place was not safe however; they could not find another cheap place to stay. They were living in such places a s a result of poverty. This poverty is aggravated by the fact that the blacks in Mississippi were discriminated in employment opportunities and land ownership. Due to the situation that Mae, Adline and Junior were facing, they yearned to ride bikes just like the other kids. They were segregated and they only had a chance to sit on the trench which indicated the level of poverty that the family had. Raymond builds a house for the family which lacks an indoor plumbing although it had water line. Mae believes that they were entitled to everything which could make them comfortable. This is evident as Mama and Essie Mae goes to the market to buy wallpapers for their new house. They also manage to purchase furniture as Essie proposes that they would buy a white post bed just like the one she had seen at Miss Ola’s place where she worked for an extra coin (Kay 178). Therein, she is reminded by the mother not to ape the whites. Her mother reiterates that she was influenced by the Cla iborne family where she spent most of the time working Raymond’s buys an old Mule to use in tilling a rented strip of land. This implied that the family was very poor and could not afford to purchase a young one which was more expensive. The piece of land that Raymond rented was very cheap and unused because he found a grenade which rendered the farm desolate and dangerous. This meant that the family could not afford to buy a piece of land. Furthermore, they could not afford to rent a more productive and safe land. The African-Americans could only

Webinar report 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Webinar report 2 - Essay Example National benchmarks are essential components that aid in the recognition of RDNs when it comes to reimbursement and care of the patients (Hand et al., 2015). I was not privy to most of the information and issues presented at the meeting. However, there are certain elements that were familiar. For instance, I was familiar with various staff models and their application in various health facilities. The topic was very helpful because it provided various perspectives concerning RDN and staffing benchmarks. The presentation also assisted in understanding the inherent gaps that exist in so far as research on staffing models is concerned. Crucial lessons were extracted from the meeting especially in the areas of clinical nutrition and management. Consequently, I learned that information that exists at the moment has a restricted scope to the extent that it limits a comparative analysis between staffing models and facility staffing simulations. The functions of RDN have undergone immense transformation from the time of inception. The information obtained from this forum can be applied in professional practice in a number of dimensions. First, the information emphasizes on the need for benchmarks that can be employed in determining the essence of a patient’s care and reimbursement. Benchmarks are necessary because they can assist a healthcare practitioner in creating standards for staffing levels with key components being staff characteristics and hospital. Hand, RK; Jordan, B; DeHoog, S; Pavlinac, J; Abram, JK; Parrot, JS. (2015). Inpatient Staffing Needs for Registered Dietitian Nutritionists in 21st Century Acute Care Facilities. E-pub ahead of print at Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and

Producers Reaction to Raw Material Price Changes Essay Example for Free

Producers Reaction to Raw Material Price Changes Essay These days all over the world people use products of crude oil. Most of people cannot imagine their life without products such as diesel or gasoline. However, these are only the finished products, which go through specific stages of production. They are made out of crude oil, which sometimes is called „black goldâ€Å". Fuel; however is not the only production made out of crude oil. Lubricants, asphalt, paraffin wax, tar – all these are product made out of crude oil. As stated by US Energy Information Administration (EIA): estimated consumption of oil in the world in 2011 will be 87. 421 million barrels of oil each day. Obviously, crude oil is an important material in the modern world. It has an important role in economy as well. The cost of crude oil affects economy both directly and indirectly. Nowadays, debates about rising prices of fuel or heating are almost an everyday topic. The price changes of fuel are always mentioned on financial news on TV. Naturally, it is interesting what influences the cost of crude oil. How the rise or fall of price affects the price of fuel, and how businesses deal with the fluctuating prices. 1. Crude Oil as a Raw Material When talking about product price changes it is important to understand how the price of raw material is calculated and how it is affected. The perception of how the price is set for the raw materials gives an opportunity to better understand the price of the final product, and all the fluctuations related to the final products’ prices. Also, it helps to recognize how various political decisions or world-wide events, including disasters or new innovations, affect various markets. As for crude oil prices, the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy called Energy Information Administration (EIA) has defined seven key factors which have an influence on and each contribute to the price of crude oil. 1. Production. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) consortium provides about 60 percent of all the oil production traded on international markets and 40 percent of the world’s oil production. All actions and statements of this organization can and do affect world oil prices, because of the dominant crude supply market share. Changes of the amounts of crude oil production lead to changes in price. If OPEC cuts the production, it generally means a rise in price of oil. 2. Supply. The other oil suppliers still represent 60 percent of the world’s oil supply. Even though non-OPEC suppliers as a group are 50 percent larger than OPEC, they have almost no spare capacity. Non-OPEC suppliers are considered to be â€Å"Price Takers†, rather than â€Å"Price Setters†. They respond to market prices, not like OPEC, who manipulate them. Consequently, non-OPEC suppliers practically produce near to full or at full capacity. Any fault in production has the effect on increasing oil supplies. As well, it gives OPEC the capability to further manipulate world supplies. 3. Global oil inventories. The supply and demand is balanced by global oil inventories. For example, if more oil is produced than demanded, the excess supplies can be stored. This principle also works in reverse order. If consumption exceeds demand, inventories can be used to meet the growing demand. The bond between oil inventories and oil prices makes corrections possible in either direction. If oil futures rise in comparison with the current spot price for oil, the need and urge to store oil will increase. As well, spot oil prices will drop, if market makers notice an inventory build. That is the response to balance demand with supply. 4. Financial markets. Oil is not only sold by its physical form, but also there are trade contracts for future delivery. This type of sales is called â€Å"futures†. In order to avoid future oil price increases, some major customers, like airline companies, purchase futures. That is because oil price changes have a significant impact on their ability to operate profitably. Also, often oil futures contracts are sold to lock in a price for a specific period of time. 5. Demand. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an international organization of U.S., Japan, most of European countries, and other advanced countries. The organization is responsible for 53 percent of the world’s demand for oil. Even though OECD countries consume more than non-OECD countries, the rate of growth in OECD countries is considerably slower. OECD demand went down during the period from the year 2000 to 2010. However, non-OECD countries’ demand went up by 40 percent during the same period of time. 6. Non-OECD demand. For the last decade China together with Saudi Arabia and India had the largest growth in crude consumption among non-OECD countries. There is a direct relationship between the rate at which oil consumption rises and the rate of economic growth. It is not surprising that for China and India, the use of crude oil is increasing at a very fast pace compared to the United States’. Besides that, developing countries also usually have more manufacturing-related industries, which have a tendency to consume higher amounts of crude oil. 7. Spot market. Crude oil is sold all over the world. There are many different â€Å"streams† of crude oil, however they are likely to move in lockstep with one another regarding the prices. All these streams are put in a certain process of production to make product which are used, such as: gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, lubricant and other various petroleum products. All of the financial channels on TV are talking about crude oil prices. However the essential point here is the price of the final products. Any events that have the power to disrupt the flow of crude oil and end products have a significant effect on the price of those goods. Geopolitical events, massive oil leaks, natural disasters like hurricanes or earthquakes, terrorist acts, etc. all are included to the list of event which can and do influence the price. Both supply and demand are rather inelastic, this means that any of the above events, or perceived risk of the happening, usually leads to higher prices, espe cially in the futures market. All these factors clearly show how easily the system of oil trading can be shocked, leading to huge swings in the price of crude oil. Also, it has to be pointed out, that most of the world’s oil supply is located in countries or parts of the world that are politically instable. All this explains why the price we pay for oil product is so volatile. Example how natural tragedies affect the price of crude oil: In 2010 April 20th in the Gulf of Mexico a huge oil spill took place. It was one of the biggest oil spills in history. Without a doubt it had a significant impact on the oil prices. Figure 1. History of oil prices. Clearly, the chart shows that the price of oil rose when the clearing begun. This proves, that certain events have influence on oil prices. 2. Gasoline usage Gasoline is the most popular Transportation Fuel in the U. S. Gasoline is one of the most popular fuels consumed in the United States and the main product made from oil. Usage of petrol in 2010 was approximately 132 billion gallons, which means about 360 million gallons a day. Gasoline used as energy for transportation stands for more than 64%, 48% of all petrol consumption and more than 18 % of all consumed energy in U.S. Petrol is mostly used in cars and light trucks. It is also consumed by owners of boats, recreational vehicles ran by fuel and landscaping, farm, construction equipment. Benzine is made year-round, however, the highest demand and the biggest imported quantity is seen in the summer. The graph shows the amount of gasoline consumed in U.S. 1950-2010: Over 260 million vehicles on the streets Nowadays, in the United States, gasoline is the fuel used by most passenger engines. There are more than 260 million vehicles that use gasoline, the amount of them increases each day and they manage to travel over 12,164 miles per year. There are around 170,000 fueling stations that ensure comfortable refueling for users. Above two-thirds of fuel consumed for moving is in the form of petrol. Each benzine station usually sells three types of petrol: * Regular * Midgrade * Premium 3. Determining gasoline prices The changes of gasoline prices affect all the countries and their economies. Each person that owns a vehicle run by petrol is affected individually. Every day the retail price of gasoline changes, but only few people know what exactly makes the prices fluctuate. There are several different factors that has sway on fuel prices. The first and also the biggest reason that influences the price of petrol is the cost of crude oil from which it is obtained. In 2000, average retail price of gasoline was only 2.37$ per gallon and the total price included only 55% of crude oil. After more than 10 years the costs of it grew and the percentage of crude oil now seeks over huge 66%. In the last few years the consumption of petrol fuel grew so rapidly that the producers of these had many difficulties succeeding to fulfill their cutomers needs. The growth of demand of fuel is another huge factor that has affected the cost of petrol. The demand isntantly grew up and the supplies went down. This made a huge influence on petrol price. In addition, another great reason of gasoline price growth is refining costs and profits. In 2000, it made approximately 15% of total price of fuel. After 10 years, the percentage of those costs consisted over 12%. The percentage reduced, but it still remains high and definately makes a huge impact on retail fuel price. Crude oil price change influence on producing gasoline The price of crude oil is one of the main factors that influences the cost of retail gasoline. The cost of crude oil changes each day. The price depends on many different factors. The change of the crude oil price hugely affect the retail price of gasoline. When the price of crude oil grows, eventually the cost of petrol also rises. The growth of crude oils price reduces the production of gasoline, diesel, gas. Producers lowers the production of petrol and fuel and also increases the retail prices of them. When the price reach highest point, the demand of fuel, gas and gasoline reduces. After the price and demand stabilizes, price starts to reduce and demand begins to grow. Conclusion First of all we can say that prices of oil production generally are set by OPEC. They provide crude oil all over the world, so generally they can control prices of oil. Moreover, other suppliers still represent 60 percent of the world‘s oil supply, however they don‘t set prices, they are more like „price takersâ€Å". So OPEC certainly manipulates the power they have. Global oil inventories help to balance supply and demand; the excess supplies are more likely to be stored, when growth of the prices is forecasted. OECD is mainly responsible for the demand of oil. Even though OECD countries consume more than non-OECD countries, the rate of growth in OECD countries is considerably slower. Crude oil is the main material which is used to make gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, lubricants and other various petroleum products, but it doesn’t set the total price of fuel, the main thing is the final product. Moreover, the price of crude oil can be affected if the system is disturbed, because of natural disasters like hurricanes or earthquakes, terrorist acts, etc. Talking about gasoline, it is the most popular fuel consumed in the U.S. and the main product made from oil. Petrol is used in almost all cars, light trucks and boats. Usage of petrol in 2010 was approximately 132 billion gallons, which means about 360 million gallons a day. Gasoline used as energy for transportation stands for more than 64%, over 48% of all petrol consumption and more than 18 % of all consumed energy in the United States. Furthermore, there are around 260 million vehicles that use gasoline, the amount of them increases each day and they manage to travel over 12,164 miles per year. To sum up, the main things which fluctuate prices of fuel are: the fluency of crude oil supply system and the actions and statements made by OPEC. All in all, raw materials’ prices change and influence producers’ behavior. In the case of crude oil production, prices tend to go up, because of relatively inelastic supply and demand. Yet, more efficient technologies are created to minimize or replace use of crude oil products.

Come in-Ahhh Merciii Essay Example for Free

Come in-Ahhh Merciii Essay Scene V, Blanche: Come in-Ahhh Merciii Discuss this extract in relation to the rest of the text paying attention to structure, form and use of language. The ending section of scene five of Tennessee Williamss play A Streetcar Named Desire has provoked much confusion and debate as to the writers motives in regards to the portrayal of Blanche. One school of thought on the matter is that, in spite of the fact that Williams largely based the character of Blanche upon himself his primary aim in the play is to punish her for her failure to show empathy towards her homosexual husband Allan. Williams was of course a homosexual himself, living in a largely homophobic world where gayness was not a talked about subject. He often brought the issue up in his other works such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof where the characters Brick and Skipper and both portrayed as possible homosexuals. Blanches lack of empathy and compassion are highlighted once again in this extract when she totally fails to take into account the feelings of a second young man, and instead uses him to live out her fantasies of desire for her late husband. During the exchange between Blanche and the young man she is portrayed as seductive and dominant I want to kiss you making it clear that she is the one initiating the situation, this is a dramatic contrast to her normal persona around other men such as Mitch and Stanley where she makes herself out to be both innocent and pure. This extract is one of the places where her illusion starts to slip and her past actions are hinted at to the audience. Blanches reaction to you young mans mention of cherry soda you make my mouth water has a strong sexually reference, a cherry being a metaphor for virginity, which probably only Blanche is aware of. This shows that she is simply playing games with the young man using him for her own enjoyment. In the next scene Blanche treats Mitch in a very similar way, after discovering that he does not speak French she says Voulez-vous couches avec mo ice soir? meaning would you like to sleep with me this evening? which is the call of a French prostitute. The lack of consideration that Blanche shows towards both men and the way she appears to be using them both (The young man for a thrill and Mitch for security) hints not only towards the fact that in the past she has sought remedies for her loneliness with strangers but also supports the metaphor presented later in the play of Blanche being a tarantula trapping her victims in a web of illusions Yes a big spider! Thats where I brought my victims. Another example of how Williams is using this scene to condemn Blanches can be found by looking at the actions of the young man. During the scene he speaks nervously and makes frequent glances towards the door portraying his wish to escape form Blanches and making it obvious that he is uncomfortable with the situation. Well Id better be-. When describing the young man Blanche repeatedly uses the word young and also calls him lamb, this not only enforces his youth to the audience but also the fact that Blanche is aware of how much younger than her he is. The final and perhaps most damming piece of evidence towards Blanche is her reaction towards Mitch at the end of the scene, where, having just kissed a young boy she greets the man she is hoping to marry with open arms, reverting back to her old illusion of purity. This shows her as uncaring and manipulative towards both parties, in the she takes on the roll of two completely different people to get what she wants. It also presents a hint that Blanche is lying about her sexual history. Blanches actions in this extract could also be seen as an example of deliberate cruelty, in so far as she is willing to take advantage of a confused and reluctant young man just for her own pleasure. Blanche has of cores been guilty of deliberate cruelty in her past when she spoke of her revulsion towards Allan I know. I saw. You disgust me. leading to his suicide. Deliberate cruelty is something that Blanche states that she despises and has Never been guilty off making her seam rather hypocritical. Some might argue in fact that Williams is in fact using this extract to elicit the audiences pity towards Blanche as opposed to their condemnation. Throughout the play reference has been frequently made to Blanches declining mental state, such as when Stanley takes the letters written by Allan away from her and she becomes hysterical. Williams gently reminds the audience of this in numerous ways throughout the extract. For a start, in reference to the lighter Blanche uses the word Temperamental, which is a very unusual description and probably intended to reflect upon her mental state. During the later part of the scene the convocation is accompanied by the Blue Piano, a recurring sign of Blanches guilt, misery and mental declination. It features at many points in the play, usually during periods of anguish for Blanche such as when she is reminiscing about the loss of Bell Reve to Stella. Blanches crumbling mental state is not helped by her alcoholism, another one of Williamss personality traits that feature throughout his plays, such as with Brick in Cat on a hot tin Roof. Although Blanche isnt actually drinking in this extract the audience knows that she has drunk earlier in the scene a shot never does a coke any harm and are shown how drink can make people do things be the actions of the drunken Negro woman just before the young man arrives. The negro woman cackling hysterically, swaying drunkenly comes around the corner. Williams may also have been trying to make the audience sympathise with Blanches paranoia about her appearance and desperation to feel young again. Earlier is the scene the audience sees Blanche looking in the mirror she is later to smash, showing emphasising her fragility about her looks. She also talked to Stella about her fading appearance I Im fading now. The audience has also been privy to Blanches hatred of light I cant stand a naked light bulb and her need to hear positive remarks about her appearance I was fishing for a compliment Stanley. Another factor that must be considered is that previously in the scene Stanley has begun to tear down the illusions Blanche weaves to protect herself be hinting that he knows about her past actions (Again hinting that Blanche is lying about her past) Shaw is under the impression that he met you in Loral leaving her exposed and in a state of hysteric shock shown by her frequent pauses in sentences and trembling her hand shakes so it almost slips form the glass. Perhaps the most likely explanation for this why this scene seems to show Blanche is two contradictory lights however is that Williams is deliberately leaving it ambiguous, allowing the audience to decide upon their own feelings towards Blanche, and that the true purpose of this scene is to prefigure the revelations about Blanches past, particularly her relationship with the 17 year old boy that lost her her job.

The Role Of Women In The Church Religion Essay

The Role Of Women In The Church Religion Essay Ever since the beginning of the feminist movement the roles that women have or have not played whether in or out of church and no matter what culture or civilization they have come from has definitely come under some major debates. One area for disagreement is the roles women have in the Church. With there being some churches that are not so ridged with their traditions and practices; they have begun placing women in leadership positions like pastor or teacher. However; there are still churches that are steadfast to the Bible and not so ready to embrace such changes. Much of the confusion comes from how women are seen in the scriptures so because of this we will use the Bible to help us better comprehend the roles women had in the church during the first century so we can try to apply that to the meanings in the twentieth and the twenty-first century. Many people would debate the Bibles importance to modern-day understanding until the cows come home but the biggest debate is about them in roles of worship. Had the Bible not been written under guidance of holy inspiration then it could be seen for what it is and not simply be bound by the teachings, which in turn could consequently allow one to pick or choose whatever agrees to their point of view. However, since the Bible is all about holy inspiration for which it comes from, then there should be a careful respect to what the passages signifies about any given issue which currently is at hand. Beliefs and behaviors that have come up after the Bible was written must as a consequence be carefully examined and by doing so the practices may or may not demonstrate competence after comparison with scripture. Before we discuss exact questions regarding women in worship, we should study the ideologies resulting from the relationship of Adam and Eve which is described in Genesis 1. We see the Apostle Paul often uses this passage as a guideline when conversing about women and womens issues. Genesis 1:27 says: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Most interpret this as man and woman are both by the same token in the image of God; however in this instance the word man is to reference more the meaning of humanity. In Genesis we are shown that Adam and Eve were given common power over creation; however the sheer fact that Adam was created in advance of Eve has major impacts to Paul and all the scholars in the Old Testament. For these scholars it proposes that there very definite role differences between the two sexes. They saw the role of the man as leadership whereas they see the role of woman as more of a source of strength a nd support to man. As we review the letter to the Ephesians from Paul in Ephesians 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. We can see this as an important analogy because if one wants to understand the Christian dominance of a man over his wife, we must think about how Christ proved his leadership over the Church. In general, he gave his life the church and not by using force or coaxing for her submission. Now when we contemplate mens and womans ministry in the church, we find it is important that we keep in mind these role differences. We must also take a look at the notion of open ministry where women can worship and teaching in the Church. There are two major passages which give definitive orders about women during worship and they are in the letters of the Apostle Paul. Many find that these two passages are quite frequently used when one wants to deny women public roles in the church. The first is in I Corinthians 14:33 35, which shows the passage imposing silence on women during worship service. Likewise and with more details, I Timothy 2:8 15 also contains the command to be silent, it also shows about power and control as well as references to the reason for Adam and Eves fall from grace which helped in the understanding and continued denial for equally in sexes in the church. In my viewpoint I believe that 1 Timothy 2:8-15 gives the best understanding just how things were viewed which is why I chose to use the entire: I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be kept safe through childbirth, if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. I believe this shows the separation of the sexes and describes their place in worship and who has authority/control/power -however you want to say it over whom. Now as with woman being raised in the U.S. today reads the letter for the first time they may be quite offend by the obvious narrow-mindedness. However, there are some accurate historical and cultural references that need to be considered when looking for the meaning and intent of the passage. First the letter was written by one man to another man who was Paul to Timothy. We are led to believe that he was preaching in the city of Ephesus when Paul tells him he must stay in Ephesus so as to correct false teachers who were making a disturbance in the church. We see how many different observers have tried to recreate the deviations of these false teachers however this can prove to be a difficult since there are no exact records of what was said, so we must make reference from the text itself to give us a clue. One plausible heretical doctrine was the one of self-denial as a way to reach holiness. The practice of austerity that is being indorsed comprised of; self-restraint from certain foods, from marriage, and sex which is added to all of the physical training as another way to reach holiness. It was believed that by doing these practices, one could attain something similar to heaven on earth. Simply put, there was perhaps a denial of any future rebirths to be taught instead of the more spiritual one that we are lead to believe is reached in afterlife. We can also infer from Pauls comments that numerous women in the church would rehabilitated the meaning which was persuading them to abandon their traditional roles in favor of more open ways of life which were more in line with their the new-found holiness or spirituality. With this said it explains Pauls strong words which make reference to Eve about how she misled into sin whereas the idea of bearing and raising children was most certainly spiritual thing unlike they were being led to believe. Nevertheless, there are other parts of the passage which warn women not to teach or have control/power over a man that have been agreed upon by so many they have everlasting claim; their words and grammar, in Greek, do not seem to lend themselves to any other cultural reference. The teaching that Paul was truly worried about was so must more about real faith while the control/power which is in question seems to speak more about the roles of leadership for women in the church. But then again, before anyone can make any conclusions on a Biblical truth it must first hold true throughout the scriptures. May be we should look at other passages; like.in Galatians 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Some believe that this teaching could have had some bearing in the false teachings of Ephesus and Corinthians in regards to women. We are shown that even Christ revealed to us that in the spirit world no one would not be pre arranged but would be like the angels. As a result, the women who were being misled by teachers seem to abandon their traditional roles. On the other hand, the current reader may wonder what one meant when they wrote the line about both sexes being one in Christ Jesus. Some would see it as meaning that no one sex is inferior to the other. Once past the Old Testament, there are strong instances, like in the book of Acts, which shed some light in the form of documented practice, on the order not to have control/power over men. Here we have prophetesses like in Acts 21: 8-9, where Philip, who was one of the seven deacons, has four daughters who predicted. Prophesying was not just the predictions of the future but also the passing on of Gods Word to the people, i. e. teaching. Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 11:4-5 we have Paul conveying, Every woman who prays or prophesies. Obviously women in Corinthians were worshipping because everyone did that so they could be closer to God. We also see in Acts 18 where Precilla and Aquila worship and teach. As you read this, you could interpret this being significance because Precilla, who is the women, seems to be mentioned first due to the fact she has great knowledge. You are shown their teaching together and their successes which are confirmed in Acts 18:26 the ways of the Lord more a dequately. We also see this in the story about Lydia, business women who lived in Philippi and receive the message that Paul gives during worship which seems to be the incident which starts the strong church movement in Philippi. This occurrence only infers from the passage that she played an important part of that strong church, since no men were mentioned of converting. These passages in some way give inquiry to the real nature of the halt on teaching and the meaning of no control/power mentioned in 1st Timothy. It is obvious that women were teaching men and at times they were even co-teaching with male teachers. The case in point about the prophetesss while compelling is not recognized as being a modern gift, however teaching certainly is and is a prophets function. Those that interpret the Bible also discuss womens ministry in the New Testament which has brought to light the traditions of the day regarding women. We see that Pauls main concern was spreading the Gospel and making the message made attractive in every way. Thats why we see Paul encouraging women just how important it is in maintain customs like veil wearing because if not they will be seen as loose or immoral and disgrace the Gospel message. Think about what the women in the US who are not of the faith are thinking when they see for the first time that only men run the services. It could come across as women being suppressed by men and that the gospel message is suggesting women are inferior to men. In a nutshell, the thought that there is no authorization in the scripture coming right out and saying that it is forbidden for women to have leadership roles, or their own ministry or even teaching the word of God but can be left up to interpretation make me believe that if women are not allowed to have some kind of input in to the church or their teachings then it seems that a valuable resource is going to waste for the church and its future followers. If we simply look at it from the perspective of a husband not thinking that his wifes thoughts and ideas are worth listening to than the family can surely seem inadequate, dysfunctional or even destined to failure. For that reason, the church tries to realize Gods purpose for women by remembering the truths of the scripture and relating them to our present day culture. By doing this we are allowing men and women to convey the Christian message in its most powerful form. As stated by John Toews in article A doctrine or a truth has pow er only to the extent that it is modeled in a life style which is in harmony with it. Paul, and the rest of the New Testament, proclaims that male and female are reconciled and gifted in Christ, they are one and equal in Christ. It is now time for that truth to be modeled in the church if the church is to be the true eschatological people of God. We should look at the true meaning of the Bible and follow what is best for the continuing of the church and the life of the Gospels even if it means allowing men and women to be equal in the spreading the word of the Lord.

The Extent to Which William Golding Portrays Mankind as Being Inherently Evil :: William Golding Lord of the Flies Essays

The Extent to Which William Golding Portrays Mankind as Being Inherently Evil Although I do not think he shows humans to be completely, irrevocably evil, I think that Golding paints an increasingly dim picture of humankind. As his faith in humanity's intrinsic good fails, Golding's foresight of a dark future for man is reflected in the colour of his metaphorical oil paints as he writes this allegorical novel. Even supposedly innocent children are shown to be incredibly sinful and the rules and regulations they are brought up under fade away into insignificance. This mirrors William Golding's belief that people are born corrupt and malevolent, they are not influenced into bad ways; rather it is something about us as a species. Throughout his story, Golding demonstrates the true nature of people coming out into the open - manifesting itself more openly after being restrained by society for so long. At the start of Lord Of The Flies, there is chaos amidst horrendous storms, with panicky schoolboys unregulated and vulnerable. Together though, they set about their predicament in a very well meaning, sophisticated way - everything is orderly and civilised in true boy-scout fashion. The boys act above their ages and decide they ought to "...call the others...have a meeting"(I, p. 22), to organise themselves and to build shelters after their adult 'election'. Like in Parliament, only one person is allowed to speak at once and the conch helps to enforce this. With the well meaning and democratic Ralph in charge, even specific jobs are allocated amongst the children with Jack's choir designated the island's hunters. However, even at this early stage, the children test the limits of this new adult-less world. Jack says to Piggy, "Shut up, Fatty"(I, p. 28). Then, the name-calling continues with Ralph even, abusing Piggy's trust and revealing his former private nickname merely for a cheap laugh. Even the tiniest child joined in the resulting combined uproar of laughter - every one glad that there is no authority to discipline them. Later, when Piggy approaches Ralph about his betrayal, Ralph is caught between "...apology or further insult"(I, p. 33) as his conscience begins to falter. As the story progresses, incidences illustrating the immorality of the boys become more frequent and more prominent. Still in the first chapter, Ralph, Simon and Jack revel in the wanton destruction caused by their hands when they roll a boulder into the canopy below - they were transfixed by this "triumph"(I, p.37) and utter an excited "Wacco!"(I, p. 37). The first time the boys chance upon a pig, Jack crucially hesitates whilst considering the consequences of taking life. Though, as later on Jack renounces his social conditioning and

SIP Security Essay -- Information Technology

Abstract The session initiation protocol (SIP) is emerging as standard protocol for session control in Next generation voice over internet protocol (VoIP) As it is based on IP it is vulnerable to all IP related threats . Among all the attacks, flood-based denial of service DoS attack is one of the main threats to SIP. Several solutions regarding prevention of DoS are discussed. Efficient Security scheme is proposed for batter performance. I. INTRODUCTION Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [1] is signaling protocol given by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for IP telephony. Moreover, the 3rd generation partnership program (3GPP) has chosen SIP as a signaling protocol in IP multimedia subsystem (IMS). With more and more multimedia applications and the digital audio/video transport over IP-based networks, SIP is becoming the de-facto signaling protocol. In fact, SIP is a session control protocol that can establish, modify, and terminate multimedia sessions such as Internet telephone calls (VoIP). SIP users are indicated by Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI), consisting of a pair of user name and domain name, e.g. sip:ali@abc.co.uk , which is similar to the email format. SIP signaling between multiple users consists of requests and responses .A call is set up in SIP by the three-way handshake composed of INVITE, 200 OK and ACK messages. The INVITE request asks the cal lee to join or establish a call. If the cal lee’s response indicates that he/she accepts the call by sending the 200 OK response message, the caller confirms that it has received the response by sending the ACK message. When the caller or cal lee wishes to terminate a call, they send a BYE request. ... ... June 2001. [8] T. Peng, C. Leckie, and K. Ramamohanarao, â€Å"Protection from distributed denial of service attacks using history-based IP 108 filtering,† Communications, 2003. ICC'03. IEEE International Conference on, vol. 1, 2003 [9] S. D. D'Souza, and D. Vinokurov, â€Å"Queuing methods for mitigation of packet spoofing†, US Patent App, 2004 [10] M.A. Akbar, M.Farooq, â€Å"Application of Evolutionary Algorithms in Detection of SIP based Flooding Attacks†GECCO’09, July 8–12,2009, Montrà ©al Quà ©bec, Canada.ACM. [11] M.A. Akbar, Z.Tariq and M.Farooq, â€Å"A Comparative Study of Anomaly Detection Algorithms for Detection of SIP Flooding in IMS†, Next Generation Intelligent Networks Research Center (nexGIN RC), 2009.

Gender Equality and Environmental Sustainability in Uganda’s Water Sector

GENDER EQUALITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN UGANDA’S WATER SECTOR. By Nandala Mike([email  protected] com) 1. 0INTRODUCTION 1. 1Essence of Gender, Gender Equality and the Environment Gender refers to the different roles, rights and responsibilities of men and women and the relationships between them, their qualities, behaviours, and identities which are determined through the process of socialisation to define their relationships with each other and with their environment.Gender equality on the other hand is a principle that equates men and women before and under the law; men and women have equal dignity (worthiness); and have equal opportunities in economic, political, cultural and social life. It is upon this background that the relationships and rights enjoyed by men and women foster decision making and activities that in turn have been affected in both the management and sustainability of the environment. It has been observed that there is an undesirable imbalanc e that has existed between men and women resulting in inadequate performance of the letter of their roles.Often this has slowed down development initiatives leading to adverse effects on the environment. 1. 2 Significancy of Water in Social and Economic Development Water is a key strategic resource, vital for sustaining life, promoting development and maintaining the environment. Access to clean and safe water and improved sanitation facilities and practices are pre-requisites to a health/population and therefore have a direct impact on the quality of life and productivity of the population.Besides domestic water supply, water is also vital for: Livestock Water Supply, Industrial Water Supply, Hydropower generation, Agriculture, Marine Transport, Fisheries, Waste Discharge, Tourism, and Environmental Conservation. Water, therefore, significantly contributes to the national socio-economic development and also poverty eradication (UNWD, 2005) Water is thus an integral part of the natu ral resources protected under the Uganda Constitution. 1. 3Government Committement.Over the last two decades, government has committed itself to the implementation of public sector reforms meant to ensure sustainable development, through legislative and policy frameworks anchored on three key policies, namely: Decentralisation, Privatisation and Divestiture; and the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP), These were intended to reduce the burden of the nation’s concern for income generating resources and practices. The PEAP was prepared in 1997 in a move to eradicate poverty as an overall national planning framework.It has since been revised through 2007/8 and based on five pillars, namely; (1) Economic management; (2) Enhancing production, competitiveness and incomes; (3) Security, conflict-resolution and disaster management; (4) Good governance and (5) Human development (PEAP 2004/5-2007/8) Water and sanitation are some of the central elements under pillar one intended to i mprove the quality of life of the poor through human development. The second pillar points out a strategy to foster production, incomes and competitiveness through water consumption and production.It also addresses actions to empower and strengthen women’s gender awareness and furthermore points out inadequacies aimed at capacity building in the application of skills, limited choice in the decisions about the nature of services received and needed by women, less efforts in community gender awareness campaigns, weaknesses among decision makers including support in supervision and monitoring thus leading to reasons for low gender responsiveness in the water sector. Which way forward?With this background, this Article addresses key policy and legal frame works in the water sector, gender and environmental impact assessment of water resources which have been developed and supported by various laws, sector performance, integration of gender into environment and sustainable develop ment, issues of particular concern, and recommendations. 2. 0Policy, Legal and Institutional Frameworks 2. 1Policy The policy objectives of the Government of Uganda for the Water and Sanitation sector are at two levels: first, the domestic consumption and secondly, water for production.At the domestic level, the objective is to provide sustainable safe water and hygienic sanitation facilities, within easy reach, based on management responsibility and ownership by users, to 77% of the population in rural areas and 100% in urban areas by year 2015. Concerning water for production, the aim is to promote development of water supply for agricultural production in order to modernise agriculture and mitigate effects of climatic variations on rain fed agriculture (MWLE, 1999).In essence, the overall policy objective is to manage and develop the water resources of Uganda in an integrated and sustainable manner, so as to secure and provide adequate quantity and quality of water for all social and economic needs of the present and future generations. The Government aims at full participation of all stakeholders with an 80-90% target for effective use and functionality of facilities. Other policy measures have also been put in place by the Environment and Natural Resources Sector Working Group which commissioned a study on the use of economic instruments for environmental management.Curbing water pollution was a key implementation factor for environmental sustainability. In 1998, the government introduced a water waste discharge fee ranging from 0 to 13 million Ugandan shillings ($0 to $7,000) in proportion to the biological oxygen demand load. The fees were meant to encourage investment in less polluting technologies. The legislation required that companies register for discharge permits before dumping industrial waste water. 2. 2Legal FrameworkThe major Instruments relevant to the Water Sector that provide the enabling legal framework for the water resources management and development in Uganda include: the Constitution, which provides the broad legal and policy framework within which all water sector legislation, policies and development plans are developed; the National Environment Act,(1995), it provides the framework for coordinated and sound management of the environment including environmental impact assessment of water resources related projects and setting water quality and effluent standards; the Local Government Act, which provides for the decentralisation of functions, powers, responsibilities and services to Local Governments; Uganda Water Action Plan (1995); the Water Resources Regulations and Waste Water Discharge Regulations (1998), providing for the regulation of water abstraction and waste water discharge through the use of permits; the National Water Policy (1999), indicating the policy framework for water resources management and development in Uganda. Other related legal policies include the National Gender Policy (1997) ; Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) and ; Water and Sanitation Gender Strategy (2003-2008). The policies and legal framework outlined above, are forward-looking in intention, for socio-economic, development strategies of the Government of Uganda and have supported various reforms in the water sector which has enabled government, to put in good order and rationalise the country’s resource utilisation. The question is, are these policies fully implemented? What is the implementation stand at local government and community levels?There are challenges regarding definition of roles and responsibilities, capacity and coordination of men and women, as well as collaboration for improved performance especially at government and community levels (MWLE, 2005). There is also need to review some provisions of the laws to incorporate regulatory functions and allow equal participation of men and women, in the water sector. (1)Institutional and Implementation Framework The water sector i s structured at three distinct levels namely: (a) the national, (b) decentralised or local government level and (c) the micro or user level. (a)National level At the national level, a Ministry of Water, Lands and Environment (MWLE) was created in 1996 following Government restructuring of line Ministries.This institution is charged with overall responsibility for initiating national policies and setting national standards and priorities for water development and management. Two national institutions are under this Ministry: The National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) and Directorate of Water Development (DWD). At implementation level, the Water and Sanitation Sector Working Group (WSSWG) which is under the Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) provides policy and technical guidance for sector development in the country; approves all sector programmes, including work-plans and budgets. The sector comprises representatives from ; Development Partners and Non-Governmental Orga nisations and Government.The National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), was established in 1972 with responsibility to deliver water supply and sewerage services in 15 urban centres serving 2. 1 million people. These centres are Entebbe, Kampala, Jinja /Njeru, Mbale, Tororo, Soroti, Gulu, Lira, Arua, Masaka, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Kasese, Bushenyi/Ishaka and Kabale. The Directorate of Water Development is the leading water sector agency responsible for policy guidance, setting standards, co-ordinating and monitoring, sector reporting, and undertaking sector relevant research and development. DWD is also responsible for managing water resources including provision of oversight and support services to the local governments and other water supply service providers. DWD, 1991-2001 ) Other national level institutions that play important roles in the Water and Sanitation sector include Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MFPED), responsible for the mobilisation and allocation of financial resources including co-ordination of donor inputs and the privatization process; Ministry of Health (MOH), for promotion of hygiene and household sanitation; Ministry of Education and Sports(MoE), charged with promotion of sanitation and hygiene education in schools; Ministry of Agriculture, Animal industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), responsible for planning, coordination and implementation of all agriculture development in the country including irrigation development, aquaculture, and livestock development ; Ministry of Gender and Social Development, which addresses gender responsive development and community mobilisation; and NGOs working in the sector. (b)District level The District and Local Government levels as a whole, are responsible for the provision and management of water and sanitation services in rural areas and urban areas outside the jurisdiction of NWSC, in liaison with DWD. Their functions, responsibilities and powers differ according to the degr ee of decentralization so far implemented for both rural and urban water. Planning, implementation and operational management of water and sanitation activities in major towns remain the function of NWSC. However, of 143 small towns with a population of 1. million, 66 have been gazette as water supply areas, 61 of these have operational piped water supplies and schemes, of which 57 are managed by private sector water operators. Planning and implementation for water supply systems in small towns is still centralized at national level (MWLE 2005). Operation and maintenance is decentralised to the urban authorities and private operators through public-private partnership arrangements. The district water offices operate within the overall framework of the district local councils. The district offices are staffed with a multi- skilled team, in planning, hygiene education and social aspects. The district water team reports to the Works and Technical/Services sub-committees of their respec tive local governments.At county level, technical officers have been posted to facilitate planning and supervision of construction works and overseeing maintenance of installed supplies. The communities are responsible for demanding for, planning, operating and maintaining water and sanitation facilities. (c)The Micro or User level At sub-county level, planning, implementation and operation and maintenance of the rural water and sanitation facilities are organised. These communities are also obliged to pay for urban water and sanitation services provided by NWSC and other service providers. Development of low-cost technology options such as springs, shallow wells, rainwater-harvesting tanks and school latrines are undertaken.The district water office and national level technical teams support the sub-counties to carry out water resources assessment to identify potential areas for water development and sanitation services. The sub-counties assess the demand for water and sanitation s ervices by the communities. This is based on population size and location and functionality of the existing facilities. At community level, the citizens are supposed to participate in the planning, financing, implementation, monitoring and control of community water and sanitation development. Communities submit requests/applications to the sub county for support towards water improvements. These are then forwarded to the district However, the level of community participation is less than the partnership, which it is meant to be.Women who are majority users of Water resources constitute only a handful of people, dominated by men in accessing and managing these resources. The initial programme design and implementation under many previous projects does not fully address gender equity participation. 3. 0Integration of gender into Environment and sustainable development in the water sector In order to avert the rapid degradation of the environment, Uganda developed a National Environme nt Action Plan (NEAP), 1995, that adapted a gender approach in planning the long-term investment of managing the natural resources in the country. The NEAP makes a strong commitment to addressing environment problems and to sustainable development in a comprehensive manner.The plan also argues for participatory approaches to environmental planning and the integration of gender analysis. The Uganda National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) is charged with formulating national environment policies and providing guidance in the implementation, including environment impact assessment, and environment education and training in environment management. The main purpose of incorporating gender in the environment management policies was to enable men and women perform their duties in the best cost effective methods which will conserve the environment, accelerate sustainable development that would improve people’s way of living.To achieve the above objectives there was need to f ormulate activities, which would contribute to the integrated promotion of sustainable livelihoods and environmental protection, covering various sectoral interventions involving a range of actors, from decentralised or local government level to lower levels, that are essential at every stage especially at the grassroots levels in the rural areas with special emphasis on the disadvantaged groups like women and youths. 4. 0ISSUES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN 4. 1Equitable access to water supply Access to safe drinking water is a basic human right and essential for achieving gender equality and sustainable development. Most households, especially at community levels do not have adequate access to water and the children and especially women, walk long distances to fetch water for domestic use.Water near the home contribute significant improvements in nutrition and health. The carrying of water over long distances is a health hazard. During daily water collection, women and girls face the risk of rape and injuries from attacks. A major issue associated with poor water supply and sanitation is a case with the Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs) camps, in Northern Uganda which involves high risks of sexual violence and abuses committed primarily against women and girls, a danger often caused by insufficient water supply and sanitation facilities within the camps which prompt movements to get water from far areas and at homes poor hygienic conditions.Over crowding, poor water pressure and broken water pumps accelerate the crisis (Diane Paul, 2006) Access to fresh water and sanitation therefore, does not only improve the health of a family, but it also provides an opportunity for girls to go to school, and for women to use their time more productively than in fetching water. Women in most cases are primarily responsible for the use and management of water resources, sanitation and health at the household level. Over the years, women have accumulated an impressive store of env ironmental wisdom, being the ones to find water, to educate children in hygiene matters and to understand the impact of poor sanitation on health and the environment.Very often the decision about location of water sources, types of water sources, and who will maintain the operation of the facilities are made without consulting women resulting in no-one taking responsibility. Men, who mainly dominate the operations and maintenance of facilities in the water sector often do not fully implement decisions and actions thus the need to involve more women. 4. 2Equitable access to land rights and water for productive use Equitable access to water for productive use empowers women and addresses the root causes of gender inequality. Lack of access (ownership) to land, is seen as an underlying cause of women’s limited access to water.In Uganda, women technically have little control and ownership on land under customary law in many of the Uganda ethnic societies statutory (national) law, there is, however, no discrimination. According to MFPED (2006), women own only 7% of the registered land in Uganda, a situation which affects gender mainstreaming in the Water sector, as women lack control over resources and therefore have limited decision making over issues like the silting of water sources, maintenance of broken pumps/taps/damaged bore holes/ water tanks and use of water for production. Land ownership is a precondition for access to water. Thus, land reforms that allocated legal land tenure to the heads of households or permanent agricultural workers (who are generally male) resulted in women losing any legal claim to water.There is need of water for a range of small scale economic enterprises, like: home gardens in peri-urban areas ; growing fruits; poultry farming; preparing food, (which are some times overlooked in agricultural statistics). Overall, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports an increasing â€Å"feminisation of agriculture† due to wars, pandemics and the exodus of men seeking paid work in urban areas. Also mentioned is the fact that women are heads of an increasing number of rural households in the developing world and find themselves in the position of managing farm land and providing for their families alone, without legal rights to water and land. 4. 3Equity and Participation in the management of resources in the water sector The management of water resources has been mainly male dominated.Men occupy a bigger portion in careers and training in water management than do women. Social barriers tend to restrict women’s participation in public consultations that can influence policies on water at all levels of water management. This prevents women voices from being effectively heard, particularly with respect to their environmental concerns and also results to limited effectiveness of water, sanitation and hygiene promotion efforts . Usually it is men who make the decisions over water management and sanitation issues and yet it is women who are usually in greater need for sanitation privacy and responsible for water, sanitation and hygiene.It is worth noting that the process of formulating the Water and Sanitation Sub-Sector Strategy (2010/11-2014/15), which began in 2003-2008 (Water Sector Gender Strategy-WSGS,WSGS ), served as the first strategic framework for implementing Uganda’s National Gender Strategy within the powers of the Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE). The WSGS I was developed in response to the various international commitments made by the Government of Uganda regarding gender equality and the National Gender Policy (1997). The strategy was aimed at developing and empowering approaches that would enhance gender equity, participation and access to and control of resources in the water sector.The strategy further put emphasis on both internal and external gender mainstreaming including building capacity for gender planning, monitoring and evaluation; strengthening the capacities of partners and executing bodies for mainstreaming; and committing adequate resources for gender related activities. This is an outstanding move with good intentions of formulating gender equity and participation but unless the Ministry of Water and Environment comprehensively and consistently puts focus on gender concerns, gender mainstreaming in the water sector will not penetrate deeply into matters of policy and legislation. 4. 4Issues on Sanitation Sanitation refers to the drainage and disposal of sewage. The need to dispose human excreta appropriately is an environmental and social concern in the country. Ignoring it posses adverse impacts on environment cost and on health.Lack of sanitation and poor hygiene are responsible for the transmission of diseases such as cholera, typhoid and other parasitic infections. These diseases have a big negative impact on the health and nutrition of communities especially the children. A focus on gender difference s is of particular importance with regard to sanitation facilities which needs the attention of women to play crucial roles in influencing the hygiene behaviours of children, and men too can serve as role models in sustaining changes in disposal habits. Hence the success and effective use of water and sanitation facilities largely depend on the involvement of both women and men in selecting the location and technology of such facilities, and taking responsibility for operation and maintenance.Sanitation concerns are mainly emphasized in urban and peri-urban centres and less priotised in the villages or lower communities/households. It is only under the urban and peri-urban strategies that water is directly linked to sanitation. The number of latrines at community level tend to be less as compared to size of the families needed to access them. Latrines are usually household initiatives sometimes rudimentary in nature. The water sector supply systems are relatively well developed and have mechanisms for delivery whenever necessary as compared to sanitation mostly at community level. There seems to be no well-developed mechanism for sanitation service delivery even at household level. Investment in water supply is highly priotised than sanitation.The reasons why sanitation prioritisation is not key in the water and sanitation sector is because of the difficulty of estimating the sanitation measures especially for rural sanitation where the latrines are merely rudimental with varying degrees of safety which makes it difficult to tag costs of improvements, rehabilitation or construction of such facilities including lack of political commitment to sanitation. It was therefore easy to omit household sanitation and concentrate on institutional sanitation (MWLE 2005). 5. 0Linkages OF GENDER EQUITY with PEAP Goals Gender mainstreaming and improved access to water supply has two potential benefits; improved service delivery and health. Gender equity in the sector offers better services in the management and maintenance while water-born diseases are important issues of the disease burden in Uganda.The sector goals are in line with PEAP goals as well as the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs). For example, the goals aim at the importance of gender in areas of agricultural production, legal discrimination and wood fuel, shortage of sustainable safe water supply and sanitation facilities, based on management responsibility and ownership by the users. It furthermore mentions inadequacies realised in the capacity to apply gender analysis skills, limited gender awareness among the communities, bureaucratic resistance in decision making and weak support in monitoring and supervision of sector activities as the reasons for low gender responsiveness. 6. 0Implementation ChallengesThe Poverty Eradication Action Plan identifies the importance of gender mainstreaming in all interventions which include policy planning, formulation, guiding public actions to eradic ate poverty and points out inadequacies in applying gender analysis skills, limited gender awareness among the communities, bureaucratic resistance among decision makers and weak support in supervision and monitoring. However, the importance of gender equity is not emphasised in the water and sanitation sector major implementation polices. Focus is targeted on poverty alleviation as an overall concern than gender. This limits coverage on gender issues and implementation. The insurgency in some northeast parts of the country and most especially northern Uganda, not only delays implementation, but also contributes to destruction of existing facilities. This contributes to delays in achieving the targets and the goals of the sector and PEAP.Community gender involvement, while it is a good input for environmental sustainability, remains difficult to attain. Attempts have been made to involve the men and women in planning ,maintenance of water and sanitation facilities . The methodologie s require a lot of skills and patience, qualities that are still lacking among the sub-county level civil servants. Women and the youth involvement remains limited as no major efforts have been made to involve them in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. 7. 0The way forward The paper has identified some challenges in transforming the water sector to achieve effective and sustainable services for both men and women.Issues concerning gender and their roles in development process and thus environment have not been given adequate attention by development planners. Women are now viewed as a useful resource to be integrated into development process, thus rendering the projects more efficient and successful. What is the way forward for Uganda to ensure that gender issues are mainstreamed in environment and development plans, projects and actions? 8. 0Issues to be addressed (1)Having water points nearer the homestead will reduce the distance women and girls have to walk, thu s allowing time for other activities, including training, childcare, growing food and income generation.The latter could include construction and management of water and sanitation facilities. (2)It is essential that both women and men be involved in decision making processes regarding the provision, location and technology of water and sanitation facilities in the community and household. (3)Government should also address perceived inequalities between women and men through reviewing laws and policies that discriminate against women and also urge Non Government Organisations(NGOs) and the private sector to champion women’s cause, which might increase women access to land and more decision-making powers. (4)Women groups should be accorded recognition as citizens, land holders and contributors to the development process.They need to have secure access to land and water for domestic use, in addition to productive use in farming including small scale industries. (5)Incorporate g ender analysis into all development plans, projects and actions, by encouraging the development of new skills and expertise within an Integrated Water Resources Management framework, linking social and gender aspects with the ecological, technical and economic dimensions of water management with special attention at community level. (6)The water sector should change the attitude of value system in favour of only men, and develop positive perceptions about women as competent professionals just like their male counterparts. 7)Capacity building for all women should be geared towards effective participation in local governances and sustainable development. Women politicians should be strengthened to enable them represent women interests regarding water and sanitation management and maintenance. (8)The water sector should fill all established posts equitably for better performance. It has been found that projects in which women and men have an equal say have a better chance for sustainab ility and success because they cater for the needs of every one. (9)The legislation on industrial water discharge permits be amended to require all companies / major water polluters to register for discharge permits. 10)A specific percentage of investment in water supply should be dedicated to promotion of sanitation and hygiene initiatives for the welfare of the users and protection of the environment. 9. 0Conclusion The water and sanitation sector has developed elaborate mechanisms and capacity at national, district and community levels for planning and managing sector activities which includes gender and environment issues to a large extent. However, in order to address strategic gender needs, there is a need to introduce fundamental changes in ideologies and power structures, behavioral attitudes, in government, organisations, companies and involve individuals both men and women.