Internet Of Things

Internet Of Things The Internet of Things is the idea that ordinary everyday objects can, with the addition of sensors and communications interfaces, be made Smart. In this context Smart means that they are able to communicate useful information regarding their current state, their location and the environment they exist in. The technology behind this idea has been applied to areas such as energy efficiency [6], a virtual lost property office [7], tachographs for individual road charging [8], RFID systems in logistics [5] and bar codes on supermarket products that can be read by mobile phone applications to give nutritional information, allergy warnings or ethical information [9]. However, in this paper we shall be investigating the Internet of Things from the perspective of its application in what have become known as Smart Homes and more specifically how issues relating to Human Computer Interaction (HCI) have been considered when developing products and appliances therein. First we shall provide a b ackground to the subject, highlighting its origins and noting key technical themes. Following this we shall look in more depth at studies relating to key HCI concerns we have identified. The first of these concerns is the design, usability and acceptance of interfaces on Smart appliances. The second concern is the impact of security and personal privacy considerations on the perception and acceptance of Smart Homes technology. Finally, in our conclusion we will show that [TBC when conclusion can be added] Background The term Internet of Things represents a vision in which the virtual world of the Internet is extended into the physical world of everyday objects. A concept first put forward by Mark Weiser in a 1991 article for Scientific American [1], it stems from the idea that the continuing trend for reductions in price, size and energy consumption of electronic components, microprocessors and communications modules will lead to a truly ubiquitous computing experience. The term itself is attributed to Kevin Ashton, co-founder of MITs Auto-ID Center [2], which was set up to design, develop and propagate open standards for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) infrastructure. Using sensors, it is envisioned that objects become context aware or Smart and that built-in networking capabilities enable these Smart objects to communicate their current state both to people and other systems via internet services. Such developments have been widely recognised both by governments and international bodies as important and potentially disruptive. The Internet of Things was included in the US National Intelligence Council list of 6 Disruptive Civil Technologies [17] in 2008, whilst an EU Commission action plan [4] saw the evolution of the Internet taking it from a network of interconnected computers to a network of interconnected objects. This vision mirrors that of the International Telecommunications Union which views the Internet of Things as a development that means ÂÂ  from anytime, anyplace connectivity for anyone, we will now have connectivity for anything [20]. Applications include energy efficiency and conservation [6], a virtual lost property office [7], tachographs for individual traffic costs [8], RFID tagging in logistics [5] and barcodes in supermarkets that can be read by mobile phones [9] [13] to supply information such as allergy warnings or nutritional details. However, ther e is the potential to impact on any field that would benefit from remote, automated observation and data collection, efficient control management or real-time interpretation of data from the physical world [5]. Much of the research into the Internet of Things has been from a strictly engineering perspective and as such follows a Design Science approach that is very much machine focused. Examples of this research can be found in [10] and [18] where it has been additionally described as following either a Things oriented perspective or an Internet oriented perspective. This is a reflection that the word Internet acts both as a metaphor for connectedness and also, in a stricter technical sense, to signify the use of IP (Internet Protocol) as a basis for communication. Things oriented initiatives are largely those originating from the Auto-ID Center, which promote the use of RFID tags and a global Electronic Product Code (EPC). RFID tags are the combination of a small microchip attached to a wireless antenna in a package usually similar to an adhesive sticker. RFID tagged objects are not Smart in and of themselves but rather they require a reader to aggregate and interpret information they gather and sit between themselves and the applications making use of their data. The development and adoption of an EPC network [11] and EPCIS standards aims to provide the infrastructure to uniquely identify RFID tagged objects and simplify the processing and exchange of the data they capture. This will be helped by the creation of Wireless Sensor Networks enabled through advances in energy efficient multi-hop Wireless Personal Area networks (WPAN) [21]. RFID systems have the advantage of being very small size and very low cost [18] and are considered good for c losed loop applications e.g. logistics within a single organisation such UPS or FedEx rather than open loop applications such as supply chain that have greater complexity problems [10]. ÂÂ  There are, however, major practical issues relating to scalability and confidentiality. Internet Protocol (IP) enables Smart objects to be fully connected as Internet nodes. However, the requirements for processing and power consumption are currently prescriptive with regards to implementing a TCP/IP stack and wireless communications into RFID tags. Research into technologies that overcome these issues forms the Internet oriented approach and promotes the idea of Unique, Universal or Ubiquitous ID (uID) architectures. It also includes artefacts that have alternatively been termed the Web of Things [16], as a refinement of Internet of Things. A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach, allowing for the decomposition of complex and monolithic systems into applications consisting of an ecosystem of simpler and well defined components [18] has been adopted in the development of middleware to bridge this gap. Middleware describes the software layer(s) sitting between and acting as a communications link between applications and low level objects. One such example is the S OCRADES Integration Architecture [29] in which Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application developers can query networked devices to find the most suitable one to provide the required service based on its real-time environmental context. Alternative middleware approaches include Fosstrak [26] an open source RFID infrastructure implementing EPC Network specifications and e-SENSE [25] that uses wireless sensors to capture ambient intelligence. A more ad-hoc Web of Things approach [27] applies REST (Representational State Transfer) [30] use of the Web as application platform to devices. In this model Smart objects are embedded with a small HTTP server [15] [16] or use a middleware gateway to transmit XML or JSON data. One outcome of this is the potential for real-time Mashups (user generated composite applications) of physical objects with Web 2.0 services. Examples include tracking the flight paths of planes around Zurich [14] or measuring energy consumption of appliances [16]. In the future this could mean an RSS or Twitter feed from your fridge updating you on the status of its contents. Mattern and Fleorkemeier [10] have identified twelve major challenges they consider important to the ongoing development of an Internet of Things. Amongst these are two that form the basis of our investigations and provide the focus of the remainder of this paper. The reason we have settled on these two challenges is that we have identified them as relating most directly to the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) issues that are the focus of our studies. These two challenges are: Arrive Operate The idea that Smart objects should not be perceived as computers and that there should be no need for user configuration, rather they should just work. For the applications we shall study in more detail this is most clearly manifested in the choices made when designing the user interface. Security personal privacy The understanding that a wider Internet of Things will inherit all the privacy issues associated with the existing Internet and in addition will have to concerns regarding the authentication of other communication partners where each partner is either a Smart object or a service.

Involvement Of K+ In Leaf Movements During Suntracking :: essays research papers

Involvement of K+ in Leaf Movements During Suntracking Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many plants orient their leaves in response to directional light signals. Heliotropic movements, or movements that are affected by the sun, are common among plants belonging to the families Malvaceae, Fabaceae, Nyctaginaceae, and Oxalidaceae. The leaves of many plants, including Crotalaria pallida, exhibit diaheliotropic movement. C. pallida is a woody shrub native to South Africa. Its trifoliate leaves are connected to the petiole by 3-4 mm long pulvinules (Schmalstig). In diaheliotropic movement, the plant’s leaves are oriented perpendicular to the sun’s rays, thereby maximizing the interception of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). In some plants, but not all, his response occurs particularly during the morning and late afternoon, when the light is coming at more of an angle and the water stress is not as severe (Donahue and Vogelmann). Under these conditions the lamina of the leaf is within less than 15 ° from the normal to the sun. Many plants that exhibit diaheliotropic movements also show paraheliotropic response as well. Paraheliotropism minimizes water loss by reducing the amount of light absorbed by the leaves; the leaves orient themselves parallel to the sun’s rays. Plants that exhibit paraheliotropic behavior usually do so at midday, when the sun’s rays are perpendicular to the ground. This reorientation takes place only in leaves of plants that are capable of nastic light-driven movements, such as the trifoliate leaf of Erythrina spp. (Herbert 1984). However, this phenomenon has been observed in other legume species that exhibit diaheliotropic leaf movement as well. Their movement is temporarily transformed from diaheliotropic to paraheliotropic. In doing so, the interception of solar radiation is maximized during the morning and late afternoon, and minimized during midday. The leaves of Crotalaria pallida also exhibit nyctinastic, or sleep, movements, in which the leaves fold down at night. The solar tracking may also provide a competitive advantage during early growth, since there is little shading, and also by intercepting more radiant heat in the early morning, thus raising leaf temperature nearer the optimum for photosynthesis.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Integral to understanding the heliotropic movements of a plant is determining how the leaf detects the angle at which the light is incident upon it, how this perception is transduced to the pulvinus, and finally, how this signal can effect a physiological response (Donahue and Vogelmann).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the species Crotalaria pallida, blue light seems to be the wavelength that stimulates these leaf movements (Scmalstig). It has been implicated in the photonastic unfolding of leaves and in the diaheliotropic response in Mactroptilium atropurpureum and Lupinus succulentus (Schwartz, Gilboa, and Koller 1987). However, the light receptor involved can not be determined from Involvement Of K+ In Leaf Movements During Suntracking :: essays research papers Involvement of K+ in Leaf Movements During Suntracking Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many plants orient their leaves in response to directional light signals. Heliotropic movements, or movements that are affected by the sun, are common among plants belonging to the families Malvaceae, Fabaceae, Nyctaginaceae, and Oxalidaceae. The leaves of many plants, including Crotalaria pallida, exhibit diaheliotropic movement. C. pallida is a woody shrub native to South Africa. Its trifoliate leaves are connected to the petiole by 3-4 mm long pulvinules (Schmalstig). In diaheliotropic movement, the plant’s leaves are oriented perpendicular to the sun’s rays, thereby maximizing the interception of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). In some plants, but not all, his response occurs particularly during the morning and late afternoon, when the light is coming at more of an angle and the water stress is not as severe (Donahue and Vogelmann). Under these conditions the lamina of the leaf is within less than 15 ° from the normal to the sun. Many plants that exhibit diaheliotropic movements also show paraheliotropic response as well. Paraheliotropism minimizes water loss by reducing the amount of light absorbed by the leaves; the leaves orient themselves parallel to the sun’s rays. Plants that exhibit paraheliotropic behavior usually do so at midday, when the sun’s rays are perpendicular to the ground. This reorientation takes place only in leaves of plants that are capable of nastic light-driven movements, such as the trifoliate leaf of Erythrina spp. (Herbert 1984). However, this phenomenon has been observed in other legume species that exhibit diaheliotropic leaf movement as well. Their movement is temporarily transformed from diaheliotropic to paraheliotropic. In doing so, the interception of solar radiation is maximized during the morning and late afternoon, and minimized during midday. The leaves of Crotalaria pallida also exhibit nyctinastic, or sleep, movements, in which the leaves fold down at night. The solar tracking may also provide a competitive advantage during early growth, since there is little shading, and also by intercepting more radiant heat in the early morning, thus raising leaf temperature nearer the optimum for photosynthesis.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Integral to understanding the heliotropic movements of a plant is determining how the leaf detects the angle at which the light is incident upon it, how this perception is transduced to the pulvinus, and finally, how this signal can effect a physiological response (Donahue and Vogelmann).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the species Crotalaria pallida, blue light seems to be the wavelength that stimulates these leaf movements (Scmalstig). It has been implicated in the photonastic unfolding of leaves and in the diaheliotropic response in Mactroptilium atropurpureum and Lupinus succulentus (Schwartz, Gilboa, and Koller 1987). However, the light receptor involved can not be determined from

Do People in Public Life Have a Right to Privacy? Essay

People, famous or not, have a right to privacy, which is a basic human right. Although some of them have voluntarily made themselves known to the world, they are still entitled to live a life without others following them all the time, eavesdropping on what they say and being under surveillance. However, in the case of politicians or other powerful people, the right to privacy comes into conflict with another right, the public’s right to know. The entitlement and the necessity to get informed are essential to guarantee democracy; this can only be achieved by the freedom of the press. Therefore the right to privacy of certain politicians sometimes has to be neglected to ensure a rightful running of our country. But do we need to get informed about everything there is? We have to distinguish between famous people. Basically there are those who were seeking a public life – or at least knew to some extent what they were going into – and those who were not. Politicians, athletes, actors, musicians, entertainers and members of royalty belong to the former. The latter are ordinary citizens who become significant, because of their extraordinary experiences, for example victims of crimes or tragedies, but also criminals. The amount of ordinary citizens who receive their celebrity status unwillingly is quite big and the privacy of those people needs to be especially respected and maintained. Names, addresses or pictures that could lead to the identification of a person should never be made public. It is not of interest for the readers, and it usually does not make a difference for them, what the name of someone is, but for the one concerned publication of identity could mean embarrassment and harassment. Suspected criminals, for instance, could lose their jobs, their families could break up or their whole lives could get destroyed, even when they are innocent. Apart from that, as soon as someone is well known, they are pursued and harassed by journalists demanding interviews. Also in cases where a family just had to experience the loss of a dear person, the press usually shows little respect for that. While we tend to despise the way the press is treating ordinary people and feel the justification for their right to privacy, we have problems applying the same to people who were seeking a public role. In those cases we tend to think we have a right to the invasion of their privacy, since they have put themselves into the public eye on purpose. We demand to know about their personal lives, but we don’t see that this interest is only greediness for amusement. The press is using this human phenomenon and is sacrificing individual privacy for the entertainment of a general public to increase the circulation of a paper. We are satisfying our voyeurism and we even claim that we have a right to it, but by that we submit ourselves to the tabloid values of a mainstream media and put that under the cover of public interest. What is public interest? Journalists usually widen this term to use it as an excuse for all forms of reporting, in order to cover up every detail of one’s life. But public interest is not necessarily what the public is interested in, which is usually sex and crime; it is not what increases the circulation of a paper; it is not gossip. Public interest is the necessity to have access to essential information that allows us to keep a critical eye on our society. A person’s personal lives or gossip about it is not news and not of public interest. But unfortunately, reports about politicians’ sex lives are more popular than reports about someone’s policies and public actions. The position of politicians in the eye of the public is especially difficult to judge. On the one hand politicians use their happy family and home in campaigns, on the other hand we know personal particulars and behaviour have nothing to do with competence in running a country and private details, even if completely irrelevant, can still ruin careers. Sometimes only due to the intrusion of privacy, corruption or similar crimes can be made public, but at the same time not everything in one’s life is connected to one’s office. When personal morality and family values are deliberately used by politicians  as a reason for them to be elected, they have chosen to make it a public issue rather than a private one. This is a sad fact, but it does not justify intrusion of the personal lives of all politicians. A politician still is, like everyone else, entitled to privacy. Unfortunately, the press and the public seem to have grown bored covering politicians who aren’t celebrities and so personal gossip wins over public issues. Since their private lives are so closely observed, politicians are concentrating a lot on their image and consequently they have less time to spend on their actual job. This close scrutiny is not only humiliating, it also makes poor political performances more likely. If the public lost its big interest in private lives, political coverage and also politicians themselves would have to focus more on policies and actions. Everyone would have to stop making privacy an issue, which has no place in politics. However, competence seems to count less and less nowadays and politicians are rather supposed to have a good character. People are inclined to think that one who betrays his wife also betrays his country, which generally not the case. But character is not determinable by personal behaviour and moreover there is no connection between private morality and someone’s ability to do a job well. Would we rather have a morally integer, but less competent person in power? A lot of good leaders of the past would probable fail today, for example Kennedy, who committed adultery, or Kreisky, who had a speech impediment. Many talented people do not manage to reach a high position today, because they have no blameless personal lives and many are kept from seeking a public office, because they fear the intrusion of privacy. Politicians have to be observed in some respects. The press, being independent from any authorities, plays an important role in informing the public; it is the instrument that can expose corruption, wasting of taxes, hidden agendas or other crimes by examining actions and words of politicians. Naturally, there is no clear dividing line between public and private matter. Generally you can say, everything that has to do with the particular person’s profession has a public interest justification and can  thus be reported about. Intrusion of privacy should only be allowed in cases where privacy is strongly connected to the public office. Any other information revealed, which is irrelevant to the politician’s skills and competence, is not irrelevant to the image one has of that person. It just prejudices people against them and this can clearly not be in the public interest. Watergate, for instance, was one example of a journalist revealing illegal political actions, but h ere only information connected with the person’s profession was made public. Clinton’s sex-affair, however, was an example of going too far into privacy. People claimed the whole scandal was not about sex, but about committing perjury, which is not quite true. A perjury of Clinton about a land deal would have probable not interested as many, but this one was about sex, so the interest was enormous. Clinton was asked something he should have never been asked. Private questions – such as: â€Å"Have you ever committed adultery?† – ought definitely not be put to someone. Because if one refuses an answer to a query like that, it is a signal that there is something to hide. Since you hardly find someone who has never done anything wrong or illegal, it is especially unlikely to find a politician like that. Everyone knows they can’t admit little sins of their youth or sex affairs, because they know it would ruin their careers. So politicians have two possibilities when they are asked questions about their private lives: not answeri ng, the same as admitting, or lying. For celebrities, other than politicians, it is even more difficult to argue for their right to privacy, since so many of them use their status of being popular and seem to enjoy sharing private details and creating sensational news to stay well known or to make money. Publicity should be expected by them and loss of privacy is said to be the prize for fame. But does every skier, musician or actor really just want to be in the public eye? Is not also imaginable that a tennis player just loves to play tennis and detests being on television? We can reduce those people to the fact that they are famous, but it would show little acknowledgement for their talents or abilities. After all, the celebrity status is in many cases just by-product of someone’s success in a particular field. Fame does not rob anyone the  right to privacy and journalists go way too far for interviews or pictures of celebrities. Sometimes this has great consequence as in the case of Princess Diana, who died in a car accident after being chased by reporters. We are all obsessed with privacy, protecting our own on the one hand, and invading other people’s privacy on the other hand. If people similar to us, ordinary people, get their privacy invaded, we are outraged. But someone different to us, someone famous, somehow has the duty to uncover everything there is. Since they have voluntarily thrown themselves into the public light, they now belong to the public. Political scandals have shown the need for close observation of public figures, especially if they have power, but in most cases we hypocritically claim to have a right to know about something that is actually none of our business. Privacy is classed as a right under the European Convention of Human Rights and it applies to everyone.

How To Get Started Submitting Poems to Publications

How To Get Started Submitting Poems to Publications So you’ve begun a collection of poems, or you’ve been writing for years and hiding them away in a drawer, and you think some of them are worthy of publication, but you don’t quite know where to begin. Heres how to begin submitting your poems for publication. Get Started With Research Begin by reading all the poetry books and periodicals you can get your hands on - use the library, browse the poetry section of your local independent bookstore, go to readings.Keep a publication notebook: When you find poems you admire or a poetry magazine that publishes work similar to your own, write down the editor’s name and the name and address of the journal.Read the journal’s submission guidelines and write down any unusual requirements (double-spacing, more than one copy of submitted poems, whether they accept simultaneous multiple submissions or previously published poems).Read Poets Writers Magazine, Poetry Flash or your local poetry newsletter to find publications calling for submissions.Make up your mind that you are not going to pay reading fees in order to send out your poems for publication. Get Your Poems Publication-Ready Type or print clean copies of your poems on plain white paper, one to a page, and put your copyright date, name and return address at the end of each poem.When you have a good number of poems typed up (say, 20), put them into groups of four or five - either putting together sequences on similar themes, or making a diverse group to show your versatility - your choice.Do this when you are fresh and can keep your distance: read each group of poems as if you were an editor reading them for the first time. Try to understand the effect of your poems as if you had not written them yourself.When you’ve chosen a group of poems to send to a particular publication, reread them once more to be sure you’ve met all the submission requirements. Send Your Poems Out Into the World For most poetry journals, it’s fine to send a group of poems with a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and without a cover letter.Before you seal the envelope, write the titles of each poem you’re submitting, the name of the journal you’re sending them to and the date in your publication notebook.Keep your poems out there being read. If a grouping of poems comes back to you with a rejection note (and many will), do not allow yourself to take it as a personal judgment: find another publication and send them out again within a few days.When a group of poems is returned and the editor has kept one or two for publication, pat yourself on the back and record the acceptance in your publication notebook - then combine the remaining poems with new ones and send them out again. Tips: Don’t try to do this all at once. Work a little on it every day or every other day, but save your time and mental energy for actually reading and writing poetry.If you do write a cover letter, make it a very brief note explaining why you chose their publication to submit your work. You want the editor to focus on your poems, not your publication credits.Don’t get too involved in trying to psych out a particular editor’s preferences. Inevitably, many of your poems will come back to you rejected- and you will occasionally be totally surprised by what a particular editor has chosen.Don’t expect detailed critiques from poetry magazine editors who have not accepted your work for publication.If you want specific responses to your poems, join a workshop, post in an online forum, or go to readings and gather a group of poet-friends to read and comment on each others work.Making this kind of connection in the poetry community may also lead you to publication, becau se lots of reading series and workshops end up publishing anthologies of their members’ poems. What You Need: Stamps#10 envelopesNice plain white paperClean copies of poems

Notes On Theories Of Mass Communications Essays - Free Essays

Notes On Theories Of Mass Communications Essays - Free Essays Notes On Theories Of Mass Communications Essay 1 - GSC2411 (Theories of Mass Communication unit, Monash University, Australia) This is NOT an essay - it is a collection of notes which are the foundation of an 800 word comparison of two articles regarding the place of humanities in university studies, and the roles of mass communication. Part 1 (800 words - 30%) You will be given two short readings by the end of Week 3 of the Semester. Identify the approach or approaches used in each, and with reference to the features and examples of the identified approaches as presented in Subject materials, justify your answer. Andrew Riemer's article, Cannon or Fodder? (The Weekend Australian, 16-17 November 1996) can be identified as having both Idealist and Leavisite approaches within the text. This is indicated in several passages of the text: My colleagues in the Department of English were irresponsibleThey were trivialising the disciplineby allowing undergraduates to sidestep the so-called canonical writersin favour of whatever transient phenomenon or writer of small talent happened to be their latest obsession. They were reprehensible in encouraging their students to impose simple sub-Marxist, sub-feminist templates on complex and mysterious works of literature Milton's Eve reduced to a mere victim of the patriarchy. Alluring though it might be, we cannot recover intellectual integrity by turning back the clock. Cannon or Fodder? (The Weekend Australian, 16-17 November 1996) When looking at the approaches as they are presented in the Subject Materials, one is able to identify them as clearly being both Idealistic and Leavisite. Our Subject Book indicates that the Idealistic view of culture has been conceived in the humanities and in journalism and popular social commentary a realm of moral, spiritual and aesthetic values which exist largely independent and above society. Further, this view states Culture was isolated from society - autonomous because it had to be abstracted from one way of life (pre-industrial) and then transmitted and extended to another (allegedly inferior) way of life to 'save' that society. The Leavisite concept of culture is still common and is firmly bound up in the theory of mass society and mass culture. Mass communications are seen to hold a crucial and privileged place in mass society, taking over the role of creating and distributing the values and information common to a society. Mass culture, unlike high culture, is unable to transcend its time and place and offer any kind of lasting truth to its audiences and, at worst, positively damages them. Critics of Leavis have questioned the narrowing of 'culture' to literature. idealist concept of culture, synonymous with 'high' culture, it carries with it its implied opposite - the denigrated 'mass' culture. a central assumption of the approach is that there exists a natural hierarchy of high culture and mass culture. This is how the idealist approach deals with differences. Media vs. Humanities Simon During The Australian Identified approaches: materialist/Frankfurt School The mainstream perception is that universities produce and teach truth through research while the media produce and communicate quickly consumable information and opinion. The weird, ill-judged consensus that the culture is dumbing down, which the media itself has helped to forge, is an important expression of this belief assuming as it does that the media breeds stupidity. the notion that the media is shallow and deals in opinion while the universities deal in depth and truth is misguided (though by no means simply false). The media are in unacknowledged competition with the humanities. in the interest of truth rather than ideology, they have also undercut the western classics claim on transcendental value to which the mainstream still genuflects. The humanities' old ethical project has been marginalised first by the democratisation of cultural and media consumption, second by the commercialisation of leisure pursuits, and last, by the segmentation of culture into market niches. Reader The central materialist assumption is that it is the material conditions of physical, historical and social being or existence which determine what counts as consciousness. Marx and Engels argued that social problems were political and needed solutions that put social interests ahead of private interests. in direct opposition to idealism The Frankfurt School's critical theory, as it is known, consisted of investigations into sociology, ideology and philosophy in which their aim was a Marxist analysis of contemporary society.

How to Lead Effective Meetings Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

How to Lead Effective Meetings - Essay Example As the discussion highlights  agenda is a list of items that need to be discussed by the participants in order to achieve the objectives of a meeting. Being a form of early warning system, agenda helps the participants of a meeting to be prepared on how to deal with the various topics that will be covered in the meeting. To achieve the goals of the meetings, it is fundamental for the participants to be well prepared before a meeting. Thus, the main role of agenda is to provide the participants with the information in order ensure they are prepared. An agenda works as a time table that is followed by the participants during a meeting.According to the paper findings  an agenda is structured into three major items. The first one is common items that include apologies for absence, minutes of last meeting and matters arising. The second part is specific items that include accounts, special reports and appointments. Thirdly, an agenda has concluding items that includes any other busine ss (AOB) and the date of next meeting. For a meeting to be successful in meeting its aims, all the three items of the agenda must be covered.  Prior to a meeting, Peytons General Supplies department managers ensures adequate preparation. Meeting preparation takes four major steps. First, the managers identify the reasons of holding the meeting. In this way, they ensure that the meetings have clear goals. Secondly, the managers identify who should attend the meeting.

Analysis of Note on Deconstructing the Popular by Stuart Hall Essay

Analysis of Note on Deconstructing the Popular by Stuart Hall - Essay Example In 1980 he wrote an article and proposed the encoding decoding model in reference to media messages. This model helps us understand how cultural texts are produced and transmitted by the industry. He has also contributed to the discussion on hegemony. Stuart defines popular culture as all those things that people do or have, Stuart starts his discussion by discussing periodisation, periodisation is the attempt to divide time in discrete new blocks, popular culture can be dated back in the agrarian society to the industrial society therefore the study of popular culture can be studied in different periods. He says that in the period 1880-1920 there was an increased interest in the study of popular culture. In 1930s this study declined and this was the time there was a decline in Chartism. In his discussion of periodisation he argues that the proper periodisation of popular culture is the profound transformation which was in 1880s and 1920s, this period was a period of deep structural changes. Social change can be defined as the alterations that occur in social system which occur in both the structure and the functions; causes of social change include advancement in technology, ideology, conflict and growth in population. Stuart acknowledges the existence of social change, he says that in the beginning of the 20th century there was the development of a working class audience and this as a result led to the development of a commercial press. In this period there was also the development of new technologies, distribution process and labour processes and this led to a change in the relationship between the dominant and the dominated classes. Stuart says that there has been a struggle over the forms of culture and way of life of the popular class which is evident in this periods of history, conflict is one source of change and according to Stuart the struggle has caused cultural changes, throughout the ages there has been active destruction of particular ways of life and this can be viewed as cultural change. This changes include honour to certain people in the society, He says that magistrates and police were in the past being accorded honour in the past than they are in the present he also argues that people in the present time understand struggle and resistant more than they understand reform and transformation, transformation is the key cause of the process of moralization and demoralization of the people. In his discussion on popular culture, popularity means manipulation and debasements of the culture of the people, people who consume the popular cultures changes them or are put in a state of false consciousness. These means that popular culture plays a major role in shaping peoples culture, the proposed culture provides an alternative culture and this means that the culture industry has the power to reshape what they create. He also says that cultural domination has an effect on people's culture, there is a continuous struggle by the dominant culture to reorganise popular culture and there are cases of resistance and acceptance. Cultural resistance involves cultural struggle which takes many forms. Cultural struggle takes the form of incorporation, distortion, resistance, negotiation and recuperation, this struggle continues to exist. The existence of