Can Lebanon have peace if they started a Truth and Reconciliation Essay

Can Lebanon have peace if they started a Truth and Reconciliation Committee like South Africa - Essay Example The Maronite Christian and Muslim communities have fighting for equitable sectarian political power sharing among them. This paper discusses if there can be peace in Lebanon when a Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) is established just like in the case of South Africa. Truly, it is extremely difficult to distinguish victims from the offenders during a civil war. There have been many attempts to bring peace in the Lebanese community but these peace talks ignore the underlying causes of the conflict such as the political, social and confessional cleavages. Arguably, reparative justice can effectively address the assumed disagreement between justice, peace and reconciliation. Reparative justice is built on various elements including, active participation of the offender and victim; exploration of the motives and main causes by the offender and victim; consideration of necessary outcomes for restitution by the offender, victim and the community at large; and reconciliation of the antagonistic groups among others. According to Quinn (11), power sharing and social transformation are very important in the reconciliation process. Arguably, discovering the truth can be done by pardoning main actors thereby creating the feeling of injustice in the society. It can also be done behind the doors so as to avoid disclosure of the witnesses. Even though this process is not inclusive and can be criticized by many people, it is the key to a lasting reconciliation. Special tribunal for Lebanon was established for many reasons including trying those who were suspected of assassinating Lebanese Prime Minister, Hariri and many other people (Moriarty and Eva 147). Notably, traditional tribunal systems would not be effective in Lebanon, as it would promote the existing cleavages instead of conquering them. The Lebanese officials ignored both justice and reconciliation and as a result, justice

Nurture Your Childs Self-Esteem Essay Example for Free

Nurture Your Childs Self-Esteem Essay Kids start developing their sense of self as babies when they see themselves through their parents eyes. Your tone of voice, your body language, and your every expression are absorbed by your kids. Your words and actions as a parent affect their developing self-esteem more than anything else. Praising accomplishments, however small, will make them feel proud; letting kids do things independently will make them feel capable and strong. By contrast, belittling comments or comparing a child unfavorably with another will make kids feel worthless. Avoid making loaded statements or using words as weapons. Comments like What a stupid thing to do! or You act more like a baby than your little brother! cause damage just as physical blows do. Choose your words carefully and be compassionate. Let your kids know that everyone makes mistakes and that you still love them, even when you dont love their behavior. Catch Kids Being Good Have you ever stopped to think about how many times you react negatively to your kids in a given day? You may find yourself criticizing far more often than complimenting. How would you feel about a boss who treated you with that much negative guidance, even if it was well intentioned? The more effective approach is to catch kids doing something right: You made your bed without being asked — thats terrific! or I was watching you play with your sister and you were very patient. These statements will do more to encourage good behavior over the long run than repeated scoldings. Make a point of finding something to praise every day. Be generous with rewards — your love, hugs, and compliments can work wonders and are often reward enough. Soon you will find you are growing more of the behavior you would like to see. Set Limits and Be Consistent With Your Discipline Discipline is necessary in every household. The goal of discipline is to help kids choose acceptable behaviors and learn self-control. They may test the limits you establish for them, but they need those limits to grow into responsible adults. Establishing house rules helps kids understand your expectations and develop self-control. Some rules might include: no TV untilhomework is done, and no hitting, name-calling, or hurtful teasing allowed. You might want to have a system in place: one warning, followed by consequences such as a time out or loss of privileges. A common mistake parents make is failure to follow through with the consequences. You cant discipline kids for talking back one day and ignore it the next. Being consistent teaches what you expect. Make Time for Your Kids Its often difficult for parents and kids to get together for a family meal, let alone spend quality time together. But there is probably nothing kids would like more. Get up 10 minutes earlier in the morning so you can eat breakfast with your child or leave the dishes in the sink and take a walk after dinner. Kids who arent getting the attention they want from their parents often act out or misbehave because theyre sure to be noticed that way. Many parents find it rewarding to schedule together time with their kids. Create a special night each week to be together and let your kids help decide how to spend the time. Look for other ways to connect — put a note or something special in your kids lunchbox. Adolescents seem to need less undivided attention from their parents than younger kids. Because there are fewer windows of opportunity for parents and teens to get together, parents should do their best to be available when their teen does express a desire to talk or participate in family activities. Attending concerts, games, and other events with your teen communicates caring and lets you get to know more about your child and his or her friends in important ways. Dont feel guilty if youre a working parent. It is the many little things you do — making popcorn, playing cards, window shopping — that kids will remember. Be a Good Role Model Young kids learn a lot about how to act by watching their parents. The younger they are, the more cues they take from you. Before you lash out or blow your top in front of your child, think about this: is that how you want your child to behave when angry? Be aware that youre constantly being observed by your kids. Studies have shown that children who hit usually have a role model for aggression at home. Model the traits you wish to cultivate in your kids: respect, friendliness, honesty, kindness, tolerance. Exhibit unselfish behavior. Do things for other people without expecting a reward. Express thanks and offer compliments. Above all, treat your kids the way you expect other people to treat you. Make Communication a Priority You cant expect kids to do everything simply because you, as a parent, say so. They want and deserve explanations as much as adults do. If we dont take time to explain, kids will begin to wonder about our values and motives and whether they have any basis. Parents who reason with their kids allow them to understand and learn in a nonjudgmental way. Make your expectations clear. If there is a problem, describe it, express your feelings, and invite your child to work on a solution with you. Be sure to include consequences. Make suggestions and offer choices. Be open to your childs suggestions as well. Negotiate. Kids who participate in decisions are more motivated to carry them out. Be Flexible and Willing to Adjust Your Parenting Style If you frequently feel let down by your childs behavior, perhaps you have unrealistic expectations. Parents who think in shoulds (for example, My kid should be potty-trained by now) might find it helpful to read up on the matter or to talk to other parents or child development specialists. Kids environments have an impact on their behavior, so you may be able to modify that behavior by changing the environment. If you find yourself constantly saying no to your 2-year-old, look for ways to restructure your surroundings so that fewer things are off-limits. This will cause less frustration for both of you. As your child changes, youll gradually have to change your parenting style. Chances are, what works with your child now wont work as well in a year or two. Teens tend to look less to their parents and more to their peers for role models. But continue to provide guidance, encouragement, and appropriate discipline while allowing your teen to earn more independence. And seize every available moment to make a connection! Show That Your Love Is Unconditional As a parent, youre responsible for correcting and guiding your kids. But how you express your corrective guidance makes all the difference in how a child receives it. When you have to confront your child, avoid blaming, criticizing, or fault-finding, which undermine self-esteem and can lead to resentment. Instead, strive to nurture and encourage, even when disciplining your kids. Make sure they know that although you want and expect better next time, your love is there no matter what. Know Your Own Needs and Limitations as a Parent Face it — you are an imperfect parent. You have strengths and weaknesses as a family leader. Recognize your abilities — I am loving and dedicated. Vow to work on your weaknesses — I need to be more consistent with discipline. Try to have realistic expectations for yourself, your spouse, and your kids. You dont have to have all the answers — be forgiving of yourself. And try to make parenting a manageable job. Focus on the areas that need the most attention rather than trying to address everything all at once. Admit it when youre burned out. Take time out from parenting to do things that will make you happy as a person (or as a couple). Focusing on your needs does not make you selfish. It simply means you care about your own well-being, which is another important value to model for your children.

Comparison and Analysis of Museum Architecture

Comparison and Analysis of Museum Architecture In the late 1790s, several influencial members of the Prussian government requested that a museum was to be built to house the royal collection that would constitute a valuable contribution to the states cultural mission. Due to struggle with Napoleon and Prussias defeat in 1806 with victory in 1813 at Leipzig, the project was delayed until 1822, when Architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel took on the project. The Altes Museum was built between 1823 and 1830. It is one of the most important works in the architecture of Classicism. It has a lucidly ordered exterior and an interior structure of great precision after the Ancient Greek style, Schinkel pursued Humboldts idea of the museum as an educational institution open to the public. The Altes museum was originally built to house all of Berlins art collections, it has accommodated the Collection of Classical Antiquities since 1904. Between 1943 and 1945 the building was severely damaged by fire. Reconstruction work continued up until 1966. Since 1998 the Collection of Classical Antiquities has displayed its Greek collection, including the treasury on the ground floor of the Altes Museum. The Egyptian Museum has, since August 2005, shown its collection on the upper floor where it will remain until it moves to the Neues Museum in 2009. Karl Friedrich Schinkel was associated with leading poets, philosophers, and statesmen of his day. Some of their discussions involved aesthetics and the purpose of art, which did more than influence him passively. He sought to apply such theories to his architectural work. The Altes Museum was intended to be simply an extension of the Royal Academy, but Schinkel insisted he wanted it to be an autonomous building sited at the northern end of the Lustgarten, opposite the palace. In order for this to occur, because of the buildings intended size, a canal had to be filled in and a number of smaller buildings were removed to make way for the museum.It has been sited to face the palace and inserting it between the River Spree and a number of smaller buildings allowed him to accommodate the projects not so generous budget. Since only the museums facade needed ornamentation worthy of such an eminent neighbor as the palace, the Konigliches Schloss. The museum was located on axis with the palace and was adjacent to the cathedral and arsenal, giving it a central place among these three pillars of the Prussian state. It was to become a magnificent icon of its time. The museums relations with the state only went so far, with the facade, significantly, bore an inscription acknowledging the kings leading cultural role, although the museum was in no sense an extension of the court or an expression of royal power. The facade may have bore the kings name, but the buildings interior was to belong to art and its public. The Alter Museum appears a monumental masterpiece on the exterior, but not much can be said for its interior. It is preserved by recognising the courts role in the cultural life of Prussian society, while simultaneously disallowing this acknowledgement of power from affecting the museums internal logic. The building presents us with one face to the outside, while presenting another on the inside, reminiscent to the Janus symbol of one head with two faces, a double-edged sword, or the opposite sides of a coin. Schinkels museum attempts to suggest how art is connected to the world socially, culturally, and morally,within the context of the three pillars of Prussian society, as symbolised by the palace, arsenal, and cathedral. In the Altes Museum, it is impossible to ignore the buildings use of architectural forms traditionally reserved for religious buildings.The ground floors center is called the rotunda, which is a direct reference to the Pantheon as well as the Museo Pio Clementino. Art history and Aesthetics developed simultaneously over the course of the 18th century. These formed the hierarchy for the Altes Museum. The ground floor housed art from the ancient world, and the second floor contained paintings by period and style.Classical art was not arranged in any particular order, but was presented as one entity, it was not considered as another period, although they were carefully arranged according to the contemporary precepts of art history. This distinction between classical and postclassical, assumes that classical art is timeless, ideal and foundational. The monumental order of the eighteen fluted ionic columns, the wide stretch of the atrium, and the rotunda is an explicit reference to the pantheon in Rome, and finally the grand staircase which are all architectural elements where up to this point, were reserved for stately buildings. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1956-59) Frank Lloyd Wright has described the design of this building in a number of letters to its founder, Solomon R. Guggenheim, and in several statements made during the time of its design and construction. Both Wright and Guggenheim died before they could see the museum completed. This particular museum is in a class of its own. Featured in a number of famous Hollywood films for its famous levels of circulation in a spiral form. This particular distinctive building was Frank Lloyd Wrights last major work. From the street, the building looks approximately like a white ribbon curled into a cylindrical stack, it is slightly wider at the top than the bottom. Its appearance is in sharp contrast to the more typically boxy Manhattan buildings that surround it. Internally, the viewing gallery forms a gentle helical spiral from the main level up to the top of the building. Paintings are displayed along the walls of the spiral and also in exhibition space found at annex levels along the way.This museum can be described as clean beautiful surfaces throughout the building, all beautifully proportioned to human scale. These surfaces are all lighted from above with natural daylight beaming down into the main foyer. A feature that many historic museums lacked in previous times and failed to accomplish so well. This Museum seems to have an atmosphere of harmonious simplicity where human proportions are maintained in relation to the picture or painting on show. There is a fluid quiet created by the buildings interior where the new painting will be seen for itself under its favourable conditions, not conflicting with the buildings interior making it the centre piece of attention. The paintings are all situated in perfectly air conditioned chambers, essential to the preservation of these great pieces of art and sculptures. The walls of the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum and spaces, inside and outside, are one in substance and effect. The walls slant gently outward forming a giant spiral for a well defined purpose. One can view this as a new unity between beholder, painting and architecture. The pictures are inclined, faced slightly upward to the viewer and to the light in accord with the upward sweep of the spiral, the paintings themselves are emphasised as features in themselves and are not hung square but gracefully yield to movement as set up by these slightly curving massive walls. In a great upward sweep of movement the picture is seen framed as a feature of architecture. The flat plane of the picture detached by the curve of the wall is presented to view much as a jewel set as a signet ring. Precious as itself, unique in its identity. Slightly tilted curving away of the walls against which the pictures are placed not only presents no difficulty but facilitates viewing, the wide curvature of the main walls is a positive asset to the painting. The gentle upward, or downward, sweep of the main spiral-ramp itself serves to make visitors more comfortable by their very descent along the spiral, viewing the various exhibits. The elevator is doing the lifting, the visitor the drifting from alcove to alcove. The diameter of the spiral increases as it ascends so that the depth of the chambers is as a result greater at the upper levels. The partitions between the chambers act as bearing walls. Criticism of the building has focused on the idea or presumption that it overshadows the artworks displayed within, and the apparent difficulty to properly hang paintings in the shallow windowless exhibition niches that surround the central spiral. Despite the rotunda generously being lit by the large skylight, the niches are heavily shadowed by the walkway itself, leaving the art to be lit largely by artificial lighting. The walls of these niches are neither vertical nor flat with most being gently concave, meaning that canvasses are being mounted proud of the walls surface. Limited space within the niches mean that sculptures are generally relegated to plinths amid the main spiral walkway itself. Prior to the Museums Grand Opening, twenty-one artists, including Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell, signed a letter protesting the display of their work in such a space. Although there was criticism towards Frank Lloyd Wrights design of the Museum, it was deemed controversial. There were also fans of his design who admired and cherised the museum for what it was. Wrights great swansong, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of New York, is a gift of pure architecture or rather of sculpture. It is a continuous spatial helix, a circular ramp that expands as it coils vertiginously around an unobstructed well of space capped by a flat-ribbed glass dome. A seamless construct, the building evoked for Wright, the quiet unbroken wave. Spiro Kostof. A History of Architecture, Settings and Rituals. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. p740. Entering into the spirit of this interior, you will discover the best possible atmosphere in which to show fine paintings or listen to music. It is this atmosphere that seems to me most lacking in our art galleries, museums, music halls and theaters. Frank Lloyd Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright, The Architectural Forum, January, 1948, Vol 88 Number 1. p89. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has become a cultural icon and can be seen widely throughout popular culture. It is featured in Matthew Barneys The Cremaster Cycle, Bye Bye Birdie, Men in Black, When in Rome, Downtown 81, and prominently in The International, where a major shootout occurs in the museum. In fact a life size replica of the museum was built for this scene. The New Yorker magazine has included the museum multiple times on its cover and in various cartoons. Berlins Judisches Museum (Jewish Museum) September 2001 In one of the worlds biggest genocides ever before seen in history, WWII was a dark unstable era. From the German Nazi camps to the gas chambers of a very grim world, human beings were being cattled like animals from camp to camp, starved enough to die from hunger due to lack of food and water or forced into the chambers of death, only to be suffocated by the belief of a Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler. This was the Jewish Genocide. Berlins Judisches Museum (Jewish Museum is housed in a remarkable modern building designed by Daniel Libeskind. The museum was opened in September 2001. Some say it was shaped a bit like the Star of David and containing bizarre angles to symbolise the Holocaust, the Judisches Museum is the largest and most unique Jewish museum in Europe. It takes you back in time sending a chill down your spine giving you a sense of what really happened back then in the holocaust. The circumstances of the museums foundation and the collections it is based on, the people who have directed its development can be found here as well as personalities of public life who are dedicated to the intercultural understanding of the Jewish Museums and pHYPERLINK http://www.jmberlin.de/main/EN/04-About-The-Museum/05-Prize-UT/00-award_ceremony.phprize for understanding and tolerance. Like in any other new structure built whether it being a church, museum, hospital or home, numerous views and opinions where expressed in relation to the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Visitors had seen Libeskinds new building as either a spectacularornormal museum. It was recognised as a deconstructivist masterpiece, a groundbreaking creation, with its intellectuality in the form of a house, or even an exhibit in its own right. Daniel Libeskind placed great emphasis on peoples perceptions of the building and these are formed day after day. The museums modern architectural elements of the Libeskind building comprise of the zincfacade, the Garden of Exile, the three Axes of the German-Jewish experience, and the Voids. Together these pieces form a visual and spatial language rich with history and symbolism. Not only do they house the museum with its exhibits, but they also provide visitors with their own unique experience as they walk through the spaces, taking them back in time almost like a time capsule, being able to understand what the museum is trying to portray and what story it is trying to tell. The new building of the museum is best described as Zig-zag. The design is based on two linear structures which when combined, form the body of the building. The first line is a winding one with several kinks while the second line cuts through the whole building. At the intersections of these lines, there are empty spaces otherwise known as Voids. These voids rise vertically from the ground floor of the building up to the roof. Daniel Libeskind imagines the continuation of both lines throughout the city of Berlin and beyond. Almost like a destructive train line travelling through europe not knowing where its going to end up. An irrational and invisible matrix (Daniel Libeskind, 1995) The facade of the Jewish museum barely enables a conclusion to be drawn in regards to the buildings interior. Neither levels nor rooms become apparent to the observer. The positioning of the windows are primarily narrow slits that follow a precise matrix. They are also based on a network of connections. During the design process, architect, Daniel Libeskind plotted the addresses of prominent Jewish and German citizens on a map of pre-war Berlin and joined the points to form an irrational and invisible matrix in which he based the language of form, geometry and the shape of the building. The New Building is coated in zinc, a material that has a long tradition in Berlins architectural history. It consists of untreated alloy and titanium with zinc that will oxidize and change color through exposure to light and weather over the years. A Void is not really a museum space. (Daniel Libeskind, 1999) Voids represent a central structural element in the New Building and form the connection to the Old Building. In the Old Building, there is a staircase that leads down to the basement through a Void of bare concrete which joins the two buildings together. Five voids run vertically through the New Building. They have walls of bare concrete, they are not heated or air-conditioned and also hardly any artificial light, they are quite separate from the rest of the building. The upper levels of the exhibition, the Voids are clearly visible with black exterior walls. The Museums Voids refer to that which can never be exhibited when it comes to Jewish Berlin history: Humanity reduced to ashes. (Daniel Libeskind, 2000) In the museum there are also underground passageways that link the Old Building with the Libeskind Building. These passageways have no official entrance. There is a path system as you pass by the great void made of three axes symbolising three realities in the history of German Jews. The first and longest of these axes is the Axis of Continuity. This axes connects the Old Building with the main staircase otherwise known as the Sackler Staircase which leads up to the exhibition levels. Daniel Libeskind describes the Axis of Continuity as a continuation of Berlins history, it is the connecting path from which the other two axes branch off. The Garden of Exile attempts to completely disorient the visitor. It represents a shipwreck of history. (Daniel Libeskind, 1999) The second of the axis is the Axis of Emigration which leads outside to daylight and to the Garden of Exile. On the journey to this great garden, the museum walls are slightly slanted and close into eachother, almost symbolising a path of destruction that plagued the past of german history. The floor is uneven and ascends gradually. A heavy door must be opened before the crucial step into the garden can be taken. Almost a portrayal in fighting your way through hell to get to heaven, making the jouney that worth while. Or is it ? The Garden of Exile is reached after leaving the axes. The whole garden is on a 12ÂÂ ° gradient and disorients visitors, giving them a sense of the total instability and lack of orientation which was experienced by those who were driven out of Germany. Russian willow oak that grew on top of pillars in the garden symbolised hope. The third of axiss is the Axis of the Holocaust which is basically a dead end. This axis becomes narrower and darker and ends at the Holocaust Tower. Glass cases on the way display documents and personal possessions devulging to the private and public life of their owners who were killed. These three underground axes symbolise the connection between the three realities of Jewish life in Germany. The new Glass Courtyard at the Jewish Museum in Berlin was built from a design titled Sukkah which is Hebrew for thatched booth, by Daniel Libeskind. This glass courtyard is the second extension to the museum. The structure itself consists features of the New Building with its shiny silver facade and the Old Building, it is a successful synthesis of old and new. This combination is strengthened by the further addition of the Glass Courtyard to the ensemble. The light flooded Glass Courtyard has its own distinctive feel. While the Libeskind Buildings zig-zag form is a metaphorical reference to destruction of German-Jewish history, theSukkah theme is one of social gathering appropriate for a courtyard. There is also the new glass roof that covers the U-shaped courtyard at about 670mÂÂ ² in size. It is supported by four freestanding bundles of steel pillars. It portrayed the structure of a tree which was the main inspiration for creating the supporting pillars, which extend into the roof forming a steel network. The integration of the Glass Courtyard with the existing Old Building posed an architectonic challenge. This glass construction does not outplay the Old Building, the landmarked Collegienhaus which was erected in 1735, in scale and appearance stands proud an independent to the new building. The Glass Hall was a complex building project, interelating the old museum with the new Jewish museum. It was deemed unconventional for both construction and materials used. Due to the expressive and asymmetrical geometry in Libeskinds design, it presented enornmous challenges to those involved in the construction process, such as the structural engineers and facade planners involved. Steel being used for such a project was also very unusual to them as well. They were used to steel that normally supported construction with right-angled or curved geometry. In the Glass Courtyard it formed branches and treetops. Almost like painting picture out of steel. Metal alloy steel, out of all materials used, demonstrated one of the most unconventional uses of steel in contemporary architecture. Four branching steel bundles each consisted of three steel pillars with the rough estimated diameter of a tree. Their function is primarily static, also in the case of fire, they contain media cables within, offering some protection to the cables. The roof girders were assembled and bolted together onsite at the building site at roof height. The weight of the pillars weighed up to six tons each and the roof girder sections weighed up to eight tons each, a crane had to be formed that withstood a bearing capacity of 200 tons necessary. The Glass Courtyard now provides the museum with space for a variety of events, such as educational workshops, concerts, theatrical performances, and receptions for up to five hundred people. It also serves to extend the museums entrance area and thereby improves the regulation of visitor flow and circulation.The new room is located a few steps way from the main entrance and its existing infrastructure. It includes cloakrooms, ticket counters, and the museum restaurant. To date over four million people have visited the Jewish Museum. It is well know for its diverse cultural and educational programs. The Glass Courtyard provides a suitable and architecturally appealing solution, which will enable this vibrant development of the museum to continue in the future. In conclusion the Altes Museum is a typical example of classical architecture which date back from Ancient Greece and the Rome Empire. It signifies a sense of formality and power amongst the people of its time. Royalty and size of structures were more common in those times rather then smartly designed structures that could achieve the same purpose. Such structures such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York, although very large in scale, it was a building designed after the turn of the century, that sparked controversy and disbelief that something of that scale and facade could be built in a congested city environment. It was considered fantasy rather then a reality. It was built and it achieved the same purpose as the Altes Museum in Berlin, but it was designed better and more cleverly incorporating the use of natural light throughout the whole structure and the use of continuity in circulation, which made the design one of the worlds most prominent buildings. Following on from such a magnificent structure in New York, we come back to Berlin, where Berlin followed a similar approach in redesigning and extending New Jewish Museum. No one ever thought that something of so significant in history could be reinvented in a way where it takes people back in time to the hurt and pain of Nazi Germany. This museum was created in such a way that it completely blew away the traditional approach of a museum. The buildings special features that include spiraling walls, sloping floors, a windowless Holocaust Tower, and symbolic lines of windows that resemble wounds. When it comes to the Holocaust, a design approach such as this one, executed perfectly, cannot come up, close and personal as this remarkable museum.

Determining Magnitudes of Calibration Stars

Determining Magnitudes of Calibration Stars SN 2014J in M82: Follow-Up Photometry Aims and Objectives This laboratory involved using photometry of the images of M28 which were obtained in R and I filters from ULO’s robotic telescope, hence determined the magnitudes of calibration stars and the new discovered supernova. In addition, compare the experimental results to the published AAVSO data by investigating the time series of data within the night of 23rd and 24th of January. Introduction Supernova are basically the explosion of massive supergiant star when they are reaching the end of their evolution. In general, supernovae can be classified as type I and type II supernova, each of them has its own specific features and dynamics. Type Ia supernova are generally thought to a white dwarf explosion and type II supernova are triggered by a core collapse of massive supergiant stars. Astronomers use type Ia supernova as a â€Å"standard candle† to measure the cosmic distances because they are very bright which can be seen at great distances and they all are observed to have similar brightness at their peaks. Light curve is one of the methods that astronomers use to identify different types of supernova. It is constructed by plotting the magnitude of the supernova as a function of time after the event of explosion. Type I supernova have very distinctive light curve compare to type II supernova. The figure bellow shows that type I supernova light curves exhibit a sharp increase to a maxima and then decrease steeply, eventually die away smoothly and gradually whereas type II supernova have less sharp peaks at their maxima and they have another peak later on after the first peak. (From hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu) Supernova SN2014J was discovered in the galaxy M82 on 21st January 2014 at ULO. Early studies of SN2014J light curve and spectrum indicate it is a type Ia supernova meaning that its light curve would have a peak absolute magnitude around the same value and it follows the general shape of type Ia light curve. In the laboratory, we can determine the magnitude of the supernova and plot the result to AAVSO database to see if it fits the published data and follow the trend of typical type Ia supernova light curves, whence to predict the peak brightness and its magnitude. Procedures I first downloaded and printed out the list of standard stars’ magnitudes from the AAVSO website which was used for reference throughout the laboratory. I also obtained the subset of the images of M82 from ULO’s robotic system by selecting only Rc and Ic filter’s image as well as the time range from 21:29 to 21:35 on the date of 23rd of January 2014. These images were opened and analysed with GAIA’s aperture photometry tool. I analysed the Ic images first in GAIA. Before making any magnitude measurements of stars, the brightest stars were checked to make sure they were not saturated and all the given star in AAVSO list don’t have peak count over 40000 counts. These must be done to get reliable results. In order to measure the magnitude, a suitable aperture needed to be drawn on the image and it should be in the size about two to three times the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of a star image. By using the slice tool, a graph of the selected star was opened in a new window where the FWHM could be measured. Determined FWHM of several listed stars and calculated the mean value, hence the aperture was set to three times the size of FWHM. When the aperture was set to a suitable size, I clicked the â€Å"define object aperture† button and placed the aperture to stars in the same order as they appeared in the AAVSO reference data. At last, dropped the aperture in supernova as well. After all, I collected my results by clicking on â€Å"Calculate results† button. These results were then save in a excel file for further analysis. Repeat the same procedures for Rc images and also save all the results in the same excel file. Measurements and results Calculated FWHM for making the judgement of the size of aperture: FWHM of star 112 = 178-174=4 FWHM of star 120 = 548-544=4 mean of FWHM = 4 size of aperture = 3 x 4 =12 Thus, I set the aperture as size 12 and placed it to each star to make a measurement. On my downloaded images for both Ic and Rc filter, star 155 and star 159 did not appear on them which lead to no measurements were taken from them. Results of Ic image and Rc image were tabulated in table 1 and table 2. Table 1. Results of Ic image Table 2. Results of Rc image Both of the tables have their first column listing all the known standard star from the reference data and supernova is also included. The column with heading of Sky is the values of sky annulus which are used to measure local background sky values for each star. And the last column is the signal from a star which is used to calculate magnitude and constant k of the star as well as the supernova. To estimate the magnitude of supernova, several calculations were carried out by using the equation: m = -2.5log N +k (1) The constant k was first calculated from known reference stars on the list and hence the mean value of constant k for both Ic and Rc imgaes. Then both Ic and Rc apparent magnitude of supernova were determined. All these values were tabulated in table 3 and associated uncertainties showed in table 4. Uncertainties on k and apparent magnitude were obtained by using the following equation: Ntot = N x n x 2.53 (2) Where N is the signal obtained from an average of n images, and 2.53 is called the ‘gain’ of the CCD. à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬  m2 ≈ 1.1/√Ntot (3) Where à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬  m2 is the error in magnitudes in measurement of the star signal And finally, the combined uncertainty becomes: (à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬  mSN)2 = (à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬  k)2 + (à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬  m2)2 (4) Table 3. Results of calculated magnitude and constant k for both Ic and Rc imgaes Table 4. Uncertainties 4.3 Q5. Compare table 3 and the reference list, we can see that there is no obvious trend for constant k (both Ic and Rc) varies for standard star colours as well as standard-star magnitude. In the reference list, standard star colours such as B, V and B-V increase in their values following the order of the stars from 106 to 156, however, values of constant k fluctuates with different values of star colours but not follow any increasing or decreasing trend. Discussions and Conclusions This laboratory is to analyse and make magnitude measurements of the known stars from images of M28 which were obtained in R and I filters from ULO’s robotic telescope by using the aperture photometry tool, hence determined the magnitudes of the new discovered supernova. At the end of the laboratory, experimental results were plot in the light curves from AAVSO data so we can investigate the time series of data within the night of 23rd and 24th of January and more importantly, to predict the time that the supernova reach peak brightness and magnitude when Rc and Ic images were taken. Table 6. Results of magnitude both Rc and Ic by different students. 4.4 Q1. Table 6 shows all the laboratory results obtained by different groups of students. My calculated results for the Ic and Rc magnitude of supernova in the time range 21:29—21:35 are 10.04 +/- 0.02 and 10.54 +/- 0.03 respectively. Compare my results with those obtained by other students, I cannot conclude that out results are not consistence because the uncertainty for my Ic and Rc magnitude are +/-0.02 and +/- 0.03, but the difference in magnitude between students is about +/-0.1 which is not within my uncertainty range, thus the results did not maintain the consistency. 4.4 Q2. Because the great consistency of the results obtained from different groups of students, we can say the magnitude of the supernova is around the similar value at the time the images were taken. There is no obvious trend observed for the magnitude to change with time during that night, also, the condition of the sky was thought to be not vey ideal, thus the we cannot conclude that there is a change in brightness at the night of 23rd January to 24th January 2014. However, from the general shape of light curves of supernova, there should be obvious brightness change before and after peak. So, more reliable results should be obtained for plenty of nights to detect the change in brightness. 4.3.1 Q4. Table 4 listed majority of the uncertainties that can possibly be calculated from my results. They are relatively small compare to the large values of my results. However, there were also systematic uncertainties arising from the measurement of the background galaxy light. This is related to the size of annulus when I did the aperture measurements. The annulus is used to measure the background of the sky by drawing a larger circle and a smaller circle around the centre of the star. The background is therefore the region between these two apertures or the annulus. If the aperture is oversized, extra light from neighbour stars will be included which can cause unreliable results of the measurement as it introduces noise from the sky background, thus the signal strength from the star fluctuates as well. To check this uncertainty, I adjust the inner scale and the outer scale of the annulus to make some measurements of a star. The results were tabulated in table 5. Table 5. Results of aperture measurement with different size of annulus By trying different set of inner and outer annulus scales, the signals were very different to the one I obtained in the first stage. To mitigate them, multiple aperture with different size within the range about 2 to 3 times the FWHM can be used to make more measurement. This would give a more reliable signal strength of the star. Figure 1. Light curve of SN2014J from AAVSO with own data plotted Figure 1 is the light curve that I downloaded from AAVSO for SN 2014J with my results plotted on. My results for Ic and Rc magnitude were plotted in blue and yellow respectively. My data actually fits the AAVSO data, both of the magnitude are on the light curves at the same time on the night. We can spot that there is a trend from the AAVSO data from the same night at ULO. Both of I and R light curves show an increase in magnitude with change in time meaning that the supernova was brightening during the night at 23rd of January 2014. As mentioned previously in introduction, the shape of typical supernova Ia light curves exhibit a sharp increase to a maxima and then decrease steeply, eventually die away smoothly and gradually. Combine this information to the plot from AAVSO, there is a sharp increase from 17th to 23rd of January, and the magnitude gradually increase until reach its peak at around the date of 29th to 30th of January, and even the data is up to 4th February, we still can observe that there is a slight decrease in magnitude after 31th of January. We can say the magnitude at peak is about 9.5 for Ic and 10 for Rc. Throughout the whole observation, colour dependent extinction were not allowed by the Earth’s atmosphere. Basically, the extinction effect varies from night to night and the coefficient of extinction depends on wavelength and on different altitude. As the data was obtained from just one night, the extinction should not vary too much and for the wavelength dependent, different filter needed to be used to maintain a good accuracy of photometry, in this case, red and invisible filter were used. And the extinction is corrected by calculating the magnitudes outside the atmosphere. This can be the reason to cause the fluctuation of our measured magnitudes. In conclusion, I got the magnitude of SN2014J in Ic and Rc filter are 10.04 +/- 0.02 and 10.54 +/- 0.03 respectively within the time range 21:29—21:35 on the night of 23rd of January 2014. These data exactly follow the trend of the light curves of SN2014J obtained by AAVSO website at the same night. However, results gathered from other student in the same group didn’t show an obvious change in brightness of the supernova whereas the light curve did show that there is an increase in magnitude on the same date. References: American Association of Variable Star Observers AAVSO (2014) [Online] Available from http://www.aavso.org/ [Accessed: 11th February 2014] Aperturephotometry (2004) [Online] Available from http://mth.uct.ac.za/~lab/chap6/chap6/node3.html [Accessed: 11th February 2014] R Nave, HyperPhysics 2001 [Online] Available from: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/snovcn.html [Accessed: 19th February 2014] Megan Gannon, How Students Discovered New Supernova in Nearby Galaxy (2014) [Online] lightAvailable from http://www.space.com/24413-supernova-star-explosion-student-discovery.html [Accessed: 19th February 2014] American Association of Variable Star Observers AAVSO (2014) [Online] Available from http://www.aavso.org/ [Accessed: 11th February 2014] Steve Fossey, PHAS1130 Practical Skill 1A SN 2014J in M82: Follow-up Photometry Manuals Shaoshan Zeng

U.S. Grant :: essays research papers

Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant rose to command all the Federal armies in the Civil War. Ulysses Hiram Grant was born April 27, 1822, in a two room frame house at Point Pleasant, Ohio. His father, Jesse Root Grant, was foreman in a tannery. When Grant was one his parents moved to Georgetown where they had five more children there, two boys and three girls. At seventeen Grant was harvesting, and hauling wood. his father got him an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point that year. In spite of grants real middle name they used Grants', mothers' maiden name, Simpson. He made few friends at West Point due to being shy and quiet. Grant was in almost every battle of the Mexican War. This experience, he said, was of great value to him, because he became acquainted with nearly all the officers of the regular army. Some of them including the great soldier Robert E. Lee were to be on the Confederate side in the Civil War. Grant came back from Mexico a captain, with favorable mention. In the Mexican War Grant formed the habit of drinking. Grant spent two years on the Pacific coast and missed his second childs birth. His colonel asked for his resignation due to him drinking and wearing sloppy uniforms, and Grant borrowed money from him to return home. Julias father gave Grant 80 acres to farm, near St. Louis. Grant called the place Hardscrabble. Two more children were born and Grant couldnt support his growing family so Grant worked as a clerk, selling hides to saddle makers and cobbles. After Fort Sumter was fired on April 12, 1861, President Lincoln issued a call to arms. Within two weeks Grant was drilling volunteers in Galena, because, as he said, there was no one else to do the job, the gathering was completed and Grant left. A few weeks later the governor telegraphed him to come back and accept the rank of colonel because the men he had recruited had asked for him. Grant reached his headquarters at Cairo, Illinois, September 4, 1861. Grant then set to work t o prepare his men for a long, hard struggle. In February 1862 Grant advanced into Tennessee. While he was invading this fort, the Confederate general, Simon B. Buckner asked for a truce. This was the same officer who in had loaned Grant money to rejoin his family in 1858. U.S. Grant :: essays research papers Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant rose to command all the Federal armies in the Civil War. Ulysses Hiram Grant was born April 27, 1822, in a two room frame house at Point Pleasant, Ohio. His father, Jesse Root Grant, was foreman in a tannery. When Grant was one his parents moved to Georgetown where they had five more children there, two boys and three girls. At seventeen Grant was harvesting, and hauling wood. his father got him an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point that year. In spite of grants real middle name they used Grants', mothers' maiden name, Simpson. He made few friends at West Point due to being shy and quiet. Grant was in almost every battle of the Mexican War. This experience, he said, was of great value to him, because he became acquainted with nearly all the officers of the regular army. Some of them including the great soldier Robert E. Lee were to be on the Confederate side in the Civil War. Grant came back from Mexico a captain, with favorable mention. In the Mexican War Grant formed the habit of drinking. Grant spent two years on the Pacific coast and missed his second childs birth. His colonel asked for his resignation due to him drinking and wearing sloppy uniforms, and Grant borrowed money from him to return home. Julias father gave Grant 80 acres to farm, near St. Louis. Grant called the place Hardscrabble. Two more children were born and Grant couldnt support his growing family so Grant worked as a clerk, selling hides to saddle makers and cobbles. After Fort Sumter was fired on April 12, 1861, President Lincoln issued a call to arms. Within two weeks Grant was drilling volunteers in Galena, because, as he said, there was no one else to do the job, the gathering was completed and Grant left. A few weeks later the governor telegraphed him to come back and accept the rank of colonel because the men he had recruited had asked for him. Grant reached his headquarters at Cairo, Illinois, September 4, 1861. Grant then set to work t o prepare his men for a long, hard struggle. In February 1862 Grant advanced into Tennessee. While he was invading this fort, the Confederate general, Simon B. Buckner asked for a truce. This was the same officer who in had loaned Grant money to rejoin his family in 1858.

The Story of Lot and His Daughters Essay examples -- Religion Theology

The Story of Lot and His Daughters As discussed in class, the Old Testament is a story of the constant struggle between the Lord and his authority, and humans and their rebellion. God brings down punishment upon Man, but saves a few righteous individuals. It is within the framework of this constant struggle that the rules of an evolving society are laid down and recorded. In the story of Lot and his daughters, we see the taboos of disobedience to the Lord, incest and poor hospitality condemned. The pericope begins in Genesis 19, when the Lord tells Abraham that he will destroy Sodom unless he can find ten righteous men in the city. The angels of the lord come to Sodom to find its righteous men, and Abraham’s nephew, Lot, receives them. He treats them as honored guests, washing their feet and feeding them. A crowd of overly curious Sodomites harass Lot, demanding to see his guests. Lot protects his guests, even offering his two virgin daughters up in their stead. This can be read in two ways. One sees this as an act of pandering his daughters out. This calls into question Lot’s values. His good treatment of the angels, and God’s subsequent protection of Lot, shows him to be righteous, so this must not be the case. I choose to go with the chain of thought that this is meant to be an example of the Sodomites’ lack of interest in women. They ignore the offer and try to attack Lot and his household. Lot’s actions stress the importance of being a good host at a time when the only things that mattered were one’s family or tribe name, and one’s fair treatment of those one came in contact with. In Dante’s Inferno, in the Ninth Circle of Hell, traitors to guests are second only to traitors to benefactors as far ... ...ventually attempting to curse and rule over them. In Deuteronomy 2:8-21, we see that the Lord had the Israelites leave both tribes alone, showing a small amount of favor for Lot and his descendants. In fact, the Moabites resurface throughout the Old Testament, at times even subjugating the Israelites (Judges 3:12-29). It is possible that the Lord used the Moabites to teach the Israelites the importance of staying true to him, again echoing the constant struggle between the benefactor and his family. This rebellion and punishment simply repeat the cycle of the power struggle between God and Mankind that the Old Testament is based on. It is a book of lessons for living a life in a time when societies were still learning how to function. Through the story of Lot, three rules of society are re-stressed. They are to obey authority, be hospitable, and avoid incest.

Organizational Behavior: Personality and Values Essay

In today’s modern society, personality and values play a critical role in the stability of an organization. Today, diversity is the key to the success of most organizations. However, diversity goes beyond merely race, religion, color, national origin, gender, age, and disability. The diversity of personality and the appreciation of the variety of talents and skills of our co-workers will go far in helping us make our lives less stressful. The human resource department and hiring managers need to consider personality and values when they hire new employees. It is also important that they understand and appreciate the different personality and values of their current employees. Personality and Values In today’s competitive market it has become extremely important to hire the right people to help execute the mission and vision of a company. The employee helps bring the slogan on the wall into existence; therefore, it is important that employees display the right personality and values the company would like to show the world. Gordon Allport produced the definition of personality we most frequently use nearly 70 years ago. Allport said personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment (Robbins & Judge, 2013, p. 133). However, the definition has been tweaked over the years. For the purpose of this paper, personality is defined as the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others. The most important reason managers need to know how to measure personality is that research has shown personality tests are useful in hiring decisions and help managers for ecast who is best for a job (Robbins & Judge, 2013, p. 133). Values are another area where companies need to ensure the employees and managers are on the same page. When values are divided, problems with the organization closely follow. Values represent basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state existence. They contain a judgmental element in that they carry an individual’s ideas as to what is right, good, or desirable. Values have both content and intensity attributes. The content attribute says a mode of conduct or end-state of existence is important. The intensity attribute specifies how important it is. When we ran an individual’s values in terms of their intensity, we obtain that person’s value system (Robbins & Judge, 2013, p. 144). When a company considers the personality of their employees and the value system of the owners and shareholders the company had now developed a company personality. Personality Traits Corporations often use personality assessments to understand how the people that belong in their organization interact. Two popular frame works for indentifying and classifying traits are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Big Five Model. According to Robins and Judge, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most widely used personality assessment instrument in the world. It is a 100-question personality test that asks people how they usually feel or act in particular situations. Respondents are classified as extraverted or introverted (E or I), sensing or intuitive (S or N), thinking or feeling (T or F), and judging or perceiving (J or P). These terms are defined as follows: * Extraverted (E) versus Introverted (I). Extraverted individuals are outgoing, sociable, and assertive. Introverts are quiet and shy. * Sensing (S) versus Intuitive (N). Sensing types are practical and prefer routine and order. They focus on details. Intuitive rely on unconscious processes and look at the à ¢â‚¬Å"big picture.† * Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F). Thinking types use reason and logic to handle problems. Feeling types rely on their personal values and emotions. * Judging (J) versus perceiving (P). Judging types want control and prefer their world to be ordered and structured. Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 56) These classifications together describe 16 personality types, indentifying every person by one trait from each of the four parts. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has been widely used by organizations including Apple Computer, AT&T, Citigroup, GE, 3M Co., many hospitals and educational institutions, and even the U.S. Armed Forces (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 135). The Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator may lack strong supporting evidence, but an impressive body of research supports the thesis of the Big Five Model – that five basic dimensions underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human personality. Moreover, test scores of these traits do a very good job of predicting how people behave in a variety of real-life situations (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 136). The following are the Big Five factors: * Extraversion. The extraversion dimension captures our comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timed and quiet. * Agreeableness. The agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. People who score low on agreeableness are cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic. * Conscientiousness. The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable. * Emotional stability. The emotional stability dimension – often labeled by its converse, neuroticism – taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure. * Openness to experience. The openness to experience dimension addresses range of interests and fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of the category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 136). Generational Values Values within a person are oftentimes shaped by what generation and life events they may have experienced during their formative years. Researchers have integrated several recent analyses of work values into four groups that attempt to capture the unique vales of different cohorts or generations in the United States workforce (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 145). There are some limitations to this theory because a person born in one generation can have the characteristic of another generation. Just because you are born on a certain date, does not automatically make you have the same values as everyone in your own generation. Despite these limitations, values do change over generations, and we can gain some useful insights from analyzing values this way. Boomers (Baby Boomers) are a large cohort born after World War II when United States veterans returned to their families and times were good. Boomers entered the workforce from the mid-1960’s through the mid-1980’s. They brought with them a large measure of the â€Å"hippy ethic† and distrust of authority. But they placed a great deal of emphasis on achievement and material success. Pragmatists who believe ends justify means; they work hard and want to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Boomers see the organizations that employ them merely as vehicles for their careers. In terms of seniority, baby boomers make up the bulk of the employees in most large corporations, so it is imperative that co-workers understand the values of the person sitting or standing next to them. Terminal values such as a sense of accomplishments and social recognition rank high with them (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 146). The lives of Xers (Generation Xers) have been shaped by globalization, two-career parents, MTV, AIDS, and computers. Xers value flexibility, life options, and the achievement of job satisfaction. Family and relationships are very important. Xers are skeptical, particularly of authority. They also enjoy team-oriented work. In search of balance in their lives, Xers are less willing to make personal sacrifices for the sake of their employer than previous generations were. Generation Xers rate high on true friendship, happiness, and pleasure. The most recent entrants to the workforce, the millennials (also called Netters, Nexters, Generation Yers, and Generation Nexters) grew up during prosperous times. They have high expectations and seek meaning in their work. Millennial have life goals more oriented toward becoming rich (81 percent) and famous (51 percent) than do Generation Xers (62 percent) and 29 percent, respectively, but they also see themselves as socially responsible (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 146). They are more ethnically and racially diverse than older adults. They’re less religious, less likely to have served in the military, and are on track to become the most educated generation in American history. They embrace multiple modes of self-expression. Three-quarters have created a profile on a social networking site. One-in-five have posted a video of themselves online. Nearly four-in-ten have a tattoo (and for most who do, one is not enough: about half of those with tattoos have two to five and 18% have six or more). Nearly one-in-four have a piercing in some place other than an earlobe- about six times the share of older adults who’ve done this. But their look-at-me tendencies are not without limits. Most Millennials have placed privacy boundaries on their social media profiles and 70% say their tattoos are hidden beneath clothing (Millennial, 2010). Policy on Ethics Often times the value system of a company can clearly be seen with the company’s ethical code. Chrysler actually posts a code of ethics brochure on their website to ensure all employees and customers know their value system. According to the website, Chrysler expects all of its employees to contribute to a cooperative working environment in which the dignity of each individual is respected. The conduct of management personnel should set an example to promote positive employee morale and the open exchange of ideas. Chrysler is committed to high ethical standards in business transactions. Chrysler does not tolerate unethical or corrupt practices by its employees or its business partners. Chrysler strictly forbids engaging in or tolerating bribery or any other form of corruption. High standards require hard work, courage and often present difficult choices. At times, choosing the proper course of action means foregoing business or personal opportunities. The â€Å"integrity code,† while not all-inclusive, reflects the basic standards of ethical behavior expected of Chrysler employees and should be read in conjunction with the company policies, guidelines, and standards of conduct that also apply to Chrysler employees (â€Å"Integrity Code,† 2009). Ineffective company ethics policies can also be a detriment to the company’s public image, stature in the business community, and ultimately to their profitability. Many people assume that running a successful business often entails a systematic approach, however the personality and values of employees of a company plays a crucial role in its success as well. It is can be detrimental when executive decisions are not made and could result in them being extremely costly. For example, according to Academy of Management executives â€Å"clean up costs are sometimes difficult to attribute to any particular ethics failure. Consisting of such things as attorney and audit fees , investigative costs†¦medical actions†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The Enron scandal being the root example of a company destroyed due to simply unethical individuals. Not implementing ethics in any company will always fail in some way whether a small loss to an incomprehensible one (Schermerhorn & Dienhart, 2004). That is why it is imperative to ensure a code of ethics as part of the system. The dynamics of decision making for any individual who is often faced with issues regarding â€Å"ethics† becomes far more complex than it sounds. Every company, in one way or another, are faced with difficulties of employees making decisions that sometime seem ethical or not. Not everyone can make such decisions. The downfall of those who lack the ability to make ethical decisions can be costly. A company’s inability to reinforce â€Å"ethics† in their business can quickly become detrimental. One only has to look at Enron, Arthur Anderson, and Worldcom to understand the catastrophic effects of having ineffective ethical policies and values (Thomas, Schermerhorn & Dienhart, 2004). Company Values In regards to company values and ethics, Chick-fil-A has been in the news because of the words of their owner in regards to â€Å"Christian values.† His comments have caused the business world to examine the role of a business owner’s personal values and company values. At issue was the CEO’s opinion of same sex marriage. The controversy came to a boil after an interview with the fast food restaurant chain’s president and COO Dan Cathy appeared in The Baptist Press on July 16 and he weighed in with his views on family. â€Å"We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit,† Cathy said. â€Å"We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.† Proponents of same-sex marriage spread Cathy’s comments, eventually creating a firestorm of criticism on social media, including assertions that his comments and position were bigo ted and hateful (Brumfield, 2012). Internships Corporations often demonstrate their values to customers by the way they treat their employees and the opportunities that are available for citizens to become a part of the company. One way to quickly rise in a company is to connect to their intern program. Chick-fil-A boasts about their internship program on their website. According to their corporate website, the purpose of the Chick-fil-A Internship Program is to provide a high-caliber group of students an opportunity to enhance their educational experience and improve their career preparation. A key objective of the intern experience is to help students and recent graduates understand and appreciate the importance of building and maintaining strong work relationships in accomplishing results. We have designed the program to involve students in real work projects while also allowing them time to experience many aspects of the Chick-fil-A corporate culture. The cultural experience includes significant executive exposure and numerou s development opportunities (â€Å"Internship,† n.d.). The Chrysler Corporation also has an intern program that is called the Chrysler Leadership Development program. The Chrysler Leadership Development (CLD) Program is a highly selective two-year program that develops leaders by incorporating intensive on-the-job learning opportunities with supplemental development and interaction with our global business leaders. You’ll have the guidance and support of Chrysler leadership throughout your experience and opportunities to build on your talents through high-impact assignments. The program will provide you an accelerated opportunity to learn our business, executive mentor support, and an investment to grow your leadership abilities (â€Å"Leadership Development Program,† n.d.). As with most intern programs, the potential employee must meet minimum requirements. To be considered for the Program, you must meet the following requirements: * MBA/Master’s degree with a minimum 3.2 GPA * 2-6 years of professional business experience * Demonstrated leadership experience (â€Å"Leadership Development Program,† n.d.). According to Chic-fil-A’s website, the organization values diversity. What is diversity? According to the Civil Rights office of the Department of Interior, the term â€Å"diversity† is used broadly to refer to many demographic variables, including, but not limited to, race, religion, color, gender, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, age, education, geographic origin, and skill characteristics. America’s diversity has given this country its unique strength, resilience and richness (â€Å"Diversity,† 2012). Diversity management makes everyone more aware of and sensitive to the needs and differences of others. Diversity is much more likely to be successful when we see it as everyone’s business than if we believe it helps only certain groups of employees. One method of enhancing workforce diversity is to target recruiting messages to specific demographic groups underrepresented in the work force. This means placing advertisement in publications geared toward specific demographic groups; recruiting at colleges, universities, and other institutions with significant numbers of underrepresented minorities; and forming partnerships with association like the Society for Women Engineers or the Graduate Minority Business Association (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 56). Values and Ethics Organizational Development is an emerging profession, and its practitioners tend to describe themselves as professionals. However, individuals working in the field may vary greatly in respect to their degree of professionalism. By professionalism, we refer to the internalization of a value system that is a part of the concept of the profession. Whether a person can be deemed a professional is determined by the degree to which he or she has internalized certain values pertinent to the profession. Although there is some disagreement, four areas appear to be important. * Expertise. The professional requires some expertise. This includes specialized knowledge and skills that can be obtained only through training (usually through academic study and experience). * Autonomy. The professional claims autonomy. Professionals reserve the right to decide how their function is to be performed and to be free from restrictions. * Commitment. Professionals feel a commitment to the discipline. They a re more likely to identify with members of their profession in other organizations that with their own organization. * Code of ethics. Finally there is a responsibility to society for the maintenance of professional standards of work. They adhere to professional self-discipline and a code of ethics (Brown, 2011, p. 71). The values and ethics of prospective employees and the alignment of the values and ethics advocated by the company are important consideration when it comes to hiring practice considerations. If a company’s hiring practices are ineffective, it can have detrimental effects to its bottom-line. According to a survey conducted by online payroll company SurePayroll, it found three out of four surveyed business owners admitted to hiring at least one employee they later wished they never had, and many indicated that the mistake resulted in a significant financial loss of more than $10,000 per bad hire, according to 12 percent of respondents (Eddy, 2009). Most companies react to hiring situations as emergencies; that might explain why so many do it so poorly. One Survey of fifty CEOs of global companies along with a pool of executive search consultants who rated about 500 firms found the hiring practices for many of those companies are disturbingly vague. Part of the findings, according to the respondents, indicated to a heavily reliance on subjective personal preferences or on largely unquestioned organizational traditions, often based on false assumptions (Fernà ¡ndez-Arà ¡oz, Groysberg & Nohria, 2009) It is therefore imperative to avoid making bad hiring decisions. As such, your hiring practices should have procedures that need to be followed to ensure the candidates being considered for employment are good matches. Procedures should contain effective methods for screening candidates during the pre-employment phase. Some of these methods should include background checks or skills testing (Eddy, 2009). In order to avoid ineffective hiring practices companies should consider seven steps within their hiring practices to cover the full recruitment spectrum to include: anticipating the need for new hires, specifying the job, developing a pool of candidates, assessing the candidates, closing the deal, integrating the newcomer, and revi ewing the effectiveness of the hiring process (â€Å"Harvard Business, 2009). Continuous training and educational should be a part of everyone’s personal value system as well as remaining as ethical as possible. The best way to stay smart when facing ethical dilemmas is to remain current in your ethical training. In regards to ethics training a team of management researchers recommended the following actions for improving on-the-job ethics. * Behave ethically yourself. Managers are potential role models whose habits and actual behavior send clear signals about the importance of ethical conduct. Ethical behavior is a top-to-bottom proposition. * Screen potential employees. Surprisingly, employers are generally lax when it comes to checking references, credentials, transcripts, and other information on applicant resumes. More diligent action in this area can screen out those given to fraud and misrepresentation. Integrity testing is fairly valid but is no panacea. * Develop a meaningful code of ethics. * Provide ethics training. Employees can be trained to identify and deal with ethical issues during orientation and through seminar, video, and internet training sessions. * Reinforce ethical behavior. Behavior that is reinforced tends to be repeated, whereas behavior that is not reinforced tends to disappear. Ethical conduct too often is ignored or even punished while unethical behavior is rewarded. * Create positions, units, and other structural mechanisms to deal with ethics. Ethics needs to be an everyday affair, not a one-time announcement of a new ethical code that gets filed away and forgotten. â€Å"A growing number of large companies in the United States have chief ethics officers who report directly to the CEO, thus making ethical conduct and accountability priority issues. * Create a climate in which whistle-blowing becomes unnecessary. Whistle-blowing occurs when an employee reports a perceive unethical and/or illegal activity to a third party such as government agencies, news media, or public interest groups (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2008). On May 15, 2002, President Bush signed into law the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation (No FEAR) Act to increase federal agency accountability for acts of discrimination or reprisal against employees. The No FEAR Act became effective on October 1, 2003. This act requires that federal agencies post on their public web sites certain summary statistical data relating to equal employment opportunity complaints filed against the respective agencies (State, n.d.). Project Team Project teams have two universal measures; to satisfy the customer, and to deliver on time, on budget and within specification. The rationale for using teams is simple: high performing teams save money and satisfy customers. Unfortunately, there is the other side of the coin: poor performing teams cost money and disappoint customers. In many cases, individuals are assigned to a cross functional team and attempt to jump right into work without first attempting to address the relationship of team members and the behavioral disposition of the individuals. If the behavioral aspects of the team are not understood, then the team can become mired in conflict and lose momentum which results in lost time and effectiveness. Behaviors that can affect productivity include: the inability to work together towards a common goal, fear of sharing ideas, fear of negative feedback, self interest driving actions, expectation that the team leader will solve all of the problems and assume all of the respo nsibility, confusion between individual tasks and relationships with other people, and lack of appropriate acknowledgement for accomplishments (Henkin, 2012). The other consideration in deciding to form teams is what size team should be put together. When it comes to the workplace, teamwork is increasingly widespread. Research indicates there is not a fixed or optimal number to have on a team. Professor Wittenberg, Director of the Wharton Graduate Leadership Program, notes that team size is â€Å"not necessarily an issue people think about immediately, but it is important.† According to Wittenberg, research on the optimal team numbers is not conclusive. In the work world, Professor Wittenberg suggests that it has been â€Å"reinforced that five or six is the right number (on a team) but it really depends on the task† (Knowledge@Wharton, 2006). The other dynamic that needs to be addressed relates to teams is how they resolve conflicts. Conflict management is a very important part of team dynamics. Choosing the right members for a group can help prevent some of these issues. One strategy involves designating a project manager, a strong individual that can competently take charge. The project manager must be experienced and understand how to deal with both the interpersonal as well as behavioural aspects of the teams. They must also understand the normative stages of development most all teams go though as they come together. The project manager must allow the team to communicate effectively, create rapport, resolve conflict, lead team members, and motivate the whole team (Gountanis, n.d.). Team Development Team development is an iterative process. This is readily understood when looking at the ‘forming-storming-norming-performing’ model for team development that has become a standard team development model introduced by Bruce Tuckman. The theory is based on the premise that each team goes through a distinct iterative process. The first phase is described as the forming phase where the team first comes together with energy, expectation, and limited knowledge of assigned task. The next phase is the storming phase where individuals start jockeying for position and recognition. The team internally struggles with why and how decisions made will affect the individual members. The next phase is the norming phase where stability starts to emerge and goals are established with plans and associated defined roles/responsibilities. The last phase is the performing phase where the plans are implemented, outputs are generated, and work gets done. Every team goes through these phases. (Tuckman, 1965). Therefore, it is natural to expect conflicts to arise between team members; however, management as well as the project manager must be cognizant there can be both constructive conflict and destructive conflict. Constructive conflicts exists when people change and grow personally from the conflict, the conflict results in a solution to a problem, it increases involvement of everyone affected by the conflict, and it builds cohesiveness among the members of the team. Destructive conflicts exist when no decision is reached and problem still exists, it diverts energy away from more value-add activities, it destroys the morale of the team members and it polarizes or divides the team (Cappozzoli, 1995). Diversity within the team is another consideration with respect to group dynamics. Professor Klein from the Wharton School of Management and Professor Lim from Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore as part of their research looked at the value of diversity and found that there was conflicting theory. Some research suggests diversity represented by gender, race, and age leads to conflict and affects behavioral integration among team members. The general assumption is that people tend to associate better with people who are similar to themselves which suggest too much diversity is bad for cohesion. Other research suggests diversity helps creates more ideas, more perspectives and more creativity for better solutions. In their research, Klein and Lim found a distinct value in having some similarity between team members which enhances coordination and effectiveness in performing tasks that are complex, unpredictable, urgent, and/or novel (Klein & Lim, 2006). It is possible that a balancing of both theories within a team construct might be beneficial in forming a high performance team. Conclusion Employees’ performance and satisfaction are likely to be higher if their values fit well with the organization. The person who places great importance on imagination, independence, and freedom is likely to be poorly matched with an organization that seeks conformity from its employees (Robbins & Judge, 2013, p. 154). Chick-fil-A’s senior leaders are very vocal about the fact their company is owned and operated on Christian values. In fact, their policy and procedure of closing on Sunday so their employees can enjoy time off with their family and perhaps even attend church is rare in the quick service restaurant business. Chrysler is also very serious about their company values and has placed a code of ethics manual on their website to remind internal employees and external customers about their value systems. One of the roles of managers is to both exhibit and vocalize company values. This works well when your personal values are similar to the company and other senior leaders. The higher an individual rises within an organization, the more important it is that your personality and value system aligned with your company. Both the hiring process of the employees and the ethical standards of behavior for those employees are a critical dynamic supporting the mission objectives of the company. When a company fails to implement effective hiring and ethical policies, the implications can be costly in a variety of quantifiable ways. Finding the right mix of individual employees is a difficult task in terms of attracting and retaining people who are the best fit to the company. The success of the company relies on both the individual as well as those members who become part of teams. The composition of those members to a particular team must be carefully considered by management. The size, makeup, diversity, selection of the team lead, and objective of the team are all important considerations to ensure success. Management must recognize there is some inherent inefficiency in putting teams together as they go through an iterative process of maturity but they must be convinced the benefits of the outcomes out weigh the delays by putting together that particular team. Recommendations The profitability and long term survivability of companies are keys to their success. One of the most important assets to any business entity is human capital resources or personnel. As with any asset, management and leadership hire personnel with the belief they will contribute to the company in a positive manner and demonstrate a return of investment from the standpoint that the hiring and training process requires an investment of both time and money. Therefore, it is imperative that companies seek out, attract, and retain individuals whose personality and values match that of the company. In addition, they must be able to work well within teams to further the objectives of the company. It is also important that the company’s continue to communicate and reinforce their values to the workforce. That message must come from the top down. Senior leadership must convey that message at stockholder meetings, all hands meetings, town hall meetings, and via electronic means. While i t is imperative that message be communicated, it must be supported and reinforced at all levels of management. In addition, the compensation and reward system must recognize behavior and performance consistent with that message. The other important consideration is that leadership and management must be conveying the right message, with the right behaviors, and enveloped by a sense of ethical behavior. One only has to look at Enron, Worldcom, and Arthur Anderson to recognize the catastrophic and costly effects of engaging in behavior as individuals, groups, or management that is conflict with stated values. The recent Chick-Fil-a statements made by Mr. S.T. Cathy where personal views were replaced by those of the corporation started a media firestorm and backlash from many interest groups. The result was negative press for the company and eventually the announcement by the corporation of a customer appreciation day that cost the company tens of millions of dollars in an attempt to counteract the negative events. References Academy of Management Executive, Volume 18, No. 2, (2004), Strategic leadership of ethical behavior in business, Schermerhorn, Thomas, and Dienhart, John, retrieved from http://home.sandiego.edu/~pavett/docs/msgl_503/leader_ethic_behave.pdf Brockmann, Erich. (1996, May). Removing the paradox of conflict from group decisions. Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Brumfield, B. (2012). Retrieved from http://articles.cnn.com/2012-08-01/us/us_us-chick-fil-a-controversy_1_civil-unions-marriage-glaad Cappozzoli, Thomas K. (1995, Dec). Resolving conflict within teams. Journal for Quality and Participation. v18n7, p. 28-30 Eddy, Nathan (June 25, 2009). Businesses Losing Money on Bad Hiring Practices Retrieved from http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Midmarket/Businesses-Losing-Money-on-Bad-Hiring-Practices-Survey-Finds-482198/ Gountanis, Chris (n.d.). Team Dynamics – Conflict Resolution Strategies. [ONLINE (htt p:// www.chrisgountanis.com/written-works/50-team-dynamics-conflict-resolution-strategies.html) [Last Accessed 24 September 2012]. 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