Critically response to articles and a book Essay

Critically response to articles and a book - Essay Example Readers interpret texts depending on how they understand them. When readers read the book The Things They Carried, they will not fail to sympathize with what soldiers go through while at war. The paper looks at how a reader may respond to the book concerning the circumstances surrounding the soldiers when they are at war. When readers read the text, they will no doubt understand the role of soldiers in ensuring that their country is safe from external attacks. Andrew Krepinevich Jr, the author of The Army, and Vietnam argues that soldiers must be ready to face various challenges when they go to war (13). The writer argues that the US army had to accomplish its mission in Vietnam before leaving that country. In order for soldiers to have victory in the war, they are fighting, it is important for them to be prepared both psychologically and physically. Wars are won first in the mind, then physically. Fatalities on the side of the American army would have been reduced if America would have taken time and studied Vietnam before launching attacks. Love is the most powerful weapon soldiers can take to war. Soldiers must first love their country and family in order to have the morale to fight in the war. The author of the text does a commendable job to highlight the story of love in the book. In the book, Cross carries letters from a student named Martha because he is in love with her. Cross remembers taking her out on a date and wishes he had taken to her room (Brien Cranston). Love is a powerful tool for an individual can decide to do anything just because of love. What the American army needs to do always is to cultivate the love of its members to their country and families. Every soldier would want to be a hero back at home. The book ought to have identified more cases of love in the book since it is the main issue that surrounded the soldiers who went to Vietnam. Every person must embrace hope when facing challenges or

My Future Goals and Why Essay Example for Free

My Future Goals and Why Essay My future goal is to obtain enough education for me acquire some of the skills I want to work with women and children that have been abused, either violently or sexually. One of my main reasons for enrolling In the Addiction Studies Program here at Peninsula College is because drugs and alcohol play a huge part in Domestic Violence and other forms of abuse among other things. I would like to open a unique center, where women and children could go for safety, and I would incorporate and introduce Art Therapy as one of the many tools one needs to heal in this life long process. see more:how to achieve my goals essay I strongly feel as a child, art helped me escape to a place that I needed to go to in troubled times. As an adult, just plain therapy was on the top of the list, as a different form of abuse crept into my life. To my amazement, art helped me escape to that same place I went to as a child in troubled times. I want to help others heal, and educate all so as to stop these painful cycles of abuse that many times can be foreseen or stopped, with just a little awareness and education, as in my own personal case. The education, Ive only just begun. Compared to what I’ll need to be an Art Therapist, Ill be going to college for the next 5 to 7 years. Personally, Im not sure I have it in me to go to school for that long. I’ve decided recently that Im not going to make my goals too high, so as not to set myself up for failure like I have done so many times in the past. I am almost done with the Addiction Studies program here at Peninsula College, and when finished, I will continue to take classes to finish my Associate of Arts degree. If I decide to pursue Art Therapy, I will seek a Bachelor’s and Masters degree at Antioch College in Seattle. The reality of it all is that Ill probably do an online program through Western College in Bellingham. I have also been considering going all of the way and get my CDP, because I’m interested in Trillium Treatment Center and what they offer. For now, I am all about just taking one day at a time and trying to get healthy again, I have suffered from depression, PSTD and anxiety most of my life, and it seems that the older I get, the harder it is to snap out of it. I am going to change my medication next week because the Cymbalta doesn’t seem to be working as well as it should. I am looking for work because I believe that it is good therapy and I need the extra financial help. I have not worked since 2009, due to surgery on both left and right hands. I have Carpal Tunnel still but not as bad as I did before, and I know that not working has contributed to the depression. I believe that staying enrolled in classes has kept me somewhat sane, although it has been a struggle at times. Currently I am in the process of filling out an application at Healthy Families. I think it would be a great place to get my foot in the door while working with the population that I want to work with. I also have the contact person at Trillium Treatment Center, so I need to find out what it will take to maybe get my foot in the door there. I feel that it would be important for me to pursue my CDP since I am so close to completing the Addiction Studies program, and completing this is detrimental to my current state of mind. In the past, I have always come so close to getting my degree, but for whatever reason, I never finish anything I start. One of the drawbacks I am currently experiencing is that I really need to get a job that pays something, even just a little. Another drawback is that I have something on my record that has previously just kept me from getting a job that I really wanted and felt that I was ready for. The bad thing is, is that there shouldn’t be anything on my record, but I took the charge just to get it over with. I have been way too trusting most of my life, and never would have thought that other people could be so devious in their actions. I have taken this as one in many life-long lessons that needs to be applied to my life. I know that I need to get out into the community more and network with more people, so I have signed up to volunteer for the Project Homeless Connect on March 30th. There will be a training session that I need to attend on March 27th or 28th, and I am very excited to be doing this, as I am kind of a homebody and don’t really go out much unless I have to. In order for me to make any kind of difference, not only in my life, but others, I need to commit to doing it. On that note, I need to take some bold steps in the direction that I want my life to move in. As I explore and develop some of my ideas about what I really value in my life, I can use these values as a sort of road map into my future. Each value that I have can be like a compass point by which I can chart the course of my life and start walking in that direction. This is basically a four-point process that constantly repeats itself through life: First point is to contract my alues, second is to develop my chosen goals that will help me move into a valued direction, third, is to take very specific actions that will allow me to achieve those goals, and fourth, I need to contact and work with my internal barriers to move towards action. To help me achieve this, I have taken the first action in obtaining and reaching my goals by Creating the Road Map: Setting Goals. In Chapter 12 of the ACT workbook, I had listed some of my values in order of importance, manifestation, and life-deviation scores. Now I will need to decide which of those values I want to work toward incorporating into my life right now. I know that ultimately I will work on all of these, but for now, I will choose only one. This will give me a good model in which to work from and follow for the other valued directions I will want to take. I am going for the middle-of-the-road in order of importance, because there are some barriers that I am not quite ready to take on, but I feel that if I can just get past a few, I can build up my mental strength and self-esteem. I read a quote in the workbook that I wrote down and posted in several places throughout my home. The quote says, â€Å"I just want to do this because that’s what I want my life to be about. It’s not really about any outcome. I want to be alive until I’m dead. † I guess I liked this because I do not feel like I am really living anymore. I do not do any of the things I used to do and I have become dependent upon one person, and that person is not me. In the past I have felt like the goals I set for myself was the true goal, but that really isn’t the case. I have chosen a short-term goal that is obtainable and will help me with some of my long-term goals also. I have already signed up to volunteer for the Project Homeless Connect on March 30th. I only need to go to one training session, and have a choice to do the one day training either on March 27th or 28th. For me, this is huge, this is something outside of my daily routine of school and home, but I have checked my goal for the following items: Is it practical? Is it obtainable? Does it work with my current situation? Does this goal lead me in the direction of my stated value? I answered yes to all of the above, so the only barrier I would face in not accomplishing this goal would be fear, sickness or pure laziness. I also believe that one of the problems that I suffer with is an issue with self-control. Avoidance and fusion feed this pattern of mine, which in essence, disrupt my life and make it nearly impossible to achieve any goals, whether they are short or long-term. I have decided that I need to make a commitment to myself and follow through with it. I need to break the old behavioral pattern that has doomed me ever since I can remember. I am tired of being a failure and giving up, tired of making a commitment, breaking that commitment, the quitting that commitment all together. I am going to work on setting my goals and following through for myself. I want to live my life, not just pass through it. I want to thank you for your commitment to us as students; I have to say that you are one of my favorite Instructors, although you are not easy, I appreciate that you make us try harder, and sometimes that is just what a person needs.

whistleblowers :: essays research papers

Because of certain events and media scandals that have surrounded the business community a former forgotten kind of employees has regained importance they are called the whistleblowers. Their importance has reached such tremendous heights that they were named in Time magazine’s 2002 Persons of the year because of their crucial involvement in the Enron case and many others that followed after that. The dictionary definition states that whistleblower as â€Å"One who reveals something covert or informs against another person†. Whistleblowers can get their title no matter what position of the company they occupy as long as they have reliable information any employee can inform of unethical procedures or illegal that the company they are working for might be engaging. There are many cases where whistleblowers have been the key part in the prosecution of CEOs directors, financial consultants, etc. that had been engaging in illegal procedures and that if there have not be because of the whistleblowers aide the authorities would have never even notice those felonies. There are many examples one that is cited on the article is the case of James Alderson a chief financial officer in a small hospital that sued the company that acquired the hospital a large medical company called Quorum Health Group Inc. part of Columbia/HCA Company because he found out that the kept two sets of books for preparing healthcare costs for Medicare patients one that was sent to the Federal government with highly inflated costs and the other one that detailed actual cost of operations. The case started in 1990 and ended until 2003 we also have to consider that in 1990 the business environment did not have the huge concerns that we have today over the management of financial information and there were not many laws to aide whistleblowers in their cause. But since that time new policies and laws have emerged to support whistleblowers and there is a greater focus of executives over ethical issues. By blowing the whistle Alderson knew that he was jeopardizing his career and he did he had to finance the whole case with his checkbook, he lost his job and had

Comparing Platos Republic and Gullivers Travels Essay example -- com

Plato's Republic and Gulliver's Travels      Ã‚  Ã‚   In The Republic, Plato attempts to define the ideal state as it relates to the tripartite division of the soul. In this division, wisdom, the rational characteristic of the soul, is the most valuable and important. In the ideal state the ruling class would be the guardians, those who maintain rationality and will operate according to wisdom. Each individual "should be put to use for which nature intended them, one to one work, and then every man would do his business" (276d). This conception of the ideal state is exemplified in Jonathon Swift's Gulliver's Travels, within the society of the Houyhnhnms. Each member of the society maintains a role which he or she was born into, and according to Gulliver the Houyhnhnms are "wise and virtuous" (Swift, 260). These two qualities are most valuable to Plato within the ideal state, and are manifest in Houyhnhnm land.    The problems that occur within these "utopias" are the central problems of democracy. The question that arises is whether or not a state such as either of these is just. This problem is far too great to understand within the context of these societies, so in an attempt to understand the beneficial aspects it should be realized that if considered without "moral" judgements, these societies could function appropriately. Plato'... ...nd do just that. The maintenance of a virtuous state requires a unanimous understanding of each member's place and position. Without this understanding the ideal state cannot exist; this is why sometimes the pleasures of the individual must be overruled in favour of the needs of the society.    Works Cited Donoghue, Denis. Jonathan Swift: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1969. Marra, James L., Zelnick, Stephen C., and Mattson, Mark T.  Ã‚   IH 51 Source Book: Plato,   The Republic, pp. 77-106. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, Iowa, 1998. Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Multiculturalism in Leicester

Out of all the cities in the UK Leicester is the most culturally diverse and it's not ashamed to let it be known. It aims to support this mix of races into the area and much thought has been put into aiding the acceptance of immigrants into the city so they can mix with the white community and create an Asian mix. From the major start of immigration in the 1970's it is now thought that Leicester has greater diversity in three blocks than anywhere else in Europe. There is not just a mix of race but also of religion and specific religious groups tend to be drawn to each other. Muslims concentrate in the Spiney hill and Stoneygate areas, and Hindu's are mainly in Latimer, Belgrave and Rushy Mead, these religions stay very close knit whereas the Sikhs are spread across the whole city. This could be seen as segregation for the Muslims and Hindu's but infact outside of these concentrations they are present in large numbers throughout the city apart from Eyres Monsell where there are few immigrant populations. The local government instead of becoming intolerant of the immigrant influx have defined the mix of races and religion in the city as one of their defining features. They believe the multiculturalism widens the experience of living introducing new arts, music, architecture, fashion and food and therefore aim to support the community relations. Throughout the city religious places of worship have been built to help accommodate the new comers. Leicester plays a huge role in accommodating refugees and asylum seekers who come to the UK following persecution in other countries. The city also hosts many of the religious and foreign festivals such as Mardi Gras and Caribbean Carnival. After the problems in the past of certain individuals and communities suffering from abuse Leicester tries to make it clear how all minorities have things to contribute to the society. This has helped people mix much easier and continues to get closer to Leicester's aim of a healthy and diverse city. It has been thought the whole of the UK was ‘sleepwalking into segregation' whilst cities who were thought to be culturally diverse are instead becoming ghettos. Much of the data on the mix of races in Leicester and other cities is found through the census however this does not tell the whole story about the immigrants. In Leicester Asian immigration is much higher than African immigration. An important thing to take into account is that the majority of the people migrating to Leicester are double migrants having already migrated somewhere once before moving to the UK. This has helped them mix in much easier as they have already faced the same difficulties before and have experience dealing with the issues faced. An example of this is Asian families migrating to Africa, and then government oppression causing them to move to the UK. Many of the family leaders are business men or professionals however their qualifications count for nothing in this country and they have had to start businesses from scratch to make use of their skills and bring an income to the household. The Leicester Asian Business Association helps to create a platform for new Asian businesses and gives a place to raise concern and discuss support. The workforce employed by these asian business men is just as mixed as Leicester itself. Companies also offer no difference to service for different races instead treating them all equally. One of the main reasons that segregation usually occurs is that immigrants want a place close to their building of worship. This meant that when they moved to new cities they would have to move in with their own group of people so that they are near the facilities that they often want. To help spread the cultures Leicester brought in these places of worship across the city. Immigrants also want a sense of equal opportunity and although there was much intolerance to their mixing there were also groups of white people who wanted to offer them opportunities to fit in. One such example is that planning departments grant permission much easier to build their places of worship. Leaflets were also given to new arrivals in their native language to help them settle. Whereas the migrants have to adapt to their new circumstances the current population also has to relate to their presence. To help the bonds with these new migrant Leicester started letting candidates come forward from the minority communities for electoral positions. By 2002 Half of the Labour group had councillors from minority groups. A race relations committee was also made of which the leader was a Ugandan refugee. So as shown the mix of races in Leicester is huge and segregation is kept to a minimum. But perhaps most importantly and impressively the minorities have people representing them in government positions which is vital to their integration into the city. Without this representation and involvement in decisions and plans which will affect them mixing would be impossible and the immigrants would be forced into their own communities in which they would leave parallel lives. This is perhaps the key foundation that is needed for multiculturalism and some places like London should take hints from Leicester to make their own multiculturalism succeed.

Military Disrespect

Military Disrespect Introduction Disrespect is an action of being rude or discourteous to the authority or person in charge. It is an act that demeans people and causes them to appear as if they do not know what they are doing. Disrespect does not only work for vertical chain of authority but can also be among people of the same rank.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Military Disrespect specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Every organization has got code of conducts which ought to be followed of which if not taken keenly it is termed as disrespect. For example, going against the rule of law is a sign of disrespect and could get one into trouble either with the police or people in charge. The military is one place that requires respect but instead of disrespect. We cannot talk about disrespect without mentioning the essence of respect. The word respect is imperative in today’s setting. It is neither a privilege nor a right. Everybody d emands respect of some kind. Respect varies in different degrees. The reason for this disparity could be due to the position a person holds in the family, organization, society, and nation or at global level. Respect should be earned. Disrespect in the Military The military is one place that has the highest form of code of conduct. The military has got mandatory rules that have to be followed once someone has sworn an oath to become a member. No military person is permitted to answer back a non commissioned officer. Issues like retaliating or questioning of judgment is not allowed. It is important that every person in the military adhere to the conducts whether in uniform or not. For instance, it could one bad repercussion when he or she shows lack of respect to an NCO when in uniform. Other forms of punishment would include, withdrawal of hard cash earning from the family, dishonorable or honorable separation from the military and travel limitations. Therefore, to prevent such occu rrences a person in the army needs to keep the right code of conduct twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days a year.Advertising Looking for essay on ethics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More For the military to achieve such high respect in the society, it takes them sacrifice and commitment. Disrespect in the military in the recent times has been caused by few leaders who compromised the codes of conduct in the past days. This has since been transferred to the junior employees too. Efficiency in the administration of the military can only be achieved through discipline. This applies both in military and life. In order have a high sense of professionalism, it is important to input the actions of discipline that guard other values such as respect, integrity, self commitment and loyalty in work. Respect in the Military involves ranks. In addition, it is likened to the proverbial saying that goes â€Å"Do unto others whatever you expect to be done for†. Respect will not only apply to the seniors but also to the subordinates, juniors and colleagues. By having taken an oath to be a member of the military, it is mandatory that one respects all the activities ranging from war, humanitarian services and the military system as a whole. Personal respect is also very essential at the military level. It is by respecting oneself that he or she will be able to show others and earn respect too. As a unit, the military appreciates the effort of each and every member hence this reduces the chances of having disrespectful individuals. Therefore, issues of disrespect tend to be very minimal in the military.

Censorship in Fahrenheit 451 essays

Censorship in Fahrenheit 451 essays Many things come to mind when the word censorship is involved. The Merriam Webster Dictionary states that censorship is stopping the transmission or publication of matter considered objectionable. In Ray Bradburys novel Fahrenheit 451, censorship plays an enormous role and is noted to be the most important theme. Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Censorship in Fahrenheit 451 has a major effect on the societys knowledge and characteristics in the novel. In the futuristic world Bradbury has created in the science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, firemen start fires rather than extinguishing them. People of this society do not think independently nor do they have meaningful conversations. They dont even have an interest in reading books. Rather than that, they watch an extreme amount of television on wall-size sets and listen to Sea-shell radio which is attached to their ears. People drive extremely fast due to lack of appreciation for nature. It was a pleasure to burn. So goes the opening sentence of the Bradburys story. It grabs the readers attention and immediately tells where the unfortunate hero, Guy Montag, stands on the idea of book burning. Being the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451 Montag is by no means a perfect hero. Montags faith in his profession and his society begins to decline almost immediately after the novels opening passage. Montag comes across a gentle seventeen-year-old girl named Clarisse McClellan, who opens his eyes to the dark emptiness of his life with her innocent questions and unusual love for people and nature. Being faced with the complication of books for the first time, Montag is often frustrated, confused, and overwhelmed. He is often rash, unclear, self-obsessed, and too easily influenced. At times he is not even aware of why he does things, feeling that his hands...

Use of the Word Analogies in the ESL Classroom

Use of the Word Analogies in the ESL Classroom Using words analogies is a useful way of building vocabulary. Word analogies can be created using many different categories. Here is a simple example of a word analogy: Hot is to cold as up is to down OR hot - cold | up - down This is an example of a word analogy using antonyms. Here are a number of word analogies in a wide variety of categories.   Word Analogies: Antonyms or Opposites hot - cold | up - downblack - white | happy - sadlaugh - cry | rich - poorcrazy - sane | large - small Word Analogies: Relationships Expressing a Part of the Whole eye - head | finger - handcent - dollar | inch - footeraser - pencil | CPU - computerwheel - car | sink - plumbing Word Analogies: Relationships Between Numbers one - two | two - four1/2 - 1 | 10 - 20six - thirty-six | two - four100 - 1,000 | 1,000 - 10,000 Word Analogies: Sequences breakfast - lunch | morning - afternoonMonday - Tuesday | AM - PMwork - earn | plant - harvestleave - arrive | get up - go to sleep Word Analogies: Objects and Their Uses (noun - verb) pen - write | food - eatlawn - mow | coffee - drinksugar - sweeten | ball - throwbutton - push | letter - mail Word Analogies: Objects and Their Users (thing - person) library - student | computer - programmercar - driver | piano - musicianbrush - painter | football - quarterbackdoll - child | cell phone - teenager Word Analogies: Grammatical Relationships I - me | He - himdrive - driven | fly - flownto think - thinking | to shout - shoutingsome - any | already - yet Word Analogies: Group Relationships student - class | member - clubplayer - team | representative - congressjudge - court | policeman - police forceviolin player - orchestra | teller - bank Word Analogies: Cause and Effect (adjective - verb) thirsty - drink | tired - sleepdirty - wash | funny - laughwet - dry | hot - cool downcurious - ask | sad - cry

International Economic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

International Economic - Essay Example This century has specifically seen the Asian- Pacific regions that have been showing more interest in negotiating and implementing preferential trade agreements, with China, and now India, being main the ‘hub’ in the Asia-Pacific liberal trade group’s ‘hub and spoke’ agreements with other members of the WTO. An increase in this preference for bilateral and regional trade agreements or free trade agreements (FTPs) had been observed right from the 1980s, and has often been described by the experts as the rise in a ‘new regionalism’(Majluf, 2004). By the 15th September 2008, we find that there have been 222 regional trade agreements notified to the World Trade Organization (WTO) as been implemented, with many more in the pipeline. This regionalism has been of particular interest to many of the Pacific Rim countries (Lloyd, 2002). Even China has been diverted from its earlier engrossment with the assumption of WTO, and has started seeing gain s through these regional negotiations. However coming to a general consensus on the topic of bilateral relations and the issue of free international trade has never been easy, especially as certain industrial sectors and labour groups within the economy, have been said to be adversely affected through international competition. The debate between neoliberals and the leftists or the anti-neoliberal group form the core between these refusals to come to an easy consensus. On one hand we find that the leftists group claim â€Å"Globalization has dramatically increased inequality between and within nations† (Jay Mazur, US union leader, 2000); while on the other hand the neoliberals present statistical figures in their behalf and claim that â€Å"globalized developing countries have increased their per capita growth rate from 1% in the1960’s... to... 5% in 1990’s...much of the rest of the developing world-with about-2 billion people...their aggregate growth rate was actually negative in the 90s†( Collier and Dollar, 2002, 5). So the road to globalisation, free international trade and bilateral relations had never been easy with constant frictions between the experts from both camps. The current trade negotiations is the The  Doha Development Round  or  Doha Development Agenda (DDA), and is an ongoing process that had started in November 2001, and continues to develop till date, owing to a lack of consensus amongst the members of the participating countries. The chief objective of this negotiation round is to cut down on the various trade barriers that exist worldwide, and subsequently to increase international free trade.  In the Doha round of talks in 2008 (held in Geneva), negotiations were stopped over the lack of consensus on a range of important issues such as   removal of the industrial  tariff  and  non-tariff barriers, services, agriculture, and various trade remedies (Fergusson, 2008).  These differences created a cleavage between the developed nations  that were on side and led by United States (USA), European Union (EU), and Japan; while on the other side of the divide were the strong  developing countries  like China, India, Brazil, South Africa and South Korea. The primary

Analysis of qualitative design part 2 Research Paper

Analysis of qualitative design part 2 - Research Paper Example Qualitative design is always accredited with the ability to seek and gain insight, this is often by exploring the depth, richness and complexity that is rooted in a particular phenomenon. In conducting this research study, the research relied upon an ethnographic research design, in this case, the researchers main aim was to study the prevailing characteristics of people in relation to adult literacy and gender equity empowerment among the people of rural Elsalvador (Prins 2005). The methods of study applied in ethnographic research designs identify a people’s prevailing culture, variables of the study and makes a comprehensive review of literature. In terms of data collection methods, the research design employs those that give it access to culture patterns and attributes, informants as well as ability to collect first-hand data. The researchers use of ethnographic design in this research was aimed at gaining an in-depth analysis of the effect of literacy education, gender and equity empowerment among the people of rural El Salvador. First, the research design was essential in gaining first-hand data from respondents, through this research design, it was easy to interact with people that provided particular services on the ground and get their views on the particular influence the subjects of study were having on people. Secondly, this research design was essential in enabling the researcher to move and record his observations about the characteristics of the people of rural El Salvador in the wake of literacy education and gender equity empowerment. Thirdly, the nature if this study was too complex to be answered by simple yes or no answers, the respondents were needed to provide an in-depth analysis of what they found as being the impact of gender equity empowerment initiatives and literacy education. The rationale for this study was to

How did Roman authors choose to portray barbarians (particularly Gauls Essay

How did Roman authors choose to portray barbarians (particularly Gauls and Germans) How realistic can we expect these portraits - Essay Example The Romans enjoyed a culture based on fine arts and literature, superior technologies and advanced training techniques for their military campaigns. As the empire extended ever further, there was increasing contact with those â€Å"other† tribes and nations and the Roman historians recorded their impressions from this rather one-sided perspective of the conqueror. This paper examines the way that two Roman authors, Julius Caesar and Tacitus, portray the barbarians and examines the very different motivations of these two writers and the consequent limitations of their respective approaches. The early account of the Germans which is given by Julius Caesar (100-44BC) in Book VI of De Bello Gallico [Gallic War] is presented as a contrast to the way that he perceives the Gauls. It is interesting that this great Roman leader comments first on religious matters and war, pointing out that the Germans do not have druids and sacrifices, like the Gauls, but instead have their own gods wh om they can see and who help them in their warlike lifestyle.1 It is quite clear that Caesar accepts the different gods of these two barbarian peoples as actors in the battles that occur, and he accepts also their direct link with the sun, sky and natural world of groves and springs that go with these gods. There is no attempt to layer Roman ideas into these practices, but there is an implicit assumption that Roman ways are better. Caesar appears impressed by their dependence on animal products, rather than agriculture, and the way that leaders ensure loyalty by organising a rotation of lands and a focus on plundering neighboring tribes, since in his view this keeps them always ready for war.2 It is striking that Caesar notes also the generosity of the Germans in offering protection hospitality and food to those who visit them, because this reveals a fair-minded appreciation of German moral standards. He does not demonize his enemies, but seeks to portray them in a sympathetic light . One reason for this may be that his experience on campaigns and in the battlefields has taught him how difficult it is to maintain fitness and commitment in his fighting troops. Roman troops were motivated by monetary rewards and the promise of a happy retirement back in the warmer climes of their homeland, while the German warriors appear less materialistic and better trained for a life of fighting. For a general this must have seemed like a far better underpinning for the provision of fighting forces. When it comes to the Gauls, Julius Caesar reflects a common classical notion that those who are located furthest from the centre of the Empire in Rome are the most valiant and the greatest of the barbarians: â€Å"For Caesar this distance, combined with the Belgae’s close proximity and daily confrontations with the Germans, both offensively and defensively, had made them the bravest of the Gauls.†3 This traditional wisdom could not fail to have influenced his percepti on of the peoples that he encountered on his exploratory travels throughout the vast regions of Gaul. There is a strong possibility that he actually seeks out evidence to support these theories, and to stress that he values the barbarians more, the further away from Rome they are, thus at the same time extolling their powerful image but minimizing any possibility

My opinion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 3

My opinion - Essay Example Such technological intelligence has enabled them to be the leaders in some of the most cherished brands of automobiles and machinery in the world. So dedicated in their work, the Germans always believe in perfection and competence in anything they do (Detlev 78).Interestingly, Germans are a people who talk with a lot of specificity and precision. The culture of beating around the bush and hiding the truth is totally news to them. Wrong a German anywhere and they shall reprimand you on the spot! It is common to see most people in several countries proud to be associated with the histories of their countries. In America for instance, the history of the United States is something every American cherishes. On the contrary, the most Germans do not generally feel obligated to associate with the history of their country. Perhaps this is a result of the turbulent nature of the German history. I feel a great learning opportunity exists in the analysis of the German cultural context and how the Germans have managed to hold their country together amid the turbulent nature of the present age. In any case, the whole course was a rich inundating

Health implications related to the personal health and wellbeing of Essay

Health implications related to the personal health and wellbeing of individual patients in hospital and domestic settings - Essay Example My immediate guess was that both chemotherapy and laser therapy had affected his body metabolism to a certain extent. He was a patient very concerned about his appearance. Being just 27 years of age and unmarried, he wanted to look smart all the time. He recalled the fact that he had a very stylish hair style prior to undergoing chemotherapy. He lamented stroking the few remaining strands of hair remaining in his otherwise bald head. The patient said he used to look in the mirror often and was very proud of his neatly combed hair earlier, but now he was devastated by the figure looking back at him when looking in the mirror. According to him his hair style enhanced his personality and every one used to comment on it. I knew that he was visibly shaken by his hair loss and this was affecting him psychologically. He asked me whether his hair would grow again. Due to his hair loss he told me that his confidence was shattered and did not know how to face society once he was discharged from hospital. Chemotherapy treatment often causes hair loss basically because the cells in the hair follicles grow fast (Baker, 1996). Hair loss would not be a permanent issue and the hair will grow back once the patient's treatment has ended. In fact chemotherapy damages fast growing cells, however all drugs will not cause hair loss and in some scenarios it just cause thinning and others cause dramatic hair loss including the body hair and eye brows (Bandura, 1998). Moreover, different people have different tolerances to the drugs and occasionally, some people lose their hair when it is not expected and sometimes in other cases no hair loss occurs when it is expected. The patient did not understand how certain drugs produced negative side effects in the long run, when I told him that certain chemical combinations coming from different drugs would have caused his hair roots to destabilize he thought that I was talking about some alien disease. When I explained this to him and said that his hair loss was temporarily he was much relieved and satisfied. Finally a smile appeared on his hitherto gloomy face. He thanked me a lot for enlightening him about his hair loss. I was much satisfied when a smile finally appeared on his face. Entry two This week I had an encounter with a patient who complained of a swelling in the neck and in the groin and the legs. But he was experiencing no pain. He also complained of an early feeling of fullness of the stomach and recurrent abdominal pain. He was sixteen years of age and had been an active member of the school soccer team and other sports sometime back. But now he was thin and frail and has been under medication for some time. He lamented that he was unable to go to school and take part in soccer practices which he loved so much. He had been a boy of robust build but of late has lost a lot of weight and said he was having a feeling of 'lack of energy'. This apart he experienced chills, fevers and night sweats on a regular basis. Being the only child in the family, he was the apple in the eye of his parents. He wanted to do all that he can to make his parents proud. Though not a very bright student in his studies, he was very keen on sports and said that his ambition was to

My opinion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 3

My opinion - Essay Example Such technological intelligence has enabled them to be the leaders in some of the most cherished brands of automobiles and machinery in the world. So dedicated in their work, the Germans always believe in perfection and competence in anything they do (Detlev 78).Interestingly, Germans are a people who talk with a lot of specificity and precision. The culture of beating around the bush and hiding the truth is totally news to them. Wrong a German anywhere and they shall reprimand you on the spot! It is common to see most people in several countries proud to be associated with the histories of their countries. In America for instance, the history of the United States is something every American cherishes. On the contrary, the most Germans do not generally feel obligated to associate with the history of their country. Perhaps this is a result of the turbulent nature of the German history. I feel a great learning opportunity exists in the analysis of the German cultural context and how the Germans have managed to hold their country together amid the turbulent nature of the present age. In any case, the whole course was a rich inundating

The Battle as the Main Substance Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Battle as the Main Substance - Assignment Example The following are the arguments that support this position. The battle analysis method was developed by the US Army Command and General Staff College to provide a format by which any military professional may find insight from historical battles and campaigns, in order to help deepen his or her understanding of warfare. It is intended to be a general guide for military personnel to ensure that significant actions or factors that affect the outcome of a battle or military operation are not overlooked (University of Southern Mississippi ROTC, p. 51). It is comprised of the following checklist: First, define the subject. This involves determining what, where, when, who and why about the study that is being undertaken. It is important to ascertain the date of the battle, its location, and the adversaries involved. This step involves looking for good sources of information such as books, articles, the Internet, and so forth. Second, set the stage (review the setting). From the mass of data, the information is reduced to the essentials among which are the strategic factors, the operational settings, and the tactical situation. In the latter, it is helpful to be guided by the OAKOC (observation and fields of fire, avenues of approach, key and decisive terrain, obstacles, and cover and concealment). Thirdly, describe the action. This step in the battle analysis is the main substance of what people consider military history. The battle should be studied chronologically, with the importance of progression of events derived in the analysis. First, the opening moves of the opposing forces in the battle should be examined, to determine which side gained the early advantage over the other. Detail should then be drawn for the major phases and the key events and decisions that turned the battle in favor of either side. Finally, the outcome should be stated: which party won the battle; what the objective was and whether the objective was attained or not; and what the long-term repercussions of the battle had been. Fourth, draw lessons learned (assess the significance). Lastly, the significance of the encounter should be assessed. This comprises the most important aspect of battle analysis. In this step, the information derived about the action is analyzed to yield important lessons for t he future. It involves relating causes of why something happened, to the effects of these events. The insights derived therein called the â€Å"constants of war† form part of the timeless lessons useful in future encounters (USM-ROTC, n.d.).  

Crimes Essay Example for Free

Crimes Essay Aside from the identified purpose of the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), it is formulated in such a way that it classifies the types of crimes under two categories: Part I and Part II. The facts and data of the UCR under Part I is more extensive in terms of the scope of the information in the report when compared to Part II. The facts and data in Part I include other necessary information such as profile of the criminal. In Part II, the rate of arrests for specific crimes are only present in the UCR. Part I crimes are closely monitored by law enforcement because crimes categorized under Part I are violent crimes and crimes against property. Categorizing crimes under two parts, I and II, determines the gravity or the impact of crimes to the public. Part I crimes are more grave, considering that crimes under Part I include rape, robbery, burglary, larceny, arson, etc. These are potentially serious crimes that law enforcement should prioritize in order to uphold peace and order to society. Part II offenses are less serious including crimes such as vandalism, fraud, drug abuse violations, etc. In some instances, law enforcement implements measures that seem to increase the statistics of crime occurrences. However, when we look deeper into the matter, we realize that the increase in crime statistics contribute to the improvement of society. In such instances, positive results from increased crime statistics are observable in Part II crimes. Increasing crime statistics catch the attention of the public, alarming them to be vigilant about their surroundings in order to prevent criminal offenses from taking place. For instance, reports reveal to the public that there is an increase in the number of reported stolen property crimes in the community. This raises the awareness of the people, and since it is a non-violent crime, they are willing to get involved with crime prevention. People decide to engage in neighborhood watch, community policing, and other law enforcement activities that will assist official law enforcement agencies in preventing crime, affording them enough time and manpower to focus on grave crimes categorized under Part I. Offenses such as prostitution and drug abuse violations motivate people in the community to get involved with discovering or reporting violators to law enforcement agencies. Another advantage of reporting increase in crime rates is to empower people to get involved with crime prevention. Offenses against family and children, for instance, have increased. Law enforcement will interpret the statistic in such a way that it expresses the increase in the number of people who reported criminal offenses, and further continue that the increase in the number of people who report criminal violations to the police helps law enforcement in crime prevention. The police might convince the people to report criminal violations because it is one way for law enforcement agencies to know criminal trends and analyze these trends to come up with plans and resolutions to prevent crime.

Motion Control Techniques In Visual Effects Industry Film Studies Essay

Motion Control Techniques In Visual Effects Industry Film Studies Essay In this research we will see the motion control rigs and its contribution to create the realistic movement of the camera with help of the computer softwares. Though it is very difficult at the student level to create such a rig and experiment with it with the available budget I will try to build a motion control rig and control it with the help of the computer programming. It is a long process. The main advantage of the motion control rig is it is able to reproduce the same movement very accurately in a short period of time which is highly impossible for human hand to achieve. This report will contain the information about the motion control rig and its uses with advantages over the traditional camera cinematography to achieve the visual effects in the film. Introduction Motivation The filmy camera action which is solely dependent on the work and instincts of the cinematographer is very difficult work and if you want to shoot the same scene with same action and the camera movement it is highly impossible to achieve that with a traditional camera work. Even if you try to create that action in the computer graphics software it is very difficult and time taking process, which requires too many efforts to achieve the goal. The main disadvantage of that is if you are not able to do it perfectly it can spoil all the work, time and money invested because the film wont look like as you have imagined finally. So its a big loss of the everyones work process. The most recent technological improvement to solve the problem which too many studios are facing is they are developing their own hardwares and motion control rigs which can be controlled by the computer systems and can store the movement of the camera which a cameraman is handling physically. So the person can achieve whatever motion he wants repeatedly that to naturalistic. But everyone cant afford these all the things to do and the person who is doing that must have sound knowledge of all the departments to build a motion control rig which needs to be done by experts. So subject is if this motion control system can be used at an affordable price to explore the ideas by the low budget and new comers film makers to experiment with visual effects. Definition of Motion Control In our day to day life if we go and check out the technology related to the entertainment segment you might hear very complex terms as multipass , go motion, slit scan, streaking which you might not be aware of but you have actually seen it on the screen in the movies and TV advertisements for example the Star Wars etc. The technology of the Motion control system is developed for the need of creating the visual effects and animation and to have more control over it with the help of the computer programs. So motion control is the medium of technology to combine all the elements needed to create the amazing world of the special effects. As you are controlling the motion of the camera with help of the computer programs you have more options and ideas to create a movement is an added advantage. The main advantage of the motion control systems that it repeats the same action with great accuracy and that is the reason this technology is being favored nowadays by most of the film makers. Many of us may argue with possibility that the actions which we can shoot easily with the motion control systems can be shoot by the traditional cameraman with the efforts but the accuracy level of that action wont be the same at any level that shot been produced because we are shooting it with human hands with some limitations. And also it takes more time for completing the shot if you do it manually. The main motive of using the motion control system is to produce the naturalistic camera movement within a short time and at the affordable cost to get the amazing output for the films.. Motion control, is the foundation upon which maximum visual effects work stands (Alex Alvarez, Director at Gnomon) In this research report the main area of study is to explore the techniques used in the motion control systems and how those are far better than the traditional methods of shooting for creation of the visual effects. The literature study for the motion control systems will include the history of the motion control system and need for it and the future of the same. We will also focus on the use of the different cameras to be used on the motion control rigs and how that helps in the pre visualization stage previously. The last part of my research will conclude the main motive for this dissertation is how this technology gives more control and plays a vital role and also how it is a great tool or opportunity for the low budget film makers and new comers to create the new world of the visual effects. Motion control the name itself derives that it is meant to be use to get control over the motion or movement which can be the change in the position of the camera or might be the rotation of the axis of the camera in the space. As explained above if we wish to create the wonderful world of the special effects it is the need to be accurate with our actions at the stage of the production while shooting the footage. This is the place where exactly the motion control plays the most important role to give the accurate and the repetition of the action or movement. But in earlier times because of lack of the knowledge and technology the reliability of the Motion control systems was an issue and the reason for not getting its credit for its vital role in the production stage. If you try out and go back to history you will find the only other option to create the spectacular special effects is to use the computer softwares and the virtual cameras in that which is highly complicated and a very much time consuming process which also requires the expertise in the softwares. The Significance of Motion Control to the Film Industry The significance and importance of motion control to the film industry, includes the research done with help of the literature and industry news along with views of the professional people in interviews. The people had very different views regarding the role of the motion control systems in the movies as well as its necessity to the industry. After doing this research I came to an approach that if you really wish to the movie with motion control rig it should be built very professionally and with quality materials or else if you do it with the temporary basis structure it is not reliable at any point to create the good output as you have expected or imagines with a waste of money and time. The importance of the motion control systems for the film industry should be observed and clarified on the basis of its previous success and the failure reports and not on the persons likes and dislikes about the use of the technology. You can see the impact of the movies recently made on the viewers minds because of the spectacular world of the special effects is because of the use of the motion control system. I would say it is not the most important aspect as before use of motion control systems, films were made just fine but it gives film makers more options with what they can do with cameras (M. Thompson, personal communication, March 25, 2010). Here the point to be noted is that technology is not the ultimate source but just the medium that it helps to tell the story in a very different and a strong perspective. That is the contribution of the motion control systems to the film industry. Motion control has given too much freedom to control the movement of the cameras while shooting. If you go back to history and check out if the films which were the greatest hits of all the times with the spectacular special effects would never have been possible without use of technology of the motion control system. So you can imagine the really ordinary version of the Star Wars with the usual special effects as in any TV serials. Because of the strong advantages of the motion control system nowadays it has started to make its own place now in the production pipeline of the VFX film industry very rapidly. And this is the need for the todays style of filmmaking as it is the different and very strong medium to convey the story in more beautiful way. The difference between a failed shot and a spectacular shot can often boil down to the camera movement (A. Hargreaves, personal communication, March 31, 2010). Research Questions and hypothesis 1. Reason for Using Motion Control Motion control is a system technology that enables the programming and repetition of the motion of the cameras very accurately .The advantage of this technology is we can shoot various special effects shots in very less time instantly, which are highly impossible to create without Motion Control or can only be possible to do using a non-moving camera. With the help of Motion control we can get really natural and stunning looking shots like we want to move the camera in a scene to follow a pattern of subject or an action, so it plays a very vital role while shooting. I will give one example of the special effect which is pretty simple as a scene including a guy is just walking on a road and gradually starts disappeared into air while walking. This is can be done by shooting 2 takes. In the first take the guy will walk on the road and in the second take will be the road. In the process of editing the editor will take the two takes and will merge with each other slowly so that it appear s like a guy is disappeared in the air. This kind of shot is quite simple to achieve only if the camera is steady, but when there is the movement of camera this shot is not possible without the Motion Control because the 2 takes shot will not match in perspective and speed so we cannot merge it. Like this with the motion control we can shoot innumerable scenes of the special effects. 2. Use of motion Control in live action films In live action films we have to concentrate on too many things at a time. Motion control system can repeat the camera movement properly and accurately which includes change of focus, zooming and sometimes to control the lights so all important work is done by the motion control rig so the director can focus on the actors mainly and their acting without any worry about camera movements and continuity. This is a very beneficial reason for using motion control rig as it saves money and also the time. This is more useful when you have hired very talented actors you can set up all the settings and camera movements so when the actors come on the sets you can start the shoot right away for saving the time. 3. Setting up a movement on a Motion Control System Since many years people and technicians have developed various methods for setting up the movements on the Motion control rig. Which I understood I have divided them in parts for better understanding. 1) Direct enter movement-Traditionally the person has a remote control to control the rig and he sets it up at the position from which he wants to start and fix the position by the remote control. After fixing the start position he will move the rig to next position where he intends it to be at and again with remote control he saves that place. This king of camera movement setup gives movement along 3 points. Usually to shoot any shot 2 to 5 points is necessary. Those points on the motion path are joined by the computer using software. While setting up this move the person decides for that scene the number of frames to be taken and with which speed the camera should move. Then you can be ready for the shooting. 2)The Mimic movement-For this movement a hardware is available which allows the person to set up the movement by pushing the rig like crane or dolly and with the help of wheels to record the movement been done. As soon as the movement has been set you can repeat it at your desirable speed like other movements. Whenever a director wants the hand held feel for the movement or for the unpredictable behaviors for animals make use of this hardware to set up a movement. 3) The movement imported from CGI packages- If you are friendly with CG software as Softimage/Xsi and Maya you can decide and create the own movement and import those in the motion control system. With the help of this you can do very unique and complicated movements also. 4. Advantages of the Motion Control in Post production Post production part of the film depends on the very well shot scenes. Motion Control is behind the scenes master for the special effects which enables the scenes from the physical world to be merged and layered with the software help and effects. Motion control is a production device because of this all the people give more importance and credit for the special effects to the computer graphics software but cant understand that without the important role of the motion control footage these special effects wouldnt have been so special. The additional advantage of using the motion control is that it gives the accurate movements and perspective so it becomes easy to export that to software directly so that the scenes can be composed and merged together very easily. 5. Accuracy count of the Motion Control The movement of the each axis which is controlled motion is measured to an extent of micron level which is done with the help of optical encoders the electronic machines attached to the motors which is too fine extent that is visible to eyes. Due to the heat generated by the heavy and bright lights the metals with which the rigs are made up of tend to expand. As the measurement is too small it affects the calculation. But this doesnt happen so often. 6. Tracking verses Motion Control The calculation which the tracking gives for the position of camera in space is derivable only forms 2d footage. The condition on which the foreground and background elements can be merged with the live action footage is position and path of the camera. In motion control system first we shoot with the rig and then calculate the camera path movement and export it to the software. As the motion control camera system is aware of the position of the camera in space very accurately its very simple, convenient and faster to export the data to the softwares. The need for the motion control cannot be deleted by the tracking concept because of its accuracy and complicated camera movements. Motion control is the one and only one solution for the desired result of multiple pass scenes. The concept of tracking is heavily dependent on the fixed markers in the background to calculate the movement of the camera path. Sometimes these markers are difficult to see because the markers wont be in focus or they will be out of the frame so it wont work out according to wish. Actually we can use the previous tracking data calculation to export it to the motion control path of the camera which can be available as element for the foreground in live action shoot. This can be useful in the film industry especially for new comers to experiment the old moves with new technology again. 7. Benefit of Motion Control in pre visualization The significance of the pre visualization of the shot while designing and planning the film is increasing day by day. Pre visualization gives the perspective of the producer, director and cinematographer of the look of the final scene. The pre visualization stage eliminates the chances of the heavy and costly mis understandings, helps to prepare the shot, enables the set designers to calculate the space for the sets, positioning of the sets, enables the cameraman for the better understanding of the lights to be used in a scene, so ultimately it saves the time and lots of money. So the camera movement which can be fixed like this can be directly given to the motion control camera system rig as it has been visualized previously in the pre visualization stage. 8. List of cameras can be used on Motion control rig The motion control rig can handle most number of the film cameras with different sizes and weights. The cameras best suitable for the motion control are as follows- 1. Fries Mitchell 2. Mitchell 3. Arri 435s 4. Arri IIIs 5. Movie cam 6. Compacts 7. Panavision 8. Broadcast video cameras and camcorders 9. HD video cameras. 9. Different motion control systems The 1st is named as Cyclops which is studio based motion control system. This is considered as the best suitable system for motion control. It has unique qualities as it is extremely rigid, it can attain the high speed motion around 4 m/s and also can attain the high heights as more than 7m lens. The 2nd one is named as Milo which is a large system with portability. The main advantage of its design that it can be easily moved from one location to other comfortably because you can build it very quickly compared to other rigs and also dismantles it easily. It can give speed very closer to the speeds of the Cyclops, but it cant attain that much height as it is very small. The Milo has another option for the longer reach is that it has a longer arm. But the point of concern is it is not as rigid as the Cyclops. The 3rd one is named as Juno. It is the smallest rig, which is portable as well. It has a fixed arm. It contains a head with parallelogram to keep it to the level. The advantage of its design that can be easily accommodate in a very less space which can fit thorough the standard doorways. So because of this advantage you can shoot comfortably I the commercial complexes and buildings. As compared to Milo it has less height and reach than Milo. 10. Reliability of the Motion Control System While designing the motion control rigs the main concern is always the reliability. If you go and check out the pages from history you will get to know that people had misbelieve in the motion control systems because of the failure of the equipment to work at the proper time when needed. That got the motion controls very bad names in few countries because of many home made motion control systems assembled to give quick and cheap deals to satisfy the persons needs at that time. When we are shooting the quality product we cant deal with such thing to compromise with reliability of the parts. So regularly it should maintain and if any issues they can be solved quickly and completely. Cyclops and Milo rigs have got the very good name and reliability in the film industry. Background History Overview of Motion Control Motion Control and the computer used to control require different calculations or work processes. Even though these processes come from different areas of research they quickly became linked for purposes such as VFX. The US defense department first developed the concept of motion control for use in missile guidance systems. The earliest VFX use of motion control is perhaps in 1985 at the famous NYIT graphics lab Tom Brigham and J.P. Lewis implemented a rig (Seymour, M. 2004) The advancements in technology as well as developments in CPU and graphics speed started to make video editing and VFX production possible to the film industry. In a storytelling process person needs to show too many imaginary illusions to convey the story more beautifully. To show and express these illusions we have been gifted with one technology that is term called as special effects, which are usually used in film, television, theater, or entertainment industries. The concept of Special effects is categorized divided into the parts named as of optical effects and mechanical effects. As the years passed the film industry has grown with too many technologies mainly the digital techniques because of which we are now enable to realize the difference between the special effects and visual effects. The visual effects mean the one which are created during the process of the post production digitally. The special effect means those are created with the help of the cameras mechanically on the sets while shooting. The computer graphics has been playing important role with special effects from the period of 1990s.The main advantage of the computer graphics is that it allows the filmmakers to get rid of the traditional limitations to create the effects and gives more control over it which is more convenient and fine to achieve with the help of this technique. This technology saves money and time both at the greater extents many of the special effects which we used to create mechanically are went to lower hand by the computer graphics. The first motion picture special effect to be considered as was the time in 1857 when Oscar Gustave Fletcher Rejlander combined the different parts of the 32 photographs in one image. The first commonly granted special effect in the industry was in 1895 by Alfred Clark .At the time of shooting for a reenactment of the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots an instruction of to step up to the block in Marys costume was given to the actor. In that scene when the executioner came with the axe above his head, the camera was stopped, he told all the actors to freeze, and instructed the person playing Mary to go off the set. Then the trick was replacement of the dummy in Marys place instead of the actor. Then the next shot was the axe coming down to cut the head of the dummy by the executioner. Suchà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ techniques would remain at the heart of special effects production for the next century (Rickitt). Special effects technology was grown and reconstructed by the motion pictures company in the period of the 1920s and 1930s. Most of the effects techniques were created and improvised the methods of illusions from the background of the theaters like ghosts made up of papers and still photography like as double exposure and matte compositing. The idea was to use the painted backgrounds as the projections and to replace them with the moving pictures. In those times they used to create faces with life casting with the help of the usual mask making. They used to create awesome masks which would fit the actor perfectly. After the science of materialization improved and that gave more depth for horror film mask making. The greatest evolution for the special effects was the amazing success of the science fiction and fantasy films in 1977.The film Star Wars created by George Lucass unlashed an era of fantasy films with expensive and awesome special effects. That times special effects supervisor was John Dykstra, A.S.C.He and his crew did many improvements in technology. For the movies needs they created a motion controlled camera rig named as Dykstraflex. It created the wonders at that time as repetition of the motion which drastically enhanced the compositing the matte. The film images went through the process of the degradation by the use of other innovative techniques: For the widescreen images photography that to horizontal with the stock they used the cameras named Vista vision on that rig .They used the more length of the film per frame rate and for the compositing part they used thin films with emulsions. In the same year, the movie named Close Encounters of the Third Kind creation of Steven Spielberg burst out with amazing special effects. Those were the creation of veteran Douglas Trumbull. They developed their own motion control rig system. They also introduced the term lens flare which is intentional and created by the reflection of light in the camera lenses. That was intentionally done to create the shapes of the flying saucers. The main reason for the investment in the special effects was the grand success of these films. That created so much buzz turned into opportunities for the special effects studios and the birth of the computer graphics. As the years passed the film industry has grown with too many technologies mainly the digital techniques because of which we are now enable to realize the difference between the special effects and visual effects. The visual effects mean the one which are created during the process of the post production digitally. The special effect means those are created with the help of the cameras mechanically on the sets while shooting. Methodology This dissertation researches the integration of motion control techniques in the film industry. As for the artefact itself, conclusions drawn from the research will provide guidance as well as technical knowledge. The information acquired from the interviews of industry active personnel in areas of motion control will create the basis of the shots. Each shot will have an in depth description of its particular approach and reasoning, as well as problems and techniques used to achieve a solid track. These approaches evaluate and support the information that has been derived from both primary and secondary research. Primary Research In order to receive relevant, accurate and up to date information, the primary research for the evaluation and interpretation of the research questions was based on contacts and interviews with industry professionals. These interviews were conducted in different manners according to the flexibility and time of these sources. These included email questionings, telephone conversations. Although the question order and wording may vary, all interviews contain similar areas of focus and question principles. The following individuals where included in the questioning: 1. Mr. Ramdas A. Dale (General Manager Productions, Amtek Engineers PVT LTD.) 2. Mr. Rahul S. Sharma ( The questions asked were specifically designed to not only aid with specific techniques needed to produce an artifact, but also to highlight any problem areas that might be encountered during use of motion control rig in a professional environment. The main area of research discussed in the introduction of this paper still stands and the key investigation into The integration of motion control system in the film industry remains. Evaluating Primary research The primary research conducted by these questions was categorized into 6 subject areas. This approach was necessary in order to structure the information received for either secondary research approaches, or technique evaluation. The main headings of the primary research evolutions are: 1. The term Motion Control 2. Motion Control for VFX 3. The work of a motion control rig 4. Tricks and problems 5. The Importance of Motion Control to the Film Industry 6. The future of Motion Control Secondary Research The secondary research involves the assessment of motion control literature in order to support the primary research on a more technical level. The main methodology and reasoning for this research, is to show a good understanding of some subject areas discussed in the primary research, as well as how to use the motion control rig for low budget films. This will further aid in the understanding and problem solving. The technique of motion control is there since countable years but now is the time when this technology can be available in a affordable cost with which at least we can I mean low budget film makers can think of using it as a great tool for the shoot and experiment thoroughly. Earlier days the cost of a completely-featured computerized animation camera was up to Rs.90000000. Now a days the Motion control system is available for under Rs.540000.For shooting this type of work if you hire a camera it costs around Rs.3500 per hour and more and if you compare that with above price can consider as 270 hours of shoot with motion control. If you compare the shots per hour with motion control you can shoot 45 minutes of movie as the film camera will shoot 10-12 seconds of film in an hour. The motion control systems require the test shoots so if you count the final shooting output will be around 25 minutes. This is the reason you can think of getting your motion control rig which can pay for it in a comparatively less time. That has other side advantage of experimenting more on your own ideas for more time. The main advantage of using this technology is you can own less priced system and can get direct and great entry into more comprehensive and awesome field of TV and media. That too is a best opportunity to low-budget filmmakers who can improvise new and unique techniques. Newcomers can make most use of the camera productively and they save money for the studio who wants get a break in this industry. There are two options which are available for the shooting of the films. One is Cameraman and the other is motion control rig. Everyone one of them consists of the parts namely: the system, the added electronic devices to control the movement by the motors and computer softwares, the person controls the motors with the help of the systems to get the special effects. Each option uses the name of the brand and computer systems to get control over the movement of the axes, motion paths. Usually a cameraman will use the number of action will be and he uses a computer. In The motion control rig it consists of 3 or 6 or more axes to create the motion and it uses the computer systems as IBM or Apple. The package of the motion control rig and computer with which it can control 6 axes and computer software costs almost Rs.540000. The package of the Cameraman and computer system and motion along the 6 axes and computer software at the most about Rs.440000. The computer software package which the cameraman uses has more features like the streak mode along with fitting of curve. The other thing is the electronic devises he uses are made up of very simple design so the advantage is it has less maintenance. The studios with big budgets can be more comfortable and reliable with motion control rigs if they have a strong history of developing the large motion control systems and to work with them. Future Work My research will primarily concern itself with translating physical camera action with motion control rig in an extraordinary way. The functionality and usefulness of the motion control can be greatly expanded in the future. Opportunities for future work could include developing a real-time depth of field preview that would allow for realistic focal length changes to be made using the motion control system camera, adding an additional level of intuitive control to motion of camera. Reprogramming other controls of the motion control to make it more self-sufficient. Scope and limitations Results I got an approach to that how can I use the motion control system for the low budget movies. That is possible if I can get a good configured personal computer and make the motion control rig by myself. To build a motion control rig you have to have the sound knowledge of the different parts of engineering such as electrical, computers and mechanical engineering and the vast effects. If you cant do it on your own you may get help from your engineer friends who might be interested in all this stuff. Motion control creates too many visual illusions which are extraordinary and amazing which may be we can create by the duplication of the images formed in the computer systems. At the moment the motion control system is quite affordable but it will be vast in the future. In fact as soon as the less priced motion control systems will get evolved the main advantage will be for the new film makers to emerge as great as possible with the amazing special effects treatment which will let the audience and viewers to get entry into to the next world of magic created by you. Conclusion Over the course of this di

Graduation Speech: Its Our Turn :: Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

After 18 long years of waiting, it is finally our turn. After 13 years of schooling, some difficult, some not, it is finally our turn. After this last, excruciatingly long year of waiting, hoping, dreaming, it is finally our turn. This day has been in the back of our minds since our first day of kindergarten, all those years ago. This year, amidst bouts of senioritis, today was all we could think about, that final day when it would finally be our turn to graduate. However, it is not only our turn to graduate, but also our turn to assume full responsibility for the direction our lives will take. From this day forward, our lives are our own. We will now make decisions about our futures. For some of us, that decision will take us to college, possibly a two or four year degree. Some of us may even go further. For others, it will be work, setting out to make a living for themselves, perhaps attending college later on, perhaps not. Some will join the military, shipping out to a far off and exotic location, or maybe even defense on the homefront. Some will even take a year or two off for travel, or to stay at home and relax. No matter what choice you make, it is important to remember that it is our time to make these decisions. For these things, it's our turn. Our turn to play in the sandbox is over. No more playing tag in the park or with GI Joes. No more showing off the latest outfit on your Barbie or your newfound skill at riding a two-wheeled bike for the first time. We have learned our ABCs and 123s, said goodbye to Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street. Most of us no longer watch Saturday morning cartoons and we haven't had recess in seven years. Our turn for these things is at an end. Now it is our turn to complete our education and begin our careers, wherever they may take us. It is our turn to become our own person in society, to make a difference in this world, to begin our new lives, and to succeed. Ladies and gentlemen, it is finally our turn.

The 21st Century School Librarian Essay -- Educational Issues

The 21st Century school librarian is no longer just the caretaker of the book collection. Technology is transforming the education system and the way children are taught. This paper discusses the many roles and issues that the teacher-librarian plays in creating a flexible 21st Century learning environment. 21ST Century School Library Media Specialist The roles discussed in the articles written by school librarians Mashriqi (2011), Ballard (2008), and Marcoux (2010) were similar in strategies needed for running an effective media center today. The common theme was the importance in being able to evaluate what will help the school meet the needs of todays learners and to connect the curriculum with â€Å"hands-on† learning experiences. By demonstrating knowledge and current technological skills the media specialist connects the library with teachers, students, administration and parents with information and resources to promote literacy. Technology integration is accomplished by using resources that reflect content standards. To focus on the relationship between education technology and student learning engaging games is one way to achieve the goals with positive results. Digital Tools Todays’ school library media specialist applies trends related to the use of technology in education to support integration throughout the curriculum. Being literate in the 21st Century involves teaching both â€Å"traditional† literacy and how to read and produce the kinds of texts typical of the emerging information and multimedia age. Benthem (2010) points out that to have an effective school library program it needs to be an ongoing work in progress. Literacy development does impact student learning through the use of digital technologies, includ... ...upport emergent literacy skill development for young children at-risk or who have disabilities. Early Childhood Education Journal, 36(3), 233-239. Peterson, J. (2011). Finding focus: Using digital cameras in library programming. Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children, 9(3), 48-51. Poinier, S., & Alevy, J. (2010). Our instruction does matter! Data collected from students' works cited speaks volumes. Teacher Librarian, 37(3), 38-39. Sugar, W., & Holloman, H. (2009). Technology leaders wanted: Acknowledging the leadership role of a technology coordinator. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 53(6), 66-75. Zabel, D., & Hickey, D. (2011). The reuse evangelist: Taking ownership of copyright questions at your library. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 51(1), 9-11.

Ralph and Jack’s Conflict between Good and Evil in Lord of the Flies Essay

?Ralph and Jack’s Conflict between Good and Evil in Lord of the Flies Over the ages, human behavior has shown that purity of thought leads to a similar action and ultimately to an outcome that is consistent with the original thought. Conversely, the history of man is tainted with his inherent lust for power and greed causing great conflict. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the author contrasts the moral thoughts and deeds of his flawed hero Ralph to the self gratifying motives and actions of his adversary Jack. The ebb and flow of good versus evil on the island is driven by the waves of positive and negative thoughts in the minds of the two main characters. Ralph and Jack’s continuous struggle of good versus evil is not only between the two of them, but is within their own minds as well. Jack shows his inclination towards selfishness and violence while Ralph keeps a caring and positive mind towards the group’s survival. The boys have a meeting on the top of the mountain to discuss what to do next concerning their survival, which gives jack the opportunity to bring up hunting: â€Å"’It broke away-‘ ‘Before I could kill it- but- next time! ’ Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked round challengingly† (31). Already Jack begins to reveal his aggressive and violent nature. Jack has the opinion that being dominant and seen as powerful is more important to his own survival, while Ralph thinks about the survival of the group as a whole. Jack’s hunting is more about a selfish need than about providing for others. During the first hunt, Jack goes to satisfy his craving for meat and power: â€Å"He swung his right arm and hurled the spear with all his strength. From the pig-run came the quick, hard patter of hoofs, a castanet sound, seductive, maddening- the promise of meat† (49). Jack’s hunt for meat has become an obsessive search for power and a way to demonstrate his strength to the boys. He believes that catching and killing a pig and bringing it back for the others is the ultimate way to show that he is dominant and better than them. Jack is now consciously embodying his evil thoughts into his physical appearance. After realizing his hunting methods are not adequate, Jack paints his face into a mask in order to hunt more successfully: â€Å"Jack planned his new face. He made one cheek and one eye-socket white, then rubbed red over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw† (66). He is consciously using the colours black and red to demonstrate the darkness and thirst for blood inside of him. Jack also shows his evil and anger in the way he aggressively slashes the charcoal onto his face. Ralph’s deeper level of thinking leads him to take positive action towards improving conditions on the island. Ralph walks along the beach and come to realization just how badly things have deteriorated on the island: â€Å"With a convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay; understood how much he disliked perpetually flicking the tangled hair out of his eyes, and at last, when the sun was gone, rolling noisily to rest among dry leaves† (82). Ralph’s thoughts, while not entirely good, have helped him to realize how bad the actually situation is on the island and what he needs to do to stop the situation from getting worse. Ralph’s world of order is pitted against Jack’s world of chaos. At the meeting, Ralph tries to reestablish the rules and Jack is openly challenging his authority: â€Å"Ralph summoned his wits. ‘Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got! ’ But Jack was shouting against him. ‘Bullocks to the rules! We’re strong- we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat- ! ’† (99) Ralph expresses his good thoughts in a way to keep justice and order on the island, while Jack tries to destroy any trace of this with thoughts of rebellion and power over Ralph’s law. When Ralph realized that he cannot win, he gives into the bad thoughts that consume the island. Ralph is the last one left who still has a sense of order and is being hunted by the others for not agreeing with their ways: â€Å"But then the fatal unreasoning knowledge came to him again. The breaking of the conch and the deaths of Piggy and Simon lay over the island like a vapour. These painted savages would go further and further† (204). He experiences bad thoughts regarding his survival and develops a sense of hopelessness and futility. Ralph, slowly losing his own sanity and at the loss of Piggy and Simon there to induce good thoughts, is left to hide and attack the others for his own survival. Ralph is entirely overwhelmed by the thoughts of good and evil. He flees from the savages onto the beach where he finds, standing before him, a naval officer with a ship at his back. â€Å"†¦ Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall though the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy† (225). All of Ralph’s thoughts crash down on him at this moment and he is overwhelmed by the truth of man’s inner evil and by the death of his loyal and good friend Piggy. The conflict between the two characters, Ralph and Jack, is underlined by the good and evil thought patters that directly lead to the actions they each take. While good thoughts bear good fruit and bad thoughts bear bad fruit, the potential for good and evil lies within all of mankind. Works Cited Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1958. Print.

The Skills Dilemma Skills Under-Utilisation and Low-Wage Work

The Skills Dilemma Skills Under-Utilisation and Low-Wage Work A Bottom Ten Million Research Paper Jonny Wright and Paul Sissons January 2012 Contents 1. Introduction 2. Skills under-utilisation in the UK and low-wage work – the scale of the problem 3. The challenge of improving low-wage work: the role of skills utilisation 4. An analysis of skills under-utilisation in two low-wage sectors – retail and hospitality 5. Conclusions and policy recommendations Appendix I: Under-use of skills in The Work Foundation’s Knowledge Workers Survey 8 11 17 27 32 List of Boxes, Figures and Tables Box 1: Approaches to skills utilisation Box 2: Summary findings: Drivers of skills under-utilisation in low-wage sectors Figure 1: Percentage of employees over and under-skilled, by industry Figure 2: Percentage of employees over and under-skilled, by occupation Figure 3: Employment by occupation in the retail sector and the whole economy Figure 4: Employment by occupation in hospitali ty and the whole economy Table 1: Making bad jobs good 5 23 10 10 18 20 16Acknowledgements This paper is published as part of our Bottom Ten Million research programme. We would like to thank our sponsors – Barrow Cadbury Trust, Private Equity Foundation, The Tudor Trust and Working Links. We would also like to thank the following expert interviewees: Prof. Ewart Keep, Thomas Baum, Dr. Odul Bozkurt, Michelle Irving, Anne Murphy, Aoife Ni Luanaigh, David Fuhr, Bob Butcher, Mike Darby Prof. Irena Grugulis, Katerina Rudiger, Linda McLeod, Marc Robertson, Kate Tetley, Prof. Dennis Nickson.Jonathan Wright has left The Work Foundation, the report does not represent the view of his new employers. This paper is the second in a series of publications as part of The Work Foundation’s new research programme, The Bottom Ten Million, which focuses on the employment prospects of Britain’s low earners between now and 2020 and seeks to identify the priority measures that need t o be taken if they are to share in the sources of growth and prosperity over the next decade. There are ten million people in Britain who currently have annual incomes of less than ? 5,000. The Bottom Ten Million programme is sponsored by Working Links, The Tudor Trust, the Barrow Cadbury Trust and the Private Equity Foundation. 2 The Skills Dilemma 1. Introduction There is a skills dilemma in the UK. Successive governments have focussed on supply-side measures to tackle the UK’s skills problems and to improve the nation’s international economic competitiveness. However, despite increased investment in skills and educational attainment, labour productivity in the UK lags behind other comparator countries. Lord Leitch’s review of skills found that the UK’s relatively poor skills base only accounts for around one fifth of the productivity gap with countries such as Germany and France;2 with the rest mostly attributable to our poor record of ‘investing in physical capital, R&D and infrastructure’, but commentators have also identified the importance of work organisation and job design in boosting productivity. 3 This paper challenges the implicit assumption in much skills policy making that the skills problem lies solely on the supply-side.Supply-side interventions can certainly boost competitiveness and also have an important influence on individual labour market outcomes; however in isolation they have not been sufficient to close the productivity gap with competitor nations. 4 We therefore argue that greater attention needs to be paid to the limited demand for skills. This argument is not new, Wilson and Hogarth advocated this view in the early 2000s,5 however acknowledgement of the issue in policy circles, and progress towards better demand-side policies, has been painfully slow. The UK faces significant skills challenges.The suggestion of demand-side concerns should not be taken as implying that there are not further improvements that can be made in the supply of skills. This is particularly true for the lowest skilled. Whereas the UK ranks 12th for high level skills in the OECD, it is further behind for intermediate level skills (18th) and for low skills (17th). 6 The supply of skills has important implications for the ability of employers to recruit a suitably qualified and skilled workforce. Last year’s national employer skills survey found that 19 per cent of employers were suffering from a skills gap. It is therefore clear that on-going efforts to improve the supply of skills remain important. 8 However, there is a growing body of research arguing that the skills problem is related not only to skills supply but also to poor skills utilisation. For this study we adopt a definition of skills utilisation that captures both the individual, firm level and potential national effects, and which was developed by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) who have recently funded a programme of 12 pr ojects which test different approaches to skills utilisation.CFE (2008) Skills Utilisation Literature Review, Scottish Government Social Research Leitch Review of Skills (2005) Skills in the UK: The long-term challenge HM Treasury 3 Keep, E. , Mayhew, K. and Payne, J. (2006) ‘From Skills Revolution to Productivity Miracle – not as easy as it sounds? ’ Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 22:4. 4 CFE (2008) Skills Utilisation Literature Review, Scottish Government Social Research 5 Wilson, R. and Hogarth, T. (Eds. (2003) Tackling the Low Skills Equilibrium: A Review of Issues and Some New Evidence Department of Trade and Industry 6 UKCES (2010) Ambition 2020 7 UKCES (2009) National Employer Skills Survey 8 Lawton, K. (2009) Nice Work If You Can Get It IPPR 1 2 The Skills Dilemma 3 Introduction Effective skills utilisation is about: †¢ Confident, motivated and relevantly skilled individuals who are aware of the skills they posses and know how to best use them in the workplace. Working in: †¢ Workplaces that provide meaningful and appropriate encouragement, opportunity and support for employees to use their skills effectively.In order to: †¢ Increase performance and productivity, improve job satisfaction and employee well-being, and stimulate investment, enterprise and innovation. Previous research by The Work Foundation has found that between 35 and 45 per cent of employees feel their skills are under-utilised. 9 Other employee surveys such as the UK Skills Survey have reported similar results. Skills under-utilisation is also more prevalent in low-wage sectors. Employer demand for skills is lowest in sectors such as retail and hospitality – those sectors which also employ the most low-wage workers.Skills utilisation matters for the UK economy, for employers and for employees. Firstly, although the UK workforce has become increasingly skilled in recent years, the productivity gap with comparator countries remains. There is a growing body of research that argues that a demand-side approach is needed to help close the gap. Secondly, better skills utilisation matters for employers because it can result in better motivated, confident and productive employees and reduce staff turnover. And lastly, better skills utilisation can make work more satisfying for employees, and improve their prospects for progression. 0 Therefore, failure to understand and address the skills problem appropriately will not only hinder the UK’s long term growth potential but may also dampen social mobility. 9 10 Brinkley, I. et al. (2009) Knowledge Workers and Work The Work Foundation CFE (2008) Skills Utilisation Literature Review Scottish Government Social Research The Skills Dilemma 4 Introduction Box 1: Approaches to skills utilisation One problem inherent in the skills utilisation agenda is that the term ‘skills utilisation’ is subject to a relatively wide variety of definitions.These definitional problems are also exhibited in practical skills utilisation policies, with the early evaluation evidence from Scotland suggesting a number of pilot projects leaned quite heavily towards the supply-side of skills. There are also a number of different approaches to skills utilisation – these have been grouped as market-driven, state-driven and holistic (see table below). These approaches differ in their focus, main drivers and models of delivery as well as in their intended outcomes.The following table provides an overview of some of these differences regarding both their implementation and impact: Implementation of approaches Market driven Focus Driver Model Organisation Business performance HPW Learning transfer Leadership and management Employee trust State driven Organisation National productivity National strategy Workplace projects Buy-in – employers, employees Holistic Industry/National National prosperity National strategy (combining acquisition and utilisation) Stakehold er engagement Sector wide projects FundEnablers Impact of approaches Market driven Take up Outcomes – economic Low Profit Sales Productivity Job satisfaction Staff retention/motivation Work intensification Employee buy-in State driven No evidence Productivity Holistic No evidence Use of resources Improved innovation Improved collaboration Outcomes – social Well-being Working conditions Equality and diversity Buy-in Dissemination Limitations Broad approach MeasurementS (Source: CFE, 2008)Generally speaking skills utilisation is presented as a positive concept, although some commentators viewing the concept in its broadest sense also argue that management practices aimed at deliberately limiting the use of employees skills can also be examples of skills utilisation. The challenges faced by low-wage workers – including the under-utilisation of skills in low-skill low-wage sectors – are driven by multiple factors. There are forces both inside and outside of t he workplace that shape under-utilisation outcomes. The skills ecosystem captures the context in which skills are developed and used.It includes the business setting, the institutional and policy frameworks (skill and The Skills Dilemma 5 Introduction non-skill based), the modes of engaging and contracting labour (such as labour hire arrangements) and the structure of jobs (for example job design and work organisation). 11 Initiatives to improve skills utilisation have been undertaken in Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, and also Scotland – where the Skills Strategy makes a commitment to ‘improving the skills and employability of individuals and creating high skill, high productivity, healthy workplaces where this talent can be best used’. 2 But there is no established policy response in England. Changes in the structure of the labour market in recent years have placed new pressures on lowwage workers. The labour market has become increasingly polarised into l ow-wage, low-skill jobs and high-wage, high skills jobs; and the recession has accelerated this structural change. 13 We also know that progression from low-wage work is often quite poor. Furthermore it is forecast that there will not be significantly fewer low-wage jobs in the UK by 2020, yet there will be relatively few adults in the labour market with no qualifications. 4 Brockmann, Clarke and Winch have also identified there is a cultural difference between how work is conceived in the UK and overseas. 15 In comparator countries progression is an integral aspect of any occupation, and the floor of minimum training required is often much higher. This incentivises employers to maximise the productivity of its workforce through job design – to cover training costs. Conversely, the UK jobs market is increasingly characterised by a long ‘tail’ of low-wage work,16 with limited opportunities to progress.A recent review of international skills policy has identified t hree main approaches to tackling skills under-utilisation – market driven, state driven, and holistic. 17 In countries such as Finland and Ireland the state has played a leading role; establishing a policy framework to encourage organisations to maximise skills utilisation. Other countries have taken a more holistic approach involving employers, employees, learning providers and the state †¦ to achieve industry wide and national impacts on productivity. 18 The Skills Ecosystem Project in Australia is an example of a holistic approach.High performance working, which has been the central plank of the English response to employer skills use, is a market driven approach which includes activities in the areas of human resource management, Buchanan, J. et al. (2010), Skills demand and utilisation: An international review of approaches to measurement and policy development OECD Local Economic and Employment Development Working Papers, 2010 12 Skills for Scotland at http://www. scotland. gov. uk/Resource/Doc/326739/0105315. pdf accessed on 22 November 2010 p. 7 13 Sissons, P. 2011) The Hourglass and the Escalator: Labour market change and mobility The Work Foundation 14 Lawton, K. (2009) Nice Work If You Can Get It IPPR 15 Brockmann, M. , Clarke, L. and Winch, C. (2011) European Skills and Qualifications: Towards a European Labour Market Routledge 16 Clayton, N. and Brinkley, I. (2011) Welfare to What? Prospects and challenges for employment recovery, The Work Foundation 17 CFE (2008) Skills Utilisation Literature Review, Scottish Government Social Research 18 CFE (2008) Skills Utilisation Literature Review, Scottish Government Social Research 11 The Skills Dilemma Introduction work organisation, management and leadership, and organisational development. Although, less than a third of organisations in the UK take a HPW approach (2008 Employer skills survey). 19 This paper In this paper we analyse skill utilisation in two sectors in the UK economy – hospitality and retail – which employ a relatively high proportion of the low-earners and which exhibit high levels of skills underutilisation compared to other sectors. We focus on the following questions: 1.What are the main drivers of skills under-utilisation in low-wage sectors in the UK? 2. What can and should be done to address skills under-utilisation in low-wage sectors in the UK? The paper also draws on examples of skills utilisation best practice in comparator countries before developing a set of policy recommendations for UK policy makers and employers. The research method involved both a review of the existing literature on skills utilisation and how this applies to the case study examples as well as undertaking 15 expert interviews.These interviews covered a range of actors including academic experts, Unions, Sector Skills Councils, employer and trade bodies, and central government. The Skills Dilemma builds on our existing Bottom Ten Million evidence base. The p aper aims to highlight the role that improved utilisation can play in generating better work outcomes for the Bottom Ten Million and to raise awareness of skills under-utilisation in England. Better skills utilisation also has the potential to generate higher productivity levels for businesses and to bring about benefits for the wider economy.The paper is structured as follows: †¢ †¢ †¢ Section 2 outlines the scale of the problem in the UK; Section 3 examines the barriers to improving low-wage work and the role of skills utilisation; Section 4 explores the drivers of skills under-utilisation and barriers to better skills utilisation in two low-wage industrial sectors: Hospitality; Retail; †¢ ? ? Section 5 summarises our findings and sets out a series of policy recommendations. 19 UKCES, High Performance Working The Skills Dilemma 7 2. Skills under-utilisation in the UK and low-wage work – the scale of the problemWhile there is growing evidence that under-u tilisation of skills by employers is an issue, there is no established definition of skills utilisation. This makes measuring the issue problematic. In part this reflects the insufficient understanding or awareness of the problem in government and amongst employers (especially in England), when compared to supply-side challenges such as skills shortages and skills gaps. As such, policy makers have not sufficiently recognised the importance of demand-side measures such as improved work organisation practices and job design in delivering skills improvements.This is despite there being take-up of this policy agenda in other countries, including Scotland. Progress on skills has traditionally been measured using qualifications across the workforce; but this ‘does not take account of the skills which people acquire through non formal; and informal learning both at work and within their wider lives’. 20 Qualifications are only one measure of skills in the workforce – a more comprehensive understanding takes into consideration the three logics of skill:21 †¢ Behavioural: ‘the personal qualities of the worker to deal with interpersonal relationships’; Cognitive: ‘level and kind of education and training undertaken by the population to help it understand and act in the world’; †¢ Technical: ‘the capacity to undertake particular set tasks. ’ Any attempt to measure skills under-utilisation must therefore take into account this holistic understanding of skills; different types of skills are utilised and under-utilised in different workplaces.The scale of the problem in the UK There is a significant body of evidence demonstrating that the UK lags behind comparator countries in terms of the quality of skills in the workplace. Whereas the UK ranks 12th for high level skills in the OECD, it is further behind for intermediate level skills (18th) and for low level skills (17th). 22 This has resulted in some ski lls gaps and skills shortages for UK employers, with the 2009 National Employer Skills Survey finding that 19 per cent of establishments reported a skills gap among their employees. 3 However there is a growing body of research (both from this country and abroad) that argues that the skills problem is related not only to skills supply but also to weak demand for skills and poor skills utilisation. The term Low Skills Equilibrium was coined in 1988 by Finegold and Soskice (and subsequently developed by academics such as Ewart Keep) to describe what they saw as a ‘systems failure’ in the British economy; an economy characterised by low-wages and with a relatively high proportion of low specification companies in which demand for high level skills is relatively low. 0 Payne, J. (2010) Skills Utilisation: towards a measurement and evaluation framework SKOPE Research Paper No. 93 21 Buchanan et al. (2010), Skills demand and utilisation: An international review of approaches to measurement and policy development’, OECD Local Economic and Employment Development Working Papers, 2010 22 UKCES (2010) Ambition 2020 23 Wright, J. , Clayton, N. and Brinkley, I. (2010) Employability and Skills in the UK, The Work Foundation 8 The Skills Dilemma Skills under-utilisation in the UK and low-wage work – the scale of the problemFelstead et al. have pointed out that ‘whilst a relative balance of skills demand and supply exists for those jobs requiring high level qualifications, an aggregate imbalance exists for those requiring intermediate and no qualifications’. 24 In a study of Skills at Work between 1986 and 2006 it has been shown that the number of people in the workforce with no qualifications has fallen far faster than the number of jobs requiring no qualifications (the number of people with no qualifications fell by 5. million between 1986 and 2006; whilst the number of jobs requiring no qualifications for entry fell by 1. 2 million). The result has been a growing mismatch between individuals with no qualifications and jobs which require no qualification requirements. 25 The most useful data on skills under-utilisation however comes from employees themselves. 26 A body of evidence suggests that skills under-utilisation affects a higher proportion of the UK workforce than does skills gaps or skills shortages.A study by The Work Foundation in 2009 found that between 35 and 45 per cent of employees felt that their skills were under-utilised. 27 Furthermore, skills under-utilisation is more prevalent amongst people in jobs requiring some or little knowledge content; 36 per cent of knowledge workers reported that their jobs under-utilised their skills compared to 44 per cent in jobs with some or little knowledge content.Moreover, the UK Skills Survey found that the proportion of employees reporting that they are ‘over skilled’ is highest in the low-skill/low-pay sectors and occupations; with over 55 per cent of people working in the hotels and catering industry reporting being over skilled compared to approximately 20 per cent in finance; over 60 per cent of workers in elementary level jobs reported being over skilled compared to less than 20 per cent in managerial positions (see Figures 1 and 2 below). The UK skills survey also suggests that the skills under-utilisation problem is getting worse over time.The percentage of employees reporting high levels of discretion at work – jobs which are likely ‘to make better use of employees’ judgement and skill’ – dropped from 57 per cent in 1992 to 43 per cent in 2001, and remained at this level in 2006. 28 Despite this, there is limited public awareness of the issue in England and skills utilisation does not feature heavily in skills policy. But there are examples elsewhere of how skills utilisation policies can be effectively built, and can benefit both employees and firms.England is relatively isolated in having largely ignored the importance of work organisation and job design in delivering skills improvements. In a number of other European countries, government workplace organisation initiatives have been implemented to improve job quality and enhance productivity. 29 Countries which have pursued these policies include the Nordic states, Germany and Ireland. 30 Buchanan et a. l (2010), Skills demand and utilisation: An international review of approaches to measurement and policy development’, OECD Local Economic and Employment Development Working Papers, 2010 25 Felstead, A. Gallie, D. , Green, F. and Zhou, Y. (2007) Skills at Work, 1986-2006 26 Payne, J. (2010) Skills Utilisation: towards a measurement and evaluation framework SKOPE Research Paper No. 93 27 Brinkley et al. (2009) Knowledge Workers and Work, The Work Foundation 28 Felstead, A. , Gallie, D. , Green, F. and Zhou, Y. (2007) Skills at Work, 1986-2006 29 Keep, E. , Mayhew, K. and Payne, J. 2006. ‘From Sk ills Revolution to Productivity Miracle – Not As Easy As It Looks? ’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 22:4, pp539-559 30 Ibid 24 The Skills Dilemma 9Skills under-utilisation in the UK and low-wage work – the scale of the problem Figure 1: Percentage of employees over and under-skilled, by industry 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Over-skilled Under-skilled % na nc Ed e uc at i El o n ec tri ca l He Co al th ns tru Pu ct io bl n ic ad m in Ag . ric M in ul in tu g re /fi sh Re in g O al th es er ta co te m m M an uni ty uf W ac ho tu r le sa ing Tr le/r e an sp tail or Ho ta te tio ls/ n ca te rin g Fi Source: 2001 UK Skills Survey Figure 2: Percentage of employees over and under-skilled, by occupation 70 60 50 40 % 30 20 10 0 Over-skilled Under-skilled n ag Pr er of s es sio As na s. ls Pr of . /t ec h. Se cr et ar Sk ia ille l d Pe tra rs de on s al se rv ice s Sa le s es s an to Pl Source: 2001 UK Skills Survey 10 El em en ta ry M pe ra tiv oc c’ Al l Al l The Skil ls Dilemma 3. The challenge of improving low-wage work: the role of skills utilisation Low-wage workers face a number of distinctive challenges in the labour market. For example low-paid/ low-skilled workplaces tend to have few development and progression opportunities, worse HR practices and higher staff turnover. 1 In this chapter we discuss the wider challenges faced in improving lowwage work, and we consider the role which skills utilisation policies can play in this. Skills utilisation is certainty not a ‘magic bullet’ to resolve all the challenges faced in improving the lot of low-wage workers. Improving skills utilisation is potentially a useful strategy in generating better work outcomes; however to fundamentally address the issues faced by low-wage earners, it must be part of a broader suite of measures. There are a number of primary drivers which serve to make things challenging for low-wage workers, these include: †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ The s tructure of the labour market and the types of jobs that are growing and declining; The poor conception of work in low-wage sectors; The corporate strategies adopted by firms in low-wage paying industries which often compete on cost rather than quality; The forms of work organisation and management techniques adopted by low-wage employers; The weak career and wage progression that is often experienced by people at the bottom of the labour market; Wage inequality and the level of the National Minimum Wage.The primary focus of research in this paper is on the third and fourth bullets, which are concerned with employer demand for skills and how well employers utilise the skills of their workforce. However, in this chapter we also discuss the issues raised by the other bullets, which skills utilisation policies would not directly address.The changing structure of the UK labour market During the past few decades the UK economy has undergone a structural change, with the economy increasin gly based on knowledge, rather than routine production, and with new jobs created in large numbers in high-skill/high-wage professional and managerial occupations. However this growth in jobs at the top is not the entire story.Evidence shows that over the last 25 years the labour market has become increasingly hollowed-out, as middle wage/middle skill jobs have been lost in significant numbers; and this trend accelerated noticeably during the recent recession. 32 There is a growing body of evidence which suggests that labour markets in a number of developed countries are becoming increasingly polarised into ‘lovely’ and ‘lousy’ jobs. 33 There are several explanations for this trend: Newton, B. , Miller, L. , Bates, P. , Page, R. nd Akroyd, K. (2006) Learning Through Work: Literacy, language, numeracy and IT skills development in low-paid, low-skilled workplaces Institute for Employment Studies: Report 433 32 Sissons, P. (2011) The Hourglass and the Escalato r: Labour market change and mobility The Work Foundation 33 Goos, M. and Manning, A. (2003) Lousy and lovely jobs: the rising polarization of work in Britain CEP Working Paper 31 The Skills Dilemma 11 The challenge of improving low-wage work: the role of skills utilisation †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢Technological change and the automation of routine jobs;34 Globalisation and off-shoring of semi-skilled production jobs has reduced demand for some groups of workers;35 Growth in high-skill occupations can in itself increase the demand for lower level jobs, particularly in private personal services;36 Other socio-demographic trends, for example those associated with increasing female participation in the labour market and the aging population, have also increased the demand for some personal service occupations. 37One implication of a more polarised job market is that it can have direct implications for employment and earnings mobility, as individuals can become trapped in poor qual ity, low-paid work. More generally, the labour market trends clearly show there remains significant numbers of jobs which have low qualifications requirements, and also have relatively low utilisation of skills. These jobs appear to be an enduring feature of the UK labour market, and it is therefore pertinent to explore what can be done to ameliorate the effects for individuals within these jobs.Corporate strategy and the organisation of low-wage work The central barrier to improving skills utilisation is employer demand for skills. This demand tends to be relatively weak in a number of sectors as a result of firms corporate strategies and their models of work organisation. Policy makers work under the assumption that skill acquisition is a good thing, however increased skills need to be effectively utilised within firms, and this is often not the case. 8 Therefore demand-side strategies are fundamental in order to address skills utilisation, as Keep argues:39 instead of assuming th at the key to the desired ‘skills revolution’ is the supply of more skills, concentrate on stimulating demand for higher levels of skill, through seeking to upgrade product market strategies, enhance product and service quality and specification, and re-design jobs and work organisation so as to minimise dead end, low-skill jobs and maximise the opportunities for the entire workforce to both acquire and utilise higher levels of learning and skill. Goos, M. , Manning, A. nd Salomons, A. (2010) Explaining job polarization in Europe: The roles of technology, globalization and institutions CEP Discussion Paper No. 1026; Goos, M. and Manning, A. (2003) Lousy and lovely jobs: the rising polarization of work in Britain CEP Working Paper; Autor, D. , Levy, F. and Murnane, R. (2003) ‘The skill-content of recent technological change: An empirical investigation’ Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol 188, pp1279-1333; Autor, D. , Katz, L. and Kearney, M. (2006) ‘Me asuring and interpreting trends in economic inequality’ AEA Papers and Proceedings 96:2; Autor, D. and Dorn, D. 2009) Inequality and specialization: The growth of lowskill service jobs in the United States IZA Discussion Paper No. 4290 35 OECD (2011) Growing income inequality in OECD countries: What drives it and how can policy tackle it? OECD, Paris 36 CEDEFOP (2011) Labour market polarization and elementary occupations in Europe: Blip or long-term trend? CEDEFOP Research Paper No. 9 37 Ibid 38 Keep, E. (2000) Learning organisation, lifelong learning and the mystery of the vanishing employers SKOPE Research Paper Number 8 39 Ibid 34 12 The Skills Dilemma The challenge of improving low-wage work: the role of skills utilisationKeep, Mayhew and Payne also make the case that the public policy focus and expenditure on the skills supply-side alone is likely to have only a muted impact if similar attention is not focused on employer demand for skills:40 while there are numerous exp ensive public programmes aimed at enhancing the skills of the future and existing workforce, there is no parallel effort aimed at work organization and job redesign. The central cause of low employer demand for skills often relates to employers’ product market strategies, and this in turn often influences their method of work organisation.Low-paid employees are more likely to be found in firms which compete on cost rather than quality; and they are particularly over represented in the retail sector and in smaller firms. 41 A low-cost product market strategy has particular implications for the utilisation of skills, with many employers with low-cost strategies viewing their workforces as ‘an easily substitutable factor of production, or as a cost to be minimised, rather than as assets and sources of competitive advantage in their own right’. 2 This strategy informs the organisation of work and job design adopted by many low-wage employers; with low-skill jobs ofte n organised using Taylorist forms of job design which give workers little task autonomy, discretion or flexibility. 43 This is in sharp contrast to high-end knowledge workers who often have considerable autonomy and flexibility over their work. More generally, cost pressures on employers can also result in relying more on contingent labour with the increasing use of temporary workers. 44 Often employers producing consumption goods are ‘not acting irrationally’ by following standardised, low cost approaches.Keep estimates that only 30 per cent of the population have an income high enough to support purchasing ‘high value added, customised goods and services on a regular basis’. 45 However the low-road strategies adopted can become a ‘vicious cycle’: Products are poor because the workforce skills to produce better ones are often lacking, and skills are poor because existing product market strategies do not demand high levels of skill and because work has been organised, and jobs are designed to require low levels of skill and discretion.Low wages can also result in a further reinforcing factor, limiting consumer demand for more highly specified products and services. 46 Keep, E. , Mayhew, K. and Payne, J. 2006. ‘From Skills Revolution to Productivity Miracle – Not As Easy As It Looks? ’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 22:4 pp539-559 41 Newton, B. , Miller, L. , Bates, P. , Page, R. and Akroyd, K. (2006) Learning Through Work: Literacy, language, numeracy and IT skills development in low-paid, low-skilled workplaces Institute for Employment Studies: Report 433 42 Keep, E. 2009; page 5) Labour market structures and trends, the future of work and the implications for initial E&T Beyond Current Horizons Paper 43 Newton, B. , Miller, L. , Bates, P. , Page, R. and Akroyd, K. (2006) Learning Through Work: Literacy, language, numeracy and IT skills development in low-paid, low-skilled workplaces Institute for Employment Studies: Report 433; Keep E (2000) Learning organisation, lifelong learning and the mystery of the vanishing employers SKOPE Research Paper Number 8 44 Metcalf, H. and Dhudwar, A. (2010) Employers’ role in the low-pay/no-pay cycle Joseph Rowntree Foundation 45 Keep, E. 2000) Learning organisation, lifelong learning and the mystery of the vanishing employers SKOPE Research Paper Number 8 46 Wilson, R. and Hogarth, T. (Eds. ) (2003) Tackling the Low Skills Equilibrium: a review of issues and some new evidence, DTI 40 The Skills Dilemma 13 The challenge of improving low-wage work: the role of skills utilisation These forms of corporate strategies are also influenced by the particular variant of Anglo-Saxon capitalism and its focus on short-term results. 47 There is therefore an enormous challenge in producing the type of demand-side improvement which is required to better utilise individuals’ skills.It should be stressed that the product market strategy is not the only influencing factor. Low-wage/ low-skilled service sector jobs are also a product of the institutional environment. Gray highlights the lack of unionisation in many low-wage service sector occupations as being a key determinant of them being ‘bad jobs’, pointing to the fact that unionisation vastly improved the pay, terms and conditions for manufacturing jobs which (prior to unionisation) were often ‘casual, ill-paid, with appalling working conditions’. 8 The product market strategy therefore sits within a wider skills ecosystem which determines skills use, the skills ecosystem includes factors both internal and external to firms. The OECD defines elements of a skills ecosystem as:49 †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Business settings (eg enterprise design, networks financial system); Institutional and policy frameworks (skill and non-skill based); Modes of engaging labour (eg standard contracts, labour hire arrangements); Structure of jobs (e g job design, work organisation); and, Level and types of skill formation (eg apprenticeship arrangements, informal on-the-job).Career progression from low-wage work One of the greatest challenges for low-wage workers is the lack of career progression or earnings mobility. 50 However, a number of interventions have been shown to be effective in boosting career progression. 51 In the US in particular there is a growing literature on adopting career ladders as a boost to earnings progression within employers or individual sectors; although it should be noted that there are some questions surrounding the efficacy of this approach in some employment sectors – notably some parts of the service sector.Workers can also be helped to progress through supporting policies which enhance their ability to move between employers, for example by supporting lifelong learning and through the provision of effective careers advice. 47 Keep, E. (2000) Learning organisation, lifelong learning and the mystery of the vanishing employers SKOPE Research Paper Number 8 48 Gray, M. (2004) ‘The social construction of the service sector: institutional structures and labour market outcomes’ in Geoforum 35, pp23-34 Sissons, P. 2011) The Hourglass and the Escalator: Labour market change and mobility The Work Foundation For a summary see Sissons, P. (2011) The Hourglass and the Escalator: Labour market change and mobility The Work Foundation 50 51 49 OECD (May 2010) Skills demand and utilisation: an international review of approaches to measurement and policy development 14 The Skills Dilemma The challenge of improving low-wage work: the role of skills utilisation Wage inequality and the minimum wage During the last three decades the labour market has become increasingly unequal and wage inequality has grown sharply.Wage inequalities increased very dramatically in the 1980s, as both upper-tail and lower-tail wage inequality grew. 52 This trend continued, albeit at a slower rate, during the 1990s. In the 2000s there was a slightly different pattern as lower-tail wage inequality declined somewhat, while uppertail inequality continued to grow. 53 Inequality considerations aside, there is an argument that the single most effective intervention to increase skills utilisation might be to raise the National Minimum Wage.Edwards, Sengupta and Tsai argue that the availability of relatively cheap labour undermines the incentive for employers to pursue a high-road high-value added path and that increasing the National Minimum Wage would be a key means to encourage employers to move off a low-skills path. 54 Again there are examples from other countries on which we can draw, where there exists more widespread use of licence to practice regulation in the labour market which is often ‘reinforced’ by wage systems that more generously reward lower level occupational employment. 5 Good and bad work The preceding sections have highlighted the number of fac tors which make it challenging for low earners. As such better skills utilisation policies are required as part of the broader challenge of improving lowwage work. There is an emerging body of literature, particularly from Canada and the US, about what can be done to ‘upgrade’ low-wage service sector work. Part of this upgrading is about improving wages and part is about improving conditions.It is argued that low-wage service jobs are the ‘last frontier of inefficiency’ and it is advocated that more service sector firms take the ‘high-road’ by investing in workers skills to enable them to perform at a higher standard. 56 Other work in the US also charts a route map to better jobs. Paul Osterman in his body of work on ‘making bad jobs good’ provides a useful framework for how we might approach these wider issues. Osterman concentrates on both improving existing bad jobs and encouraging policy to support the formation of new good job s.Table 1 provides his conceptualisation of the needs, as well as the policy levers needed, to improve work. These are both standard setting, for example through national and local Upper-tail wage inequality is the difference between earners at the 90th percentile and those at the median; lowertail wage inequality is the difference between earners at the median and those at the 10th percentile of the earnings distribution 53 See Kasparova, D. , Wyatt, N. , Mills, T. and Roberts, S. (2010) Pay: Who were the winners and losers of the New Labour era?The Work Foundation 54 Edwards, P. , Sengupta, S. and Tsia, C-J. (2007) Managing work in the low-skill equilibrium: A study of UK food manufacturing SKOPE Research Paper Number 72 55 Keep, E. (2009) Labour market structures and trends, the future of work and the implications for initial E&T Beyond Current Horizons Paper 56 For a brief summary see Florida, R. (2010) America needs to make its bad jobs better (http://www. creativeclass. com/rf cgdb/articles/America%20needs%20to%20make%20its%20bad%20jobs%20better. pdf) 52 The Skills Dilemma 15The challenge of improving low-wage work: the role of skills utilisation regulation; and, programmatic or technical assistance based which support sector or firm specific good practice. 57 Table 1: Making bad jobs good Standard setting Make bad jobs good Minimum wage Living wages Unionisation Community Benefit Agreements Managed tax incentives Programmatic Career ladders Intermediaries Sectoral programmes Extension services Sectoral programmes Consortia or partnerships under business or union auspices Source: Osterman58 Create more good jobs58Findings In this chapter we have explored some broader labour market issues in order to place skills utilisation within a framework of broader changes required to improve the lot of the Bottom Ten Million. The aim has been to show how and where skills utilisation policies have the potential to have a beneficial impact for low-wage workers, but al so to show they are not a ‘magic bullet’. To systematically improve the position of low-wage workers, skills utilisation needs to be part of a broader suite of policies which also address opportunities for progression and wage increases.Community Benefit Agreements essentially involve local government agreeing elements of job quality with a developer as part of a large development project; managed tax incentives place job quality stipulations as part of tax breaks and incentives offered by economic development actors 58 Osterman, P. (2008) ‘Improving job quality: policies aimed at the demand side of the low wage labor market’ in A Future of Good Jobs? : America’s Challenge in the Global Economy, Bartik, T. and Houseman, S. (eds). Upjohn Institute, pp. 203-244 http://research. upjohn. org/up_bookchapters/10 57 16 The Skills Dilemma 4.An analysis of skills under-utilisation in two low-wage sectors – retail and hospitality This section summarises the main findings of the expert interviews conducted between July and October 2011 in order to identify the main drivers of skills under-utilisation and the barriers to improving skills utilisation in two low-wage sectors – retail and hospitality. 4. 1 Sector profile Retail The retail sector is the UK’s largest source of private sector employment, and despite the damaging impact of the economic downturn (resulting in over 6,000 insolvencies59) employs approximately 2. 8 million people (over 10 per cent of the UK’s workforce).It includes retail sales in:60 Example Non-specialised stores Specialised stores Pharmaceutical goods New goods in specialised stores Second-hand goods Not in store Supermarkets and department stores Butchers, greengrocers, fishmongers and tobacconists Chemists and pharmacies Stores selling textiles, clothing, books, electrical household appliances, furniture and lighting Charity shops and eBay Catalogue and mail order sales, online and via stalls and markets The retail sector is diverse; approximately two-thirds of people employed within the sector work in ‘large retailers’; however 99 per cent of retailers employ less than 50 people (accounting for 28 per cent of employment). 61 It is also highly polarised; knowledge intensive work is concentrated in head offices and head quarters, and less knowledge intensive work is concentrated on the shop floor. Figure 3 below shows the occupational breakdown of the sector.Almost 20 per cent of retail workers are employed in managerial positions (higher than the national average), but 50 per cent are employed in sales and customer service occupations and 14 per cent in elementary level jobs. ‘Softer’ customer facing skills are therefore in higher demand in the retail sector. Low pay is also prevalent; the median hourly wage in the sector is ? 6. 94, which compares to ? 10. 97 for all employees in the UK. 62 Previous research has suggested that the whole sale and retail industries tend to have some of the highest levels of skills under-utilisation, with 43 per cent of employees reporting being ‘over-skilled’ and http://www. bis. gov. k/policies/business-sectors/retail Skillsmart retail (2010) 61 UK Business Activity Size and Location (2010) 59 60 62 Earnings, Office for National Statistics The Skills Dilemma Defined as SIC 47; Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles. Annual Survey of Hours and 17 An analysis of skills under-utilisation in two low-wage sectors – retail and hospitality Figure 3: Employment by occupation in the retail sector and the whole economy 60. 0% 50. 0% 40. 0% 30. 0% 20. 0% 10. 0% 0. 0% ns ns ns cr et ar ia at ion s ca l er at iv e f ic ial at io at io Te ch ni at io Employment by occupation in retail and the whole economy All economy Retail sO cc up cu p cu p Oc m en ta ry Ele at io ns l s s Op neOf oc cu p an d ni na l an d ice Se Tr ad e ice m er S er v Pr oc es s, P lan ist ra tiv e es sio M an ag er s es sio ille d Pe rs on al Pr of ro f in Sk As so cia t Source: Labour Force Survey Q4, 2010: Retail defined as SIC 47 (Retail trade, except vehicles) 52 per cent over-qualified’. 63 This level of under-utilisation is above that observed in other sectors of the economy, with the exception of hotels and catering. It is also important to note – based on the occupational structure of the retail sector – that 45 per of sales workers reported being ‘over-skilled’ and 57 per cent ‘over-qualified’ (the highest level amongst all occupations).Furthermore, research published by The Work Foundation64 in 2009 found that 55 per cent of ‘servers and sellers’ were ‘over-skilled’ for their job. However, some interviewees felt that skills underutilisation was a ‘major problem’ which extended ‘all the way up the line’ to management roles. There was also a perceived lack of s kills development and training in the retail sector. One possible explanation for the reported levels of skills under-utilisation is the flexible nature of retail work; 56 per cent of retail employees work part-time (twice the UK average), and the mean hours worked in the sector is 27. 4 compared to the UK mean of 32. 5 hours. 5 The part-time and local nature of retail work can be attractive to some people, who require a particular work-life balance (individuals with care responsibilities or students for example). Indeed, a disproportionate amount of store workers are women and young people, especially in supermarkets. One third of employees in the retail sector are under 24 These are self-assessed incidences of under-utilisation which draw on the 2001 Skills Survey – see Green, F. and McIntosh, S. (2002) Is there a genuine underutilisation of skills amongst the over-qualified? SKOPE Research Paper No. 30 2002 64 Brinkley, I. , Fauth, R. , Mahdon, M. and Theodoropoulou, S. (2 009) Knowledge Workers and Knowledge Work 65 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (2009) 63 18 Sa le sa nd Cu st oAd m eP ta nd M ac hi na l Se rv an d Oc cu p or Se Oc The Skills Dilemma An analysis of skills under-utilisation in two low-wage sectors – retail and hospitality years of age (compared to 13 per cent in the economy as a whole)66 and 61 per cent female, compared to 49 per cent in the economy as a whole. 67 Not all interviewees perceived skills under-utilisation to be a major concern for the retail sector; some considered the (inadequate) supply of skills to be a bigger challenge for employers. The sector employs a large proportion of people with low-level qualifications; for example 31 per cent of sales staff have below level two qualifications. 8 Skillsmart Retail have identified technical and practical skills, customer handling, and management skills to be the main skills gap areas and in need of improvement; interviewees cited the sector’s poor image as a barrier to attracting the right people to address these skills needs. It is also worth noting on the positive side that there has been a greater emphasis on training and skills development in the retail sector in recent years. Although the retail sector accounts for 10 per cent of employment in the private sector it accounts for 12 per cent of training spend. The qualification framework has also been simplified to increase transferability. Hospitality Hospitality is the country’s fifth largest industry and employs more than 2. 4 million people. 9 In the decade prior to the recession, the rate of employment growth in hospitality outstripped employment growth in the wider economy; it has also been recently predicted that the sector has the potential to generate relatively strong employment gains over the next decade. 70 The industry includes the following types of employers: Contract food service providers Events Gambling Holiday parks Hospitality services Hostels Hotels Membe rship clubs Pubs, bars and nightclubs Restaurants Self catering accommodation Tourist services Travel services Visitor attractions Source: People 1st The hospitality sector is both broad and diverse; it is widely geographically distributed and makes an important contribution to employment in all regions. Firm sizes vary from a neighbourhood chip shop Skillsmart Retail Skillsmart Retail 68 Skillsmart Retail 69 British Hospitality Association (http://www. bha. org. k/policy/) 70 See Oxford Economics (2010) Economic contribution of the UK hospitality industry (http://www. baha-uk. org/ OxfordEconomics. pdf) 66 67 The Skills Dilemma 19 An analysis of skills under-utilisation in two low-wage sectors – retail and hospitality through to large multinational food service and hotel chains. In general the workforce in the hospitality sector tends to be concentrated in less skilled and lower-wage roles. The median hourly wage in the sector is ? 6. 20, compared to a national average of ? 10. 97. 71 Figure 4 presents the occupational distribution of employees in the hospitality sector compared to the economy as a whole.The most striking feature of the graph is the number of hospitality employees working in elementary jobs (the least skilled job types), with half of all hospitality employees in these posts compared to just 11 per cent in the economy as a whole. 72 Figure 4: Employment by occupation in hospitality and the whole economy 60. 0% 50. 0% 40. 0% 30. 0% All economy Hospitality 20. 0% 10. 0% 0. 0% ? cia ls re ta ria l s s tio ns Te ch er ati ati ati ati cc up cc up Se c cu p rO pa Oc cu cc u El em en t ar yO pa tio ns on ni on on ve s M ac hi ce ss ,P lan ta nd Pr o ne Op ca l s io lO nd es O Se n an la d e Oc of es sio na er vic io ag er sa ra ti Tr lS ille d rs on a Pr of ist Pr in Sk an Ad m Pe so cia Source: Labour Force Survey Q4, 2010: Hospitality defined as SIC 55 and 56 (Accommodation and Food and Beverage Service Activities)Previous research has sugge sted that the hotels and catering industries tend to have some of the highest levels of skills under-utilisation, with 56 per cent of employees reporting being ‘over-skilled’ and 50 per Figures refer to gross hourly earnings excluding overtime in 2009 from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. Hospitality is defined as accommodation and food service activities 72 Elementary jobs are defined by the Office for National Statistics as jobs ‘which require the knowledge and experience necessary to perform mostly routine tasks, often involving the use of simple hand-held tools and, in some cases, requiring a degree of physical effort’ 71 20 Sa le sa As nd Cu s M te to m er S es s er vic na nd ve ad e The Skills DilemmaAn analysis of skills under-utilisation in two low-wage sectors – retail and hospitality cent over-qualified’. 73 This under-utilisation is significantly above that observed in other sectors of the economy. One common characteristic across the sector is that there tends to be relatively low barriers to entry in terms of qualifications required for many posts. In the absence of qualification requirements, hospitality sector employees are often recruited on the basis of their attitude rather than skills sets. The low accreditation needs mean that for some individuals the sector can offer reasonable prospects for progression, either internally or by moving between employers.The sector also has a large number of back of house roles so some skills, in particular language ones, are not as much of a barrier to employment as they can be in other sectors. Interviewees pointed towards the high levels of employee turnover in the sector as being an important feature and one that has significant implications for skills use and skills development. More generally it was also felt by some expert interviewees that there was a group of workers in the hospitality industry who are paid less for using comparable skills than they wo uld make for using similar skill sets in other sectors. In part this relates to the fact that profitability of employers in the sector is often very low.Interviewees reported that this was also in large part driven by the fact the sector has historically employed more marginal workers – including students and migrants – who are less likely to have a voice with employers. When considering skills in the sector it should be noted that there are some issues around conceptualising skills, and this creates some difficulty in judging the extent of under-utilisation. The skills used, and in demand, in the sector are largely soft skills such as inter-personal skills and flexibility, rather than formal qualifications. A focus on utilisation of technical skills would therefore provide one measure of skills utilisation, but looking at the use of wider skills, particularly soft skills, would give a different one. This also raises questions about the way skills are valued and reward ed both in the sector and beyond.In practical terms organisations may or may not acknowledge soft skills (in appraisals, progression or pay) – where they don’t there are clearly questions around whether the organisation knows what skills are and how to value them. Some interviewees suggested that one of the issues around the poor deployment and utilisation of skills in the sector was the result of the sector suffering from a relatively weak quality of management. It was noted by interviewees that HR practice in the sector could be poor, and in common with other sectors smaller employers often have no specialist HR function. However, while under-utilisation was felt to be more prevalent in smaller businesses and those in more peripheral areas, interviewees identified a number of examples of good practice in larger employers.Furthermore, as described previously, the hospitality sector tends to have a relatively high level of staff turnover so in some cases skills under-u tilisation can be a short-term issue for an employee. Several 73 These are self-assessed incidences of under-utilisation which draw on the 2001 Skills Survey – see Green, F. and McIntosh, S. (2002) Is there a genuine underutilisation of skills amongst the over-qualified? SKOPE Research Paper No. 30 2002 The Skills Dilemma 21 An analysis of skills under-utilisation in two low-wage sectors – retail and hospitality interviewees pointed to the large numbers of migrant workers who use the sector as an initial stepping stone into other sectors for whom again under-utilisation might be a short lived problem. 4. The drivers of skills under-utilisation in low-wage sectors Section 3 highlighted some of the wider drivers which serve to make things challenging for low-wage workers in the UK, such as the poor conception of work in low-wage sectors, corporate strategies based on cost competition, and forms of work organisation based on Taylorist forms of job design which give worker s little task autonomy, discretion or flexibility. These themes were highlighted in the expert interviews, but interviewees also identified a set of drivers that were more specific to the retail and hospitality sectors. Retail Retailers are often highly cost competitive. The economic climate was cited as an immediate concern for employers, with ‘store survival’ often the biggest priority in the short to medium-term.In an attempt to keep costs as low as possible, interviewees identified the centrally driven de-skilling of work as a common corporate strategy pursued by employers – the de-skilling of lower level occupational store work and instore managerial jobs through increasing central office control to increase efficiencies. These models of central management encode a ‘one best way’ approach. The corollary is that (unlike in Scandinavian countries such as Finland) there is no real capacity for process innovation from employees and product knowledge is declining on the shop floor. The increasing usage of technology and ICT has also reduced employee discretion.Furthermore, this type of work organisation has resulted in a highly polarised workforce – with the decline of ‘intermediate level jobs’ also reducing career progression opportunities. Secondly, given the prevalence of low-skill flexible work the retail sector also traditionally exhibits a relatively high turnover of staff. Before 2006 the turnover rate was above 30 per cent. Although research conducted by the CIPD in 2009 found that the annual staff turnover had fallen to 17 per cent in the retail and wholesale sector. 74 In this type of environment employers may consider skills development and strategies to improve skills utilisation to be counter productive. A third important driver of skills under-utilisation in the retail sector is employee demand for flexible working arrangements.The previous sub section has presented evidence of the high proport ion of women and young people in the retail sector who prefer or require the work-life balance offered by retail work in comparison to other sectors. It may be that there is relatively little demand for job re-design and greater skills utilisation amongst this group. Often in these cases individuals have acquired greater skills than those required for the job, but make a conscious decision to accept less skilled work. 74 CIPD (2009) Recruitment, Retention and Turnover. Annual survey report The Skills Dilemma 22 An analysis of skills under-utilisation in two low-wage sectors – retail and hospitalityMore generally interviewees often felt that there were issues around the quality and completion rate of apprenticeships in the sector; with apprenticeships too often not providing apprentices with a broader skills base around retail skills. Hospitality Interviewees identified a number of central drivers of skills under-utilisation in the sector – these related to business mod els and task design, the sector’s high staff turnover, and poor management understanding of the skills needed. They also flagged-up the broader issue of pay levels. The business strategies adopted by many employers in the sector were felt by some interviewees to be largely driving the under-utilisation of skills. Many employers operate with low-profit margins and compete primarily on cost rather than quality.In this explanation, skills under-utilisation is driven by the low-pay culture, perceptions of competition, and long-term tacit acceptance of low profit margins and the consumer demand for low prices. Low-value business models were felt to generate more jobs characterised by basic tasks. Issues around the understanding of skills, and the relatively high turnover of employees in the sector were also felt to be important elements in explaining skills under-utilisation. It was reported by interviewees that there was often an ‘incomplete understanding’ among empl oyers of what skills are required to deliver services effectively; with some businesses being ‘fairly woolly’ about how to match specific skills to a jobs requirements, and employers tending to simply take on whoever is willing to do the job.The high rate of staff turnover was also felt to limit the extent to which employers would explore skills use or development with employees. For employers this stance may seem quite rational – why train someone who is going to leave anyway? However it is also the case that greater attention to skills deployment and usage may in turn help to reduce high turnover. As was the case in the retail sector interviews, a third driver was related to employee choice and lifestyle decisions rather than employer behaviour. This is important in two senses. First the sector offers a range of hours and working arrangements and this can make it attractive for people who need a job which fits around other commitments.Secondly, people can trade down in employment terms, but this allows them to live in a location of their choice because hospitality work is so widespread. Box 2: Summary findings: Drivers of skills under-utilisation in low-wage sectors †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Corporate strategies; business models competing on cost rather than quality; Forms of work organisation and management techniques adopted by low-wage employers; Poor conception of work; Poor management and understanding of skills needs; High turnover of staff; Employee demand for flexible working/ work-life balance. 23 The Skills Dilemma An analysis of skills under-utilisation in two low-wage sectors – retail and hospitality 4. What are the barriers to better skills utilisation in low-wage sectors? As well as identifying the main drivers of skills under-utilisation, interviewees also highlighted a set of barriers to improving skills utilisation in low wage sectors. †¢ Employers may simply be unaware of the practical b enefits of better skills utilisation (to themselves, their employees and the wider economy), see skills utilisation as irrelevant to them, and/or see job design as a cost (in terms of training or higher wages). Interviewees generally agreed that the skills utilisation agenda must be employer-led; providing employers with the evidence of the practical benefits is therefore a priority. †¢Secondly, skills utilisation ‘is interdependent on the wider economic development policy being pursued by a nation’;75 the lack of intermediate level economic development and business support agencies (one example cited was the abolition of the Regional Development Agencies) was identified as a barrier to operationalising this agenda in England. †¢ Lastly, due to the prevalence of part-time work, unionisation rates are low, and interviewees highlighted that employees have limited representation in skills policy – with the lack of employee voice making securing positive ch anges to work expe