Sparta Uncultured Discipline Essay examples - 1716 Words

Sparta: Uncultured Discipline nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The Spartans were the most formidable warriors in all of history. They dedicated their entire lives to warfare. They were taught to endure cold, hunger, pain, their courage on the battlefield was second to none. The Spartan code was to fight hard, follow orders without question and to die rather then retreat or surrender. To achieve all this, Sparta sacrificed everything; the arts, culture, and other things that make life worth while. I believe the price was to high they went to far and shut off all that was creative and human in Sparta. A culture that cant change or adapt doesnt survive. This is exactly what happened , after a single major defeat in 360 B.C Sparta was no†¦show more content†¦50). nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;These wars were the turning point of Spartan history, nearly half a century of conflict had made the Spartans very warlike. It seemed to them if they ever relaxed their guard even a bit, the helots would rise again. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The Spartans went to excessively great extremes in order to make sure this wouldnt happen. At age seven a boy would be taken from his family and given military training., his true home was his barracks, his family, his unit. They hardened their bodies with countless drills and savage games, they were taught to steal and live of off the land. A young soldier was whipped as punishment or to make him more resistant to pain. At age 20 he was finally allowed to marry but was still in military service. Only when he was 60 was he allowed to retire from the army (National Geographic Society, 1968, p. 178). nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;To a Spartan warrior surrender was unthinkable, even death was preferable. To flee a soldier had to throw down his heavy shield (which would slow him down), if he died he would be carried home, with honor, on his shield. For this reason Spartan mothers instructed their sons to return form a battle quot;with their shield or on themquot; (V.M Hillyer, E.G Huey, 1966, p. 27) nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;One of the functions of the Spartan system was to rid the state of weaklings. At birth each childShow MoreRelatedSparta A City Filled With Uncultured Discipline1219 Words   |  5 PagesSparta a city filled with uncultured discipline, a city that was filled with the most relentless warriors of all time, the Spartans. The Spartans dedicated their lives to combat and training. Spartan children were removed from the homes of their parents at the age of 7 to begin their training called agoge , which was a military style training regimen to craft and mold them into the warriors the once were. They were trained to endure the worst of elements and trained to overcome cold, hunger andRead MoreThings Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe1543 Words   |  7 Pageshis readers that the Ibo were civilized. Achebe writes about how it was a practice for Ibo women to leave twins in the Evil Forest to die. Many people saw this as uncivilized and barbaric, forgetting the fact that th eir own â€Å"civilized† ancestors in Sparta commonly killed children and ill-born babies who were not fit for their grueling and sometimes barbaric lifestyle. In addition to the fact that Achebe does not effectively show the Ibo were civilized, he shows that men in the clan could beat their

Essay on Race in Silkos Ceremony - 628 Words

Ceremony Throughout Ceremony, the author, Leslie Silko, displays the internal struggle that the American Indians faced at that time in history. She displays this struggle between good and evil in several parts of the book. One is the myth explaining the origin of the white man. As common in Indian cultures they create a myth to explain why the white people came to them. The author begins to show the Indians feeling of hopelessness by showing in the myth, on pages 132 - 138, that there was no way the Indians could stop the white people from destroying the Indian culture. â€Å"Entire tribes will die out, covered with jestered sores, shitting blood, vomiting blood.† (pg. 137) The myth says that the white people will cause chaos,†¦show more content†¦They believe this because to a certain point it is true. Many Indians do drink at bars but that is because they do not have much else to do because there is no good land to plant on and nothing to feed the cattle with. The w hite people had no respect for the Indians Even Tayo himself believes in part of the stereotype. Before he thought a white man would steal his cattle he thought that an Indian or a Mexican would have done it. He himself believed in the lies that the white man has started about the Native Americans. Although he finally realizes what they are a learns to hate them. The lies about the Indians just hide the lies about the white man and Tayo believes that the lies will destroy the white man. Because of all this prejudice and the living conditions of the Indians they feel hopeless that they can not do anything to better their lives. Beign war veterans does not help it only make them feel worse. All they do is drink to try to get away from all of it. In the end they end up destroying themselves. Because of all of the pain they were holding in. The only one of them who saw what was really happening was Tayo and he is the only one that makes it. In Conclusion the author, Leslie Silko, displa ys the poverty and hopelessness that the Native Americans faced because of the white man. The Author elaborates this feeling of hopelessness in the Indians myth explaining the origin of the white man. As a resultShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Leslie Marmon Silkos Ceremony1138 Words   |  5 PagesBeing mixed-race often involves issues relating to identity. It is especially challenging for Tayo, the protagonist of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, because of his half-white and half-Native American identity. Ceremony takes place in the American Southwest during the early 20th century, where Tayo is looked down upon by both white and Laguna Indian society because of the taboo nature of racial mixing, as well as his refusal to fully embrace either group. The racial tensions between these two groupsRead MoreLeslie Marmon Silko Ceremony Analysis1180 Words   |  5 PagesIn Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, Tayo, the novel’s protagonist, describes the instance before his br other, Rocky, died by stating that â€Å"the wind swept down †¦ [and whipped] the rain into gray waves that blinded him† (11). The ability of the wind to blind Tayo demonstrates its powerful abilities to distort and individual’s perception. Furthermore, Rocky’s death is a moment that disturbs Tayo throughout the entirety of the novel and can be perceived as one of the main factors that caused his illnessRead More Ruth Benedict’s Ethnography of Pueblo Culture, Patterns of Culture, and Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony2361 Words   |  10 Pages– Silko amp; Benedict As noted in the response by Janet Tallman, there are three main themes concerning Ruth Benedict’s ethnography of Pueblo culture, Patterns of Culture, and Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony. Both detail the importance of matrilineage, harmony and balance versus change, and ceremonies to the Pueblo Indians. It is important to note that Silko gives the reader a first-hand perspective of this lifestyle (she was raised in the Laguna Pueblo Reservation), while Benedict’s book isRead MoreAnalysis Of Being A Half Breed By Leslie Marmon1849 Words   |  8 PagesLeslie Marmon Silko’s novel, Ceremony, reveals how the crossing of cultures was feared, ridiculed, and shunned in various Native American tribes. The fear of change is a common and overwhelming fear everyone faces at some point in their life. The fear of the unknown, the fear of letting go, and the fear of forgetting all play a part in why people struggle with change. In Ceremony the crossing of culture s creates â€Å"half-breeds,† usually bringing disgrace to their family’s name. In Jodi Lundgren’s discourseRead MoreLegacy of Leslie Marmon Silko Essay1404 Words   |  6 Pages(Hunter, 2006). Each tribe may have variations in style depending the particular tribe, however they all share common themes. The themes of the stories describe their passion to honor the earth, awareness of spiritual influences, the significance of ceremony and ritual traditions and the â€Å"the power to teach, heal and reflect† (PBS, 2004). The stories also include myth, healers and interconnect spiritual and practical issues (Hunter, 2006). They believe their storytelling tradition provides directionRead More Pocahontas and the Mythical Indian Woman Essay5406 Words   |  22 Pageshealers but while they keep their positions as saviors of men, Indian women are illustrated saving Indian men rather than white males. Whereas the Indian women previously saved white men from the savages of their own tribe, they are now saving their own race from the destruction of the white world. Native women healing sick Indian men recurs as a common theme throughout multiple Native novels. Furthermore, it is generally the men who are spiritually or mentally sick: few emotionally ill women are portrayedRead MoreWilliam Faulkner s The Sound And The Fury2036 Words   |  9 Pagesuneven literary landscape is emphasized through Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, as these authors merge two distinct novels into the same time period in which their co-existence should not be possible, but somehow is. As American literature evolves, the limitations that were once set upon authors disappear, ultimately creating an uneven literary landscape as seen through The Sound and the Fury and Ceremony. On one hand, Faulkner’s novel divulges the realityRead MoreThe Conscious Vs. Unconscious Theory1839 Words   |  8 Pagesslip into the forefront of our minds by hook and by crook† (70). Ceremony is a book written by Leslie Marmon Silko that is the story of Tayo, who is a veteran of the World War II. In this book, Silko tells a story of Tayo how he suffers from a battle fatigue, how he struggles with this fatigue and how he challenges his mixed-race role in the Native American society after returning from the Pacific war. With the help of a ceremony and Tayo’s strong mind that does not give up easily, he is able toRead MoreExploration of the Divergent Cultural Relationships with Land in Leslie Marmon Silkos Ceremony1778 Words   |  8 PagesExploration of the Divergent Cultural Relationships with Land in Leslie Marmon Silkos Ceremony In her novel, Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko uncovers the innumerable contrasts of the white ranchers and the Native Americans. The natives feel helpless as the whites spill themselves upon the contiguous hillsides and valleys. The commanding whites steal the land which had never before belonged to any single entity. Unable to retain their land, the Native Americans can only continue

Organizational Behaviour for Leadership- myassignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theOrganizational Behaviour for Motivation andLeadership. Answer: Stereotype means a permanent idea of something or someone. Sometimes it's better to believe in stereotype than to enter into a relationship with someone without knowing their culture, ethics or even beliefs. Stereotyping people sometimes is good because this is what can be seen in a person on the first look. The Assumptions made about something or someone as being good and getting into contact with them is wrong since it can lead to diverse challenges. There are some merits which support the idea of relying on stereotype instead of getting into a relationship with someone without knowing their culture (Pinder, 2014). The various problems that affect the same stereotype are discussed in this essay. There are merits of stereotyping which can be useful to someone especially when one is in a new environment. For example, if someone gets married or visits a royal family, some of the assumption made is that the family always acts formally. This stereotyping helps one to respond with manners and be respectful whenever interacting with them (Miner, 2015). The second merit of stereotyping in a relationship is that it can help one to understand the culture and the ethics promptly. Stereotyping also helps to simplify our environments because it helps one to understand different people and define the category they belong. Thus, making it easy to understand and live with people. Stereotyping can also help in reducing conflict levels in circumstances where one relies on it to make correct assumptions about the peoples character and beliefs. Nevertheless, stereotyping also has its dark side. Various challenges are associated with stereotyping. Notably, stereotyping can be misguiding or sometimes end up being completely incorrect leading to an adverse judgment on someone. Going by the proverbial saying that does not judge a book by its cover since the outer look can deceive the reader about the content of the book. Stereotyping in connection to the proverb may lead to misjudgments of the people. This could negatively influence the relationship among the people developing into a broken society. Judging someone because of their culture or the ethics which they subscribe can be wrong at times because that does not necessarily mean that they believe in what their culture is perceived to believe (Bakker Schaufeli, 2008). A good illustration is a scenario where a given community has a cultural belief that the community should not take a specific type of food. Additionally, one should not listen to a particular kind of music; i t would be misleading to conclude that all the members of that community do not take the prohibited kind of food or say assume that all the community members do not listen to the culturally banned music. The appearance of someone or something does not depict their actual character since the person can be completely different from what they look. Organization behavior is the study of human behavior in organization settings which can be used positively to bring diverse people together and interact peacefully and live happily without judging others wrongly. There are theories of organizations that can be applied in the organizational setting. There are classical theories of management, neo-classical management theory and modern theories of management systems. The classical theory of management was founded by three people. Fredrick Taylor came up with scientific management theory, Henry Fayol came up with organizational principles, and max weber came up with bureaucracy theory (Hellriegel, 2010). The Scientific management theory states that there should be a scientific selection of the worker where every employee should be employed considering to his/her qualifications. It further notes that Labor and management in the institution should be utilized effectively by training and developing the employees to be in a position to hand le all the tasks in an organization (Titrek et al., 2014). The scientific management theory closes the loopholes of introducing stereotype in the selection and distribution of duties in an organization. The scientific employment virtues are applied across the board without any form of discrimination. The administrative theory outlines the various principles of management like planning where it was identified which work will be done and who will do it. The principle of staffing gives the recruitment procedure in the organization. Organizing principle is where specific tasks are assigned to a specific employee and also the allocation of working positions or duty stations. The Controlling principle outlines the goals of the standards and ensures that the goals are achieved (Pinder, 2014). The bureaucracy theory is applicable in an organizational setting in that it encourages specialization where each person concentrates on areas where one can be the best. It also advocates for democracy where every member of the organization has the right to an opinion. It is through Bureaucracy where rationality is promoted to allow general and definite criteria for decision making. The neoclassical theory denotes the behavior of people either individually or in groups. Neoclassical theory can be applied in the organizational setting as it exhibits the workgroup, individual and management participatory. This can help the employees to work in a group or individually, and the work will be done in an efficient way (Hellriegel, 2010). Neoclassical theories help to meet emotional needs of people, showing consideration to employees and satisfying their social needs. The Modern theory is relevant to organizational setting because it advocates for the assimilation of changes that occur with time in an organization and around its environment (Somech Drach-Zahavy, 2014). The modern theory mainly majors on the people's contribution to the organization either through technological innovation or environmental conservation. All these theories are geared towards helping people to work together, cooperate and be able to socialize with each other without any form of stereotypic discrimination. Work is divided among employees into what one is best. Workers are trained and can adapt to changes affecting the organization and be able to adapt to those changes (Eder Eisenberger, 2008). Stereotyping in an organization has both merits and demerits. Through stereotyping, the manager can be able to identify those employees who may not be performing as per the organizations requirements. Organizational behavior helps to learn about people and their behavior thus making it very easy to work with them. As organizations continue to grow and diversify, the challenges tend to intensify leading to low productivity. A good illustration can be demonstrated in circumstances where there is an employee- employee conflict or a conflict between an employee and a manager. These have always led to poor performance and hence low productivity (Greenberg, 2012). The challenge of team disagreement has been evident in many organization where a team fails to meet their set targets due to a disagreement among the team members. Managers and concerned leaders should always intervene and create a fair approach to resolving the issues before they escalate into uncontrollable levels. The inherent organizational challenges hurt its environment. The organization management has a vital role to intervene and resolve the various work-related issues before matters get out of the hand. This would also have a direct impact on its environment as the shock of the disputes and conflicts will not be felt (McShane Von Glinow, 2013). The intervening parties, the managers, ought to identify the cause of the problem and carry out an assessment to determine whether the dispute has had an impact on the environment. The managers (intervening parties) should consider applying the various dispute resolution mechanism including but not limited to brainstorming where the employees are invited to present their preferred alternatives. The best option is adopted and then implemented. Cultural, ethical and social concerns should be considered when making decisions. There are certain cultural activities or beliefs which cannot be changed and thus any attempt to interfere with them would eventually be rejected (Luthans et al., 2015). Every Organization has its culture. Every employee must respect the organizational culture which is in congruence with the social culture. There should be no conflict between the organizational culture and the social culture. Ethics being norms of a society or an organization should also be considered when making a decision (Coldwell Callaghan, 2013). These are the morals that govern a persons behavior. The process of decision making should be in a way that does not affect the social life of the people. There are emerging current developments in the organization behavior where analytic tools are formed. Factor analysis and Principle component analysis are helping in measuring the defined behavior parameters. This helps in knowing know the qualitative measure of the subject. Another trend that can be noted is globalization. The organizations activities are operationalized globally. People from different continents can interact without having to move to the location of the organization (Griffin Moorhead, 2011). The adoption of the emerging trend of business process outsourcing has been triggered by the challenge of meeting each customer need. Business process outsourcing creates a good working environment for people and also the flexibility of lifestyle perks. Business process outsourcing attracts young people with skills and high level of education. The aspect of stereotyping has not been effective in most organizations despite the fact that it has some positive contributions. This is evident when one gets into a relationship with someone from another community without knowing their beliefs. The primary challenge of stereotyping is that one can misjudge another person through making wrong assumptions through stereotyping (Olgun et al., 2009). Organizational behavior has become such an essential concept to people and organizations because it helps them to work together even though they are from different cultures. With specialization and division of labor, its sporadic to get people being discriminated in their work as opposed to the application of stereotypes. An organization which adopts organizational behavior setting as outlined in the various supportive theories tends to realize high production since there are minimal disputes and conflicts. This is because organization behavior promotes cooperation and strengthens the bondi ng relationship between the employees and the employers. References Bakker, A.B. and Schaufeli, W.B., (2008) Positive organizational behavior: Engaged employees in flourishing organizations. Journal of organizational behavior, 29(2), pp.147-154. Coldwell, D. and Callaghan, C., (2013) Specific Organizational Citizenship Behaviours and Organizational Effectiveness: The Development of a Conceptual Heuristic Device. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 44(3), pp.347-367. Eder, P. And Eisenberger, R., (2008) Perceived organizational support: Reducing the negative influence of coworker withdrawal behavior. Journal of Management, 34(1), pp.55-68. Greenberg, J., (2012) Managing behavior in organizations. Pearson Higher Ed. Greenberg, J., (2014) Behavior in Organizations: Global Edition. Pearson Higher Ed. Griffin, R.W. and Moorhead, G., (2011) Organizational behaviour. Ceng Hellriegel, D., (2010) Organizational behavior. Cengage Learning. Luthans, F., Luthans, B.C., and Luthans, K.W., (2015) Organizational Behavior: An evidence-based approach. IAP. Mcshane, S. And Von Glinow, M., (2013) Organizational Behavior. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Age of Learning. Miner, J.B., (2015) Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge. Olgun, D.O., Waber, B.N., Kim, T., Mohan, A., Ara, K., And Pentland, A., (2009) Sensible organizations: Technology and methodology for automatically measuring organizational behavior. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B (Cybernetics), 39(1), pp.43-55. Organizational citizenship behavior: A relational perspective. Journal of applied psychology, 95(2), p.395. Pinder, C.C., (2014) Work motivation in organizational behavior. Psychology Press. Somech, A. and Drach-Zahavy, A., (2014) Exploring organizational citizenship behaviour from an organizational perspective: The relationship between organizational learning and organizational citizenship behaviour. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77(3), pp.281-298. Titrek, O., Polatcan, M., Zafer Gunes, D. and Sezen, G., (2014) The relationship among emotional intelligence (EQ), organizational justice (OJ), organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). International Journal of Academic Research, 6(1), pp.213-220.

Preventing School Violence Essays - Behavior, Misconduct, Crime

Preventing School Violence The number of extremely violent crimes occurring in schools has been increasing over the last three years. Incidents that deal with school violence occur 16,000 per school day, which is equivalent to once every six seconds (Kipnis 11). School violence has been around since the1950's, but back then it was more an issue of juvenile delinquency than violent behavior (Baker 3). Crime in and around schools is threatening the well being of students, as well as the staff and surrounding communities. When looking at the urgent problem of school violence one must take into account several factors including the characteristics of the offender, the causes for the violence occurring, and the solution techniques. To act out violence, in school, against each other, is the common definition for school violence (Gerson 15). The characteristics of the offender play a great role in being able to prevent school violence. Parenting failure has been found to be the number one cause for the violence occurring in schools (Futrell 2). When students were polled in 2000, seventy-one percent stated that there was a lack of parental supervision in their homes (Futrell 5). Sixty-six percent of those polled also stated that there was little if any family involvement in their school activities (Futrell 5). Students who have been abused, neglected and/or received little support from a caring adult are extremely likely to show their frustrations with violence (Kipnis 2). The home life problems of students definitely contribute to school violence. Currently, fifty-seven percent of children under the age of ten have two working parents or a single parent, and more than ten million students return to empty homes ev eryday (Kipnis 19). Another factor that contributes to school violence is peer pressure (Volkoh 4). Thirty-four percent of students believed that school violence occurs because of peer pressure (Futrell 9). Peers of violent offenders believe that the offenders take place in the violent incidents to fit into a crowd and do not think about the repercussions (Baker 33). Peer pressure is the fastest growing factor contributing to school violence (Gerson 46). Another factor that has been found to contributing to violence occurring in schools is drugs and alcohol. When investigated, prevention groups found no variation in the convenience for students to access drugs and alcohol (Kipnis 73). Students with different family incomes, location, and different ethnic backgrounds had the same access (Kipnis 74). In the last two years the consumption of alcohol during a school violence incident has increased thirty-nine percent (Futrell 6). Society believes that violence occurs only in bad neighborhoods; this is false (Gerson 39). School violence has been found in all neighborhoods. In rural neighborhoods, school violence occurs ten percent of the time, occurs thirty percent in suburban schools, and occurs sixty percent in urban schools (Kipnis 69). Violence is also occurring at all school levels. It has been found that thirty percent of the violence occurs in elementary schools and seventy percent of the time occurs in secondary schools (Kipnis 70). School violence has also been found to occur more in males than females. Males are the victims of school violence eighty-three percent of the time and are the offenders ninety-four percent (Kipnis 4). With violence in schools rising, teachers and parents need to know what to look for in a violent offender. It has been shown that many violent offenders have the same characteristics and give many warning signs, but they go unnoticed (Baker 41). Characteristics that teachers and parents should look for in children are persistent disregard for or refusal to follow rules, lack of interest in school, absence of age-appropriate anger control skills, depression or mood swings, artwork or writing that is bleak or violent or that depicts isolation or anger, and self-isolation from family and friends (Futrell 5). School violence is also taking place with different types of weapons. Since 1997, an increase in guns being used to carry out violent acts in schools has increased three percent (Volokh 14). In 2000, it was shown that in violent acts in school, knives or razors were used fifty-five percent of the time, clubs or baseball bats twenty-five percent of the time, and firearms twenty percent of the time (Volkoh 11). Inner-city

Martial Art School for Kids

Introduction Martial arts are extensive system involving several codified practices and traditions of fighting. It is usually practiced for several reasons, some of which include for self defense, physical health, fitness, and in some cases competition (Micah, 2007, 7-15).Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Martial Art School for Kids specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More A part from that, some people take it as a mental and spiritual development. But in the modern society, this term martial arts has been greatly associated with fighting art, more so from the eastern part of Asia. There is need to research on why more people are joining martial arts class in order to learn nowadays. The question is: why there are so many people interested in learning martial art, yet there is no martial school for kids. Parents have a certain degree of authority on what their children may do or not do. Therefore, when it comes t o martial arts, parents tend to look at the safety of their children, because of what it involves. Martial arts experts will tell you that, parents actually put their children in a more dangerous situation when they do not encourage them to do martial art. On the other hand, older people do martial art owing to for health reasons and therapeutic rather than self defense (Micah, 2007, pp.16- 36). As a result of this, this is a topic that requires extensive research, because of the significance of the practice not only to adults, but also to young children, because just like adults, kids also need to exercise and have martial art skills. Objective of the Research This objective of this research is to try and explain why trends in this industry shows that people are no longer seeking martial arts classes primarily for defense skills, because in most present societies people are rather driven by other reasons, which include fitness, recreation and others. In addition, why have more pare nts decided to enroll their children in order to keep them active and fit, while the elderly seek services to increase their balance and coordination. My proposal on this account is that; because of the fighting-like practices involved in this art, many people take martial art as a very risky and dangerous thing to do.Advertising Looking for research paper on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More They do not see the other benefits apart from gaining self defense skills. Although slowly, people have started to realize the other advantages of this practice, very few individuals are ready to travel this road, more when it comes to their kids, because of the fear of instilling in their kids, practices that may endanger their lives. Primary Data Collection Method In order to do a get the relevant and correct information/data in the research, there must be a proper strategy of obtaining the required information, more from parties that are concerned, namely parents and kids. Since the problem and the objective of the research have been stated, the following are the steps to be taken in the research process (Russel, 2006, pp.23- 68). First is to know, which research method to use in researching. There are several research methods to be used that can be analysis research methods, qualitative research method, quantitative research method, sampling research method or systematic research method. All these methods have the following thing in common; they are concerned with collection of data/information and they provide methods of analyzing the sources of data. In addition, these methods clearly define how to get information from the sources, methods of analyzing and interpreting the data collected, and finally how to present the acquired results, in order for readers of any research work to understand the exact outcome of the research work (Ian, 2008, pp.12- 35). In this research study, there is need to k now the information at hand. This will enable one to know what kind of information to research. The market research will take place in an already established martial art schools and the following are the primary data collection methods to be used. To start with, observation is the main source of information in the field of research. This will be done by means of mechanical, electronics, and human methods, which either involve direct or indirect contact.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Martial Art School for Kids specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This method involves looking and listening very carefully in order to discover particular information after analyzing their behavior. This type of data collection method will give the opportunity to record the target group behavior directly. It follows that the information collected through this method is accurate as compared to the rest. Some of its disadvantage s are that, it is expensive and time consuming as compared to other primary methods of data collection. Also, the information collected could be distorted with biasness and the thinking of the investigator. Such is the case, because likelihoods of all the respondents giving exact information about this topic is rare, due to the fact that, different individuals hold different perceptions about his topic (Weller, 1988, pp. 9 – 23). The other primary data collection method that will be used in this research work is personal interview. In this case, a questionnaire will be used as data collection tool. There are two ways to use the questionnaire. First, it will be sent to the respondents who will fill in the information required by answering the questions asked in it. When they are done, they will be collected by the researcher or they can send them back. The other that questionnaires will be used is by the researcher organizing and meeting with the respondents, after which the r espondents will be asked the questions as the researcher fills them, as a way of getting feedback. This is more appropriate when the targeted group is illiterate (cannot read or write) (Russel, 2006, pp. 15-46). As compared to face to face interviews, this kind of method will be cost effective, it will be familiar to most people, and it will reduce any middle man biasness that comes from personal opinions influenced by the respondent (Weller, 1988, pp. 12- 33). However, this method will be time consuming and quite expensive, because of the movement that will be involved. It can be also intimidating to some people who may find it uncomfortable to sharing some information that the questionnaire requires, considering that this is a topic that is viewed differently by the entire society (Sirch, 200,pp.12-36).Advertising Looking for research paper on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More A third method that will be used is telephone interview. This is one of the most noteworthy primary data collection methods. As Weller (1988, pp. 16- 24) argues, this method is simple to use (selecting telephone numbers, call timing, call outcomes and call reports), and it is well known as dominant and most cost effective because. This is because, this methods has proved to be to give high chances of reaching the respondents from all over the world; it saves time used in travelling and all the involved costs. In addition, through this method, more information can be collected in a very short period and there are high chances of random selection of units among the population with telephone connections (Ian, 2008, pp. 22-36). However, it has the following shortcomings. Firstly, it is impossible to employ visual aids from some population and the high probability of discontinuing conversations may result to incomplete interviews; hence, the quality of information obtained may not be acc urate. Secondary data collection methods Secondary data collection methods are easier and less expensive, since they make use of second hand data (Weller, 1988, pp. 23-52). In this case, the prime targets are the kids and adults in the city who want to learn martial art, in order to build their self confidence. The methods that will be necessary for this research will be based in on competitor ‘current strategy that will follow the various avenues that one can use to get the information about the competitors’ current strategies. These methods include annual reports, information they give to the press and any other form of interviews that will be done by analysts among others. Usually, secondary data is collected from already available data from magazines, journals, and portals. Another secondary source of data will be the demographics data analyzed from U.S census. The data collection instrument will be designed in a way to simplify data compilation and it should be for mulated in such a way that it is easy to use. These include using interview guides; observation checklist, focus group discussion guides, questionnaire, and the survey forms, more when there will be need to collect information from fields (Ian, 2008, pp. 22- 59). The questionnaire for the martial art for kind marketing research is as follows. Target population This is a specific group of people that is identified as the intended recipient of a product, advertisement, campaign, or research. They are sometimes known as target audience. The target audience can be composed of people of certain age group, gender, teenagers, females, singles, and marital status. There should be caution since it is possible to make a mistake in trying to reach everybody and ending up appealing to none (Weller, 1988, pp.16- 43). This martial art school for children research’s target population is both kids and adult. They can be either enrolled for the martial art or not yet. This research undertakin g primarily targets chooses those people who are enrolled in martial art school, because they have a lot of information following their experience in the school. This research will primarily focus on what they have learnt gained and the difference they have experienced since they joined the school. On the other hand, those who have not joined have their own reasons; hence, it is also important to get some information from them, because they may have not been seduced enough by the benefits of doing this art or they do not have knowledge on the same. Below is the questionnaire for the research; The sample size should be big enough to collect enough information. Due to the fact that people have very different views on martial art, the sample size should be big enough in order to get more accurate information. Small samples are not advised when doing such a research that involves a major objective like the one stated above. It may lead to inaccurate result and therefore wrong conclusion s (Ian, 2008, pp. 9-36). The Questionnaire for the Respondent This questionnaire is prepared to facilitate the collection of relevant data from martial art school for kids. This is primarily aimed at showing why the individuals are no longer seeking martial art classes primarily for self defense skills, but they are mostly driven by other reasons such as recreation and fitness needs. It is also to investigate why parents enroll their children in order to keep them active, while the elderly seek such services to increase their balance and coordination. The information gathered will only be used for this study and shall not be used to victimize any one, because the entire respondent will remain anonymous and their names shall not be revealed to anyone without consent. Areas of ethical concern In any research, there is always a situation that requires a person or organization to make a choice between alternatives that must be evaluated as right or wrong (ethical or unethical) (Sirch, 2 001, pp. 6-35). The research aims both the kids and the adults, but the ethical concern involves the kids. As per numerous research studies that have been published, most of the children do not know the significance of martial art to their well being, because instead of most kids dong it, because they have passion for it, most of them do it, because of peer influence and even some do not have any idea why they do it. Areas of unethical concern in this market research are directly aimed at children without getting consent from the parents. In handling this situation, the researchers will first consult the parents before they go ahead to meet the children for interview or to get them to fill the questionnaire. The reason for this is to know the right time and most importantly give the parents an opportunity to regulate the kind of questions to ask their children. In addition to, the organization can embark on a respondent education to make their young audience aware of what the resear ch is all about. After collection of data, the next thing is to data analysis, which then results to formulation of reports. A report carries a feasible study carried during data collection and data analysis. Breaking the report into various parts is very important owing to clarification and easy understanding. A standard analysis should focus on giving an articulated and well argued response to the objective of the research. It should also be subjective but at the same time the impersonality suited to should be clear. The objective presented in the report should be relevant to the objective of the research. Finally, a good report should separate the good or excellent ideal from the average ones (Russel, 2006, pp. 11-36). Some of the opportunities I see to integrate marketing research technology in my plan is the use of electronics. There are improved methods of analyzing and contracting and integrating the information and index the results in various ways, according to the command directed. Recommendations Ther are several cases that should be considered when doing a research and the steps to follow after the research is complete. Determining the right target group is the most important. The wrong choice of the target population will distort all the information and will lead to undesirable results (Weller, 1988, pp.19-43). After determining the target audience, the next step is to decide on which is the best way of communication, more so when it coesm to adhering to the set goal. The target audience determines the communication method. If for instance one chooces a target audience comprising of teenegers, the comminication method to be used should suite their level. It should not be provoking or that can make them to lie or exaggerrate their response (Sirch, 2001, 26-32). If possible, use a language that is indirect to them but according to the way they will answer the questions and after analyzing them, the researchers can still get the right information. De signing the massege appeal is also very essential. Quaestionnaire questuions or any other questions to be used in the research should run in systematic way. That is, from the simplest to the hardest or from the most open question to a personal quasetion (Sirch, 2001, pp. 11-22). The researcher should also watch out his/her tone to use in every question. People are different; therfore, one should be as simple as possible and make the intentions clear. If the respondent does not want to give a respond, it is better to listen to his opinoin and do as he or her want. The last step after a reseach is to use the infromation gathered from the research after analuzing the whole situation and coming up with conclusions- and allocate the resources (Weller, 1988, pp. 12- 32). In this martial art schools reaserch shows that there is more likely to have less martial art schools for both kids and adults in the furture owing to more and more people getting interested in enrolling. Hence, before al locating resources ( buliding or establishment of more martial art schools) one should use the information from this resarch inorder to determine the riht way to allocate the resources. Reference List Ian. (2008). Questionnaire Design. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Micah, D. (2007). Martial: The Art and Language. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Russel, H. (2006). Research methods. Altamira: Rowman. Sirch, R. (2001). Nursing research. Chicago: Jones Bartlett Publishers. Weller, S. (1988). Systematic data collection. Chennai: Sage publishers. This research paper on Martial Art School for Kids was written and submitted by user Liam Richardson to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Free Essays on Truth And The Rules Of Attraction

The book The Rules of Attraction, by Bret Easton Ellis, is a book that delves into the lives and personalities of young college students. It exposes the startling truth about the way point of view can skew a story. The story jumps around, retelling the same scene, each time narrated by another character. Although each explanation of the characters’ encounters with each other was factually correct to that individual, the stories conflicted. By giving contradictory stories and paradoxical truths, Ellis questions the reader as to what truth really is and whether it exists. Ellis’s use of the rotating first person was very intriguing and thought provoking, as it considers the reality of truth. This book essentially revolved around Sean, Paul, and Lauren. Sean entered the book as a disgruntled realist frustrated with his environment. He was an apathetic lost soul on campus who rarely cared about others. Enjoying his binge-drinking and habitual drug use, he viewed Camden as a college where he had no place. Soon the object of Paul’s affection, he did not describe their relationship to be anything of the romantic nature. He regarded Paul as only an annoying acquaintance, and often did not even extend friendship to him. Paul, an openly bisexual tramp, had innumerable sexual encounters with most the men and women of Camden College. His melodramatic personality often masked the truth by his embellished take on the world. He met Sean and allegedly had a sexual encounter with him that started a romantic relationship between them, although Sean never confirmed their affair. Meanwhile, Sean had slowly become infatuated with Lauren, a girl who was very indecisive with her life. She indulged in alcohol and drugs, just as everyone else on her campus did. She and Sean had a very dysfunctional relationship, one in which the line between love and hate was often blurred. After Sean slept with Lauren’s best friend Judy, Lauren parte... Free Essays on Truth And The Rules Of Attraction Free Essays on Truth And The Rules Of Attraction The book The Rules of Attraction, by Bret Easton Ellis, is a book that delves into the lives and personalities of young college students. It exposes the startling truth about the way point of view can skew a story. The story jumps around, retelling the same scene, each time narrated by another character. Although each explanation of the characters’ encounters with each other was factually correct to that individual, the stories conflicted. By giving contradictory stories and paradoxical truths, Ellis questions the reader as to what truth really is and whether it exists. Ellis’s use of the rotating first person was very intriguing and thought provoking, as it considers the reality of truth. This book essentially revolved around Sean, Paul, and Lauren. Sean entered the book as a disgruntled realist frustrated with his environment. He was an apathetic lost soul on campus who rarely cared about others. Enjoying his binge-drinking and habitual drug use, he viewed Camden as a college where he had no place. Soon the object of Paul’s affection, he did not describe their relationship to be anything of the romantic nature. He regarded Paul as only an annoying acquaintance, and often did not even extend friendship to him. Paul, an openly bisexual tramp, had innumerable sexual encounters with most the men and women of Camden College. His melodramatic personality often masked the truth by his embellished take on the world. He met Sean and allegedly had a sexual encounter with him that started a romantic relationship between them, although Sean never confirmed their affair. Meanwhile, Sean had slowly become infatuated with Lauren, a girl who was very indecisive with her life. She indulged in alcohol and drugs, just as everyone else on her campus did. She and Sean had a very dysfunctional relationship, one in which the line between love and hate was often blurred. After Sean slept with Lauren’s best friend Judy, Lauren parte...

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Rap and Hip-Hop Culture - Essay Example The conclusion section summarizes the main ideas of the paper and further confirms that the rap/hip-hop culture tends to contain adolescent themes of autonomy and rebellion. Rap music has particularly been known to make provocative remarks towards women. Rap and hip-hop refers to a cultural movement and genre of music developed in the 1970s in New York. This was mainly among Latino Americans and African Americans. Hip-hop has four major elements namely break-dancing, graffiti writing, and rapping. Other elements are slang, hip-hop fashion and beat-boxing. Since its first emergence in the Bronx in the 1970s, rap/hip-hop culture has spread to many parts of the world. When hip-hop first emerged, its basis was around disc jockeys creating rhythmic beats through looping breaks on two turn tables, and was later followed by rapping. Then there arose particular dress styles and form of dancing among the new music followers. The emergence of rap and hip-hop music in the 1970s came with a lot of fear. This was because many parents and other stakeholders thought that this new rhythms and lyrics would negatively affect the listeners, most of whom were adolescents. This fear was carried on into the 21st century. Many critics of this genre of mu... This fear was carried on into the 21st century. Many critics of this genre of music are of the view that it promotes homicide, drug use, violence, suicide, deviant sexual activity, bigotry and aggression (Ballard and Dodson, 1999, pp 476). This is a significant topic since this issue has sparked a lot of debate among parent groups, censorship supporters, artists, record companies and even the United States federal government. The same issue also crops up in the medical arena, with the American Pediatrics Association expressing fear that rap and hip-hop lyrics threaten the well-being and health of adolescents. According to Mendelson (1989, pp 314-315), the greatest concerns include suicide, accidents, sexually transmitted diseases, drug use and pregnancy. Many physicians perceive the adolescent period as a very difficult period due to the rapid psychological and biological changes occurring during this period. Furthermore, the society expects these young people sound moral values through the way they perceive adult behaviors and standards. A number of physicians use their adolescent patients' music preferences to get a clue to their mental and emotional health. Music that contains explicit lyrics is capable of skewing and misrepresenting the world's realities. Rap and hip-hop music tends to represent adolescent themes of autonomy and rebellion. Rap music has particularly been known to make provocative remarks towards women. Hence the most popular music forms for adolescents must revolve around such themes as sexual imagery and disrespect (Brown and Hendee, 1989, pp 1659-1663). Moreover, many have questioned what effects music lyrics have on stereotyping, aggression, suicidal ideation and mood. According to a study conducted on the

Data Gathering And Dissemination In Wireless

Data Gathering And Dissemination In Wireless A wireless sensor network is special kind of ad hoc networks that consists of a number of low-cost, low-power, and multi-functional wireless sensor nodes, with sensing, wireless communications and computation capabilities [1,2,3]. These sensor nodes communicate over a short range via a wireless medium and collaborate to accomplish a common task, like environmental monitoring, military surveillance, and industrial process control [3]. Wireless sensor networks have open up for new opportunities to observe and interact with the physical environment around us. They enable us now to collect and gather data that was difficult or impossible before [4]. Although Wireless Sensor Networks have given new ways to provide information from variety of applications, irrespective of the nature of physical environment, it is seen as a challenging task to extract data from sensor network. Data dissemination and gathering are two terms used in sensor networks to describe two categories of data handling methods. Data dissemination is a process by which data and queries for data are routed in the sensor networks where as data gathering is to transmit data that has been collected by the sensor nodes to the base stations. Data gathering protocols aim to minimize the energy consumption and delay of data gathering process [5]. Although there are differences between these two but almost all the literature called together as routing protocols. Unlike traditional wireless communications networks such as mobile ad hoc and cellular systems, wireless sensor networks have the following unique characteristics and constraints [3]: high density sensor node deployment, battery or no power sensor nodes, low memory and processor capacity, self-configurable, unreliable sensor nodes, data redundancy, application specific and dynamic topology. Due to above characteristics and constraints of wireless sensor networks, the extraction of data from the network is always a challenge. Therefore, it is importa nt that the design of protocols for data gathering and dissemination takes care about these challenges. The main design challenges of routing protocols for wireless sensor network are: Energy, Processing power and Memory. Some of the design challenges as reflected in [3, 6] are highlighted below: Large number of sensor nodes: Since most of the wireless sensor networks composed of large sensor nodes, it is very difficult to have an addressing scheme like other wireless networks. The traditional IP scheme is not feasible to apply for wireless sensor networks. Moreover, the sensor nodes are deployed at random in hostile environment. Limited energy capacity: The sensor nodes are battery powered, so they have limited energy. This is the main challenges in designing wireless sensor networks. In practice, sensor network deployment makes sense only if they can run unattended for months and years without running short of energy [4]. Flow of Data: Almost all the applications of sensor network require the sensory data from multiple sources to flow towards a single destination node called sink in contrast to the traditional networks. Sensor node locations: Most of the proposed routing protocols assumed that the sensor nodes are equipped with global positioning system (GPS), but in practice it is very difficult to manage the locations of sensor nodes. It has become more challenging as sensor networks topology changes frequently due to node failures, moving from the coverage area. Data redundancy: Data collected by various sensor nodes are typically based on common phenomenon; hence the probability of data redundancy is very high. The routing protocol needs to incorporate data aggregation techniques to decrease the number of transmission. Application Specific: The sensor networks are application specific. The requirement of routing protocol changes as per the specific application. It is very challenging to design routing protocols which can meet the requirements of all applications. Scalability: The size of the network grows, so the routing protocols need to be scalable to support the addition of sensor nodes. All sensors may not necessarily have same capabilities of energy, processing, sensing and communications. These should be taken care while designing the routing protocols. Addition to the above parameters the designing of routing protocols for wireless sensor networks also need to look into following points [6]: Node deployment Related work: Since wireless sensor networks gain its usage in various application areas, there is a growing interest in this field leading towards continual emergence of new architectural techniques. Wireless sensor network is widely considered as one of the most important technologies of the 21st century [8]. In this section we bring out and highlight how our survey differs from the similar surveys done previously in this area. We also highlight the scope and target group who will benefit from our work. In [2], similar survey was carried out on routing protocols for wireless networks. The information in [2] was published some five years back and many new protocols have not covered. In [3], although it has covered almost all the routing protocols for wireless sensor networks but it does not provide insight knowledge about the protocols. The survey is good for readers interested in broad area. The goal of [8] is to give a comprehensive survey on routing techniques focusing on mobility issues in sensor networks and does not cover all the routing protocols in wireless sensor networks. In this survey, we bring out the comparative study among wireless sensor network routing protocols bringing their differences and similarities. We also bring out the advantages and disadvantages of different protocols to use in different applications of wireless sensor networks. This survey would be useful for both introductory readers as well as for aspirant researchers who would like to get the comprehen sive idea about the current-state-of-art regarding the techniques of data gathering and dissemination in wireless sensor networks. However, we follow [3] in classifying the routing protocols into different categories although we put some additional protocols which are not covered by [3]. We also excluded multipath-based protocol category since it falls under data-centric category. Table 1 shows the different categories of wireless sensor network routing protocols inspired by [3]. The representative protocols with (*) marks are our additions. Table 1: Routing Protocols for WSNs Category of Protocols Representative Protocol Location-based Protocols MECN, SMECN,GAF, GEAR, Span, TBF, BVGF, GeRaF Data-centric Protocols SPIN, Directed Diffusion, Rumor Routing, COUGAR, EAD, ACQUIRE, Information-Directed Routing, Gradient-based Routing, Energy-aware routing, Information Directed Routing, Quorum-based Information dissemination, Home Agent-based Information Dissemination, *Flooding, *Gossiping. Hierarchical-based Protocols LEACH, PEGASIS, HEED, TEEN, APTEEN Mobility-based Protocols SEAD, TTDD, Joint mobility and routing, Data MULES, Dynamic Proxy Tree-based Data Dissemination, *MDC Heterogeneity-based Protocols IDSQ,CADR,CHR QoS-based Protocols SAR, SPEED, Energy-Aware Routing. Data-Centric Protocols The protocols are differentiated into two categories called data-centric and address-centric. The address-centric routing protocols find the shortest path between source and the destination with addressing scheme like IP whereas in data-centric routing protocols focus is made to search routes from multiple source nodes to a single destination node. In the sensor networks, data-centric routing is preferred where data consolidation and aggregation is done by the intermediate nodes on the data coming from multiple sources before sending to the sink node. This way, it saves some energy preventing redundant data transmissions. In this section, we highlight some of the samples of data-centric routing protocols proposed for wireless sensor networks. Flooding: Flooding [5] is a data dissemination method where each sensor node that receives a packet broadcasts it to its neighboring nodes assuming that node itself is not the destination of the packet. This process continues until the packet arrives the destination or the maximum hop counts for that packet is reached. Flooding though is a simple and easy to implement, but it has problem like implosion (duplicate message sent to the same node) and overlap (duplicate message receive by the same node) [2]. Figure 1 and 2 reproduced from [2] shows the implosion and overlap problems in flooding. Gossiping: Gossiping [5] is based on flooding, but nodes that receives the packet forwards it only to a single randomly selected neighbor. It avoids implosion problem of flooding and it does not waste as much network resources as flooding. However, gossiping is not a reliable data dissemination method since the neighbor node is selected at random, some nodes may not receive that message at all. Moreover, it introduces a delay in propagation of data through the nodes [2] since all the nodes which forwards or sends data need to select a node. SPIN: Sensor Protocols for Information via Negotiation (SPIN) [9, 10] aims to improve the implosion and overlapping problems of classic flooding protocol. The SPIN protocols are based on two key mechanisms namely negotiation and resource adaptation [3]. It uses three types of messages [5]: ADV, REQ, and DATA. The sensor node which has collected data sends an ADV message using high-level descriptors or meta-data regarding the actual data. The actual data is transmitted only when the REQ message is received from the interested nodes. This negotiation mechanism avoids the overlapping and implosion problems of classic flooding because the REQ message is sent from the interested node only when it does not have that data. Fig. 3, redrawn from [5] shows how these three messages are exchanged and fig. 4 inspired by [9] and reproduced from [11] shows more detail process who SPIN works. There are about four versions of SPIN protocols [6, 9, 10]. They are SPIN-PP, SPIN-BC, SPIN-EC and SPIN-RL. Both SIPN-PP and SPIN-BC works under ideal condition when energy is not constraint and packet are never lost. SPIN-PP tackles the data dissemination problem by using point to point media where as SPIN-BC uses broadcast media. There other two protocols are the modified versions of SPIN-PP and SPIN-BC in order to network which are not ideal. SPIN-EC is actually SPIN-PP with additional energy conservation capability. Under SPIN-EC, the nodes participate in data dissemination only when it computes that it has enough energy. If the node has plentiful energy, it works as same as SPIN-PP with 3-stage handshake. SPIN-RL is a version of SPIN-BC which tries to recover from the losses in the network by selectively retransmitting the messages. In SPIN topological changes are localized as each node needs to have information of their next immediate one-hop neighbor only. But this type of protocol cannot be used in applications where reliability is of greater concern like forest fire and intrusion detection since it does not guarantee the data delivery [2]. If the nodes that are interested in data are located far way and the intermediate nodes are not interested then the ADV message will not received which in turn will not able to get data. Directed Diffusion: Directed Diffusion [12] consists of elements like interests, data, messages, gradients and reinforcements. The main objective of the protocol is to use naming scheme to reduce the energy usage by avoiding unnecessary routing operations. Interest is a query or interrogation on what user wants and it contains descriptions of a sensing task. Data is the collected or processed information of a physical phenomenon which is named using attribute-value pair. Gradient is a link a neighbor from which interest was received, and it is characterized by data rate, duration, and expiration time which has derived from the received interest filed [2]. A node, usually sink will be broadcasting interest to request data by diffusing interest through its neighbors. The interests are periodically refreshed by the sink. When this interest is received by the intermediate nodes, they cache for future use, or do in-network data aggregation or direct interest based on previous cached data. The source node sen ds the data back through the reverse path of the interest. When data is received by the nodes, they try to compare with the interest cache before. The data which matches the interest is drawn and then sent via the same path where the interest has received. Out of several paths between sink and the source, one path is selected by network by reinforcement. Once this path is selected, the sink sends the original interest again with smaller time interval so as to make the source node on the selected path to send data more frequently. Although directed diffusion has advantages that the protocol can in-network data aggregation and caching which saves energy but this protocol cannot not be applicable to all the applications of wireless sensor networks. The protocol can only be applied to such application which is query driven. It is not suitable for the applications such as forest fire detection or intrusion detection. Fig. 4, copied from [12] shows the working of the protocol. Rumor Routing Rumor routing [13] another variation of Directed Diffusion aims to direct the query to the nodes which have observed event rather than flooding the entire network [2]. It is a logical compromise between query flooding and event flooding [3]. This protocol is only useful if the number of queries compared to number of events is between the two interaction points. See fig. 5, redrawn from [13]. Rumor routing algorithms introduces an agent, a long live packet. An agent, which also contains an event table like nodes, travels the network propagating information about local event to the distant nodes. The agent informs the nodes it encounters of any events it has observed on its way and at the same time it will synchronize its event table with the event table of encountered node. An agent will travel the network for certain number of hops and then die. All the nodes including an agent maintains an event table list that has event-distance pairs, as shown in fig. 6, copied from [13]. So when a node generates a query for an event, the nodes that knows the route, can respond to the query by referring its event table [2]. In this way, flooding the whole network is avoided. Directional rumor routing is proposed in [14], which try to improve latency and energy consumption by considering query and event propagation in straight line instead of random walk in normal rumor routing. Cougar Cougar [15, 16] is a database approach for tasking sensor networks through declarative queries. Since in-network computation is much cheaper than transmission and communication between nodes, cougar approach proposes a loosely-coupled distributed architecture to support both aggregation and in-network computation. This helps in reducing energy consumption thereby increasing lifetime. The architecture introduces a query proxy layer in each sensor node which interacts both with network layer and application layers. The gateway node (where query optimizer is located) generates a query processing plan after receiving queries from the sensor nodes. This query plan specifies both data flow between sensor nodes and in-network computation plan at each individual sensor node. The query plan also contains how to select a leader for the query. The query plan can be viewed at non-leader node and at the leader node. Fig. 7 and fig. 8, redrawn from [15], show query plan at non-leader node (source sensor) and leader node respectively. Although, cougar provides solution to interact with the sensor nodes independent from the network layer, but the insertion of proxy layer at each sensor node introduce extra overhead for sensor node in terms of memory and energy consumption [2]. Additional delay may be incurred with the relay trying to wait for the packets from other nodes for aggregation before sending to the leader node. ACQUIRE ACQUIRE [16] is a data-centric routing protocol aiming at large distributed databases. It aims at complex queries which comprise of several sub-queries that are combined by conjunctions or disjunctions in an arbitrary manner. The protocol sends an active query packet into the network. This active query packet is sent by the sink, which takes random path or path predefined or guided. The node which receives this active query packet uses information stored within them to partially resolve the query. If the nodes do not have updated information, they gather the information from their neighboring nodes with the distance of d (look-ahead parameter) hops. When the active query is resolved completely, the response is sent back to the node which has issued the query. Some of the assumptions made in this protocol are [17]: the sensors, with same transmission range are laid out uniformly in a region and they are stationary and do not fail. EAD: Energy-Aware Data-Centric Routing Energy-Aware Data-Centric (EAD) [18] aims to construct a virtual backbone containing all active sensors, which is responsible for in-network data processing and relaying traffic. The radios of other nodes which are not in the virtual backbone are put off to conserve the energy. The sensor network is represented by a broadcast tree rooted at the gateway and spanning all the sensors with large leaf nodes. In order to conserve power, the radios of these leaf nodes are put off while the nodes which are in virtual backbone are active for traffic relaying. The protocol tries to construct broadcast spanning tree network with maximum leaf nodes so that maximum energy can be conserved. The concept of EAD is to include the neighboring broadcast scheduling and the distributed competition among neighbors, based on residual energy [18]. The efficiency of the protocol would be more when the size of the network is small. When the size of the network is large, execution time will be more since the e xecution process propagates from the sink to the whole network. Other protocol like the one proposed by Shah and Rabaey in [19] also aims at increasing network life time. They use network survivability as the main metric and propose to choose one of the multiple paths with a certain probability so that the whole network life time increases. But the protocol assumes that each node is addressable with some addressing schemes. Information-Directed Routing Location-based Protocols Since sensor nodes have limited energy capacity, most of the routing protocols aim to reduce the consumption of energy in routing processes. In most of the protocols location of the sensor nodes are used to find the distance between two communicating pairs in order to find the best possible path with low energy usage. If location of a particular sensor node is known, query can be sent to that particular location only without sending to other regions which will reduce the number of transmission significantly [2]. Location-based protocol makes use of the position information to relay data to the network rather than the whole network. In this section, we describe some of the location-based routing protocols proposed for wireless sensor networks. Minimum Energy Communication Network (MECN): Hierarchical-based Protocols

John D Rockefeller as a captain of Industry Essay

John D Rockefeller, founder of standard oil was a captain of industry, he was led to the path of efficiency through his mother and father when he was younger; this helped him grow into one of the biggest companies of the time. He soon started Standard Oil and became a billionaire. Despite the robber barren ways he got to the top, he got there and set a way for American corporations of the future. His father started him on the road to business, when John D Rockefeller was seven his father loaned him five dollars at high interest rates. However harsh this may seem this paved the way for John. He soon made the correct business choice to lead him to the top. He started doing small job around the neighborhood such as digging up potatoes and saved every cent. He soon learned the harsh ways of his father such as buying pound candy and selling it by the piece and by age, thirteen he was lending fifty dollars at compound interests. His mother led him on a path of efficiency, which would prove to be key to his career. His mother taught him the proverb that willful waste makes woeful want. Soon John was efficient on everything, how quickly he ate and hiring people to do the task, which he thought time consuming. One instant he saved 1.54 per oil barrel by just putting one less drop of sealant on each barrel. John D Rockefeller was a genius businessman. He had a natural knack for it. He reduced the competition by inventing new ideas such as quantity discount, where he would charge less if the customer bought more. This way he could make people buy his oil instead of competitors because it seemed cheaper, and he was making the customer buy more because it seemed like a good deal. Rockefeller also saved money by demanding lower transportation costs, which he could do because he was dominating the business and without him, there would be no business. Soon his competitors were paying five times as much in transportation costs. Rockefeller at one point just eliminated the competition. He purchased his competitors to ensure he would undercut his competitors’ prices. It helped kerosene drop from 58 cents to 26 from 1865 to 1870. Rockefeller also started the Standard Oil Trust. A trust is a business combination in which a single board of trustees controlled a group of member corporations. He came up with it to efficiently control the  companies he had acquired. However soon this practice was seen as illegal and unfair because he dominated the market and could subject the customers to any price he decided, yet it was still ingenious. Not only did John D Rockefeller come up with creative new ideas that helped him to become more efficient and eliminated his competitors, which made him the largest and richest company but he also adjusted to the times. When a Dartmouth professor found a way to refine the oil he quickly jumped on the market. Soon the internal combustion engine was invented and Rockefeller ordered the production of gasoline and machine oils immediately and they were ready for mass production by the time the first car was reveled in 1887 John D Rockefeller was a captain of industry and he deserves the title. He was an ingenious man who set up the way for big American cooperations of the future. Standard Oil was used all over the world from India to Africa. By 1878 alone, he had control ninety percent of he held ninety percent of the oil refining capacity in the United States alone. No man had ever been able to reach Rockefellers fortune at his peak. Clearly, John D Rockefeller is the ultimate captain of industry.

Do You Beleive in Magic? – Harry Potter Fanfiction

Do you believe in Magic? by  Harry Potter – Stories from Tumblr  on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 7:09am â€Å"This is outrageous! Outrageous I say! First  we have to deal with post on Sundays, and  now  we have to leave the house on a freezing cold day to take the boys on a bloody train journey?! Are these freaks so ignorant that they are completely unaware of the fact that the golf is on the TV?! † grumbled Vernon Dursley as he trailed after his family towards King’s Cross Station. Dudley kept up his brisk walking pace, not stopping while he looked over his shoulder at his father – he was determined to get his family out of the cold September rain and the biting chill that the wind carried as it blew through the car park. Regina stayed close by her husband’s side, wrapping her Burberry trench coat tighter around herself to stop more goose bumps from forming on her arms. â€Å"Considering that they don’t  have  TV’s, I’m guessing not Dad. And watch what you say, my sons are not ‘freaks’ as you so affectionately stated† Dudley countered with a roll of his eyes as he lead his family through the doors of the Station. Regina was confused when she saw Dudley smirk and she too looked over her shoulder and had to actually bite her bottom lip to suppress her smile. Petunia was glaring and tutting at her husbands behavior. Vernon, who was now well into his mid-sixties was standing in the doorway to the train station looking positively gob-smacked. His hair, which had once been thick and black, was now very thin due to the fact that he was going bald, as well as being a silvery shade of grey – as was his bristly moustache. Much to Petunia’s dismay, Vernon had not lost any weight whatsoever over the years – despite the amount of diets he went on and exercise equipment they had bought. In fact he had done the complete opposite and gained weight, making him even more obese than he had been 19 years ago. As a result, he was now blocking one of the main entrances into the station. Not that he took much notice of this mind you, he was too busy acting like a surprised fish – his beady little blue eyes protruding out of their sockets as he opened and closed his mouth continuously. For the first time that day, Vernon had stopped his complaining – he was speechless. This shouldn’t have surprised Dudley though; his father had been speechless for the past two weeks. Ever since the owls had arrived with corresponding letters informing Regina and Dudley that their twin boys, David and Richard would be attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. *** â€Å"And so to conclude my speech, I would just like to say†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Dudley had to stifle as yawn as he listened to his pompous Father’s incessant rambling. He insisted upon doing this every single year – making a ‘short speech’ about his Grandchildren’s many accomplishments. Short speech my arse’ Dudley mentally scoffed as he leaned back in his dining chair and put his arms behind his head. Vernon’s speeches were always like War and Peace – he simply didn’t shut up. Dudley wouldn’t have minded if his Father prattled on at him any other time, but this was a special day and judging from his families facial expressions they were as bored as Dudley was. Regina, always considerate and polite, was the only person at the long rectangular dining table giving Vernon her full attention. That is, she was the only person who was not practically falling asleep. From the looks of it though she was not far off it. Her golden blonde hair shone in the sunlight that streamed through the conservatory roof and French windows. A soft breeze swirled through the leaves of the tall Oak trees and the Rose bushes that filled the garden. It drifted into the conservatory through the open double-doors and as the warm breeze caressed her face, it lulled her into a calm state and her eyes began to droop shut – meaning that Dudley no longer had the privilege of admiring her beautiful Emerald-green eyes. â€Å"-So now I’d like you all to join me in a toast! To David and Richard, Happy Birthday boys! Vernon announced, startling Regina out of her comatose state and bringing Dudley back to the present. â€Å"Five quid please† Dudley heard his son whisper to his brother on his right. He looked over just in time to see David’s lips pucker and his eyebrows furrow together in a frown as he dug his hand into his pocket and handed a five-po und note over to his brother. Just another two minutes and Richard would have been the one paying  him  five pounds. As David examined his new watch he nodded with an appreciate smile – this was quite impressive, Vernon’s speech had only gone on for about 28 minutes. Usually they lasted over half an hour! Dudley smiled at boys antics and got out of his seat to give his boys a hug. â€Å"Happy Birthday sons† he whispered into his boy’s messy hair as he wrapped his arms around both of their shoulders. â€Å"I hope it’s been a wonderful day† he told them both. â€Å"Well it’s not over yet! We still have presents! † exclaimed Regina as she walked back into the conservatory, her arms struggling to hold the amount of presents they carried. â€Å"Oh Mum, Dad, you really didn’t have to! † cried Richard, his eyes widening at the amount of wrapped presents his mother laid on the table in front of him and his brother. Ye, you really shouldn’t have. Really. This is too mu-â€Å" â€Å"Rubbish, it’s a special day! It’s not every day your young men turn 11 now is it? † Dudley told them whilst patting them both on the shoulder reassuringly, smiling with pride. He loved it when his boys got nervous about receiving presents and thanked God every day that they took after their mother, and were nothing like the spoiled, selfish, demanding, ungrateful child that he had been growing up. The boys exchanged a look, a smile tugging at the corner of their lips and shrugged. Well if you insist† they replied in unison and began tearing the wrapping paper and pretty red bows off of the boxes in front of them. Of course, just because they were not as selfish as Dudley did not mean they didn’t  enjoy  getting presents. They were just humble and genuinely appreciative about it all – reminding Dudley of someone he had not seen for a very long time†¦somebody he was only on Christmas card terms with†¦ No, Dudley would not think about that right now, for fear that the guilt welling up inside of him would cause angry tears to spill down his cheeks. He had to focus, he had to keep an eye open for the sign he had been waiting for since his boys were little – the sign that confirmed his suspicions. As if on cue, a loud hoot sounded off in the distance drawing everyone’s attention to the open Conservatory doors. Regina could not quite understand why Petunia gasped and put a hand over her heart in surprise, or why Vernon began choking on his birthday cake and dropped his brandy glass, and she definitely didn’t understand why her husbands face lit up and his lips curved into a huge smile as he ran to open the doors wider. â€Å"It can’t be, it simply can’t be! Vernon protested in between violent splutters and coughs, his round pig-like face turning every colour of the rainbow as he tried to clear his throat. Just as Dudley reached the doors to open them wider, two owls soared through them – landing gracefully on the dining table in front of Richard and David, an envelope with a strange emble m clasped in each of their beaks. Dudley couldn’t help but smile at the nostalgia of the moment – this was all so familiar. Contrary to what people may believe, Dudley was not surprised at all to have two owls delivering Hogwarts acceptance letters to his children. In fact, he would have been surprised if it hadn’t happened at all! Having grown up with a magical cousin, Dudley knew the signs to look for in children who were beginning to develop magical abilities. Dudley started to suspect something was going on when his boys turned four. He was watching them chase each other around the garden with sticks, pretending to be knights when David pushed his brother over. After he stood back up, Richard proceeded to chase his twin around the garden with green and yellow sparks erupting from the end of his ‘sword’ as the anger coursing through the brains caused his magic to go slightly haywire. The next incident occurred later that year on Christmas Eve. That was the year that Dudley’s Aunt Marge insisted on spending Christmas with them. Unfortunately for the Dursleys, she was also most persistent that she brought her two dogs along: ‘Ripper II’ and ‘Rex’. Regina and her husband could not say they were upset when the two dogs mysteriously went missing on Christmas Eve and reappeared the next day – multicolored and acting as though they had been Confunded, if there was such a thing. Marge didn’t stick around for very long after that. Regina was confused as to how it had happened, especially when her sons couldn’t properly explain it. But Dudley knew better, after all he’d experienced his fair share of unexplainable incidences due to his cousin growing up. Up until now, the years had been filled with incidences like that, giving Dudley more reasons to believe that when the boys turned eleven they would be receiving some kind of acceptance to a school for magic, But now that it was actually happening, Dudley positively speechless. â€Å"Well what are you waiting for boys? Open them! † Petunia prompted from the head of the table next to a dumbfounded Vernon. *** As Dudley remembered that day, he was still shocked at his Mother’s reaction to the letters. It didn’t make sense that she would be so calm about this considering the way she treated Harry whilst he had been growing up. She had been unusually calm about the whole thing, even scolding Vernon for his childish rants about how ridiculous this whole situation was. Dudley was not the only one in the Dursley family who regretted the way they had treated Harry over 20 years ago. Petunia regretted it every second of the day. After the way things had ended up between her and Lily, she knew that she should have known better than to treat Harry that way and was determined not to make the same mistakes with her Grandchildren. Vernon close your mouth please, you are not a codfish† she chastised whilst shaking her head as her husband continued to stand in the entrance, openly gaping at his son. â€Å"H-how can you be taking this so calmly?! Our Grandchildren are freaks Petunia! Fr-â€Å" â€Å"Now stop right there Vernon Dursley. For years I stood by and let you treat our n ephew as though he were dirt beneath our feet. And even though I took part in it, it is probably one of my biggest regrets. You cannot despise people for something that they have absolutely  no  control over. Now weare  going to be supportive. We  are  going to be happy and we  are  going to see our Grandchildren off! Got it? † If Vernon was flabbergasted before, then he was downright astounded now. Never had he seen Petunia act like this towards anything even remotely related to ‘magic’ – it was ridiculous to even think of the word. Magic didn’t exist! But as he took in his wife’s death glares and the way she was pointing her bony well-manicured finger at him, he dared not even to utter those words. â€Å"Dad? † Dudley’s attention was taken away from his Mother’s startling revelation as he felt a soft tugging on his jacket sleeve. What is it Ricky? † he asked his son as he bent down in front of him. His son’s blue eyes were sparkling with concern and his chubby cheeks were puffed out as he pouted. â€Å"I think we’re lost† he admitted as he examined the little piece of paper in his hands. â€Å"Well let’s see here-†Å" Dudley replied, taking the ticket from his son and examining it, â€Å"-It says Platform 9 ? †¦Perhaps if we ask someone? † he asked aloud to no one in particular. â€Å"I already did† came Dave’s voice from beside his mother. I just asked that conducter over there, he asked me ‘if I was taking the piss’† he quoted with an edge of annoyance evident in his voice. Dudley loved that about his boys, rather than wait around for someone to do things for them, they just did it themselves! It made Dudley proud to know that his boys were nothing like he was at their age. â€Å"Language†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Regina cautioned her son as she ruffled his dark hair. He may be leaving home for the first time, but he was still her little boy. â€Å"Sorry Mum† he mumbled in response. â€Å"I’m just annoyed, why can’t anybody help us? † he asked looking around the crowded platform. He had one hand on his trolley which had all of his belongings – including his new snowy white owl, Archimedes, balanced precariously on top – and his other hand grasping his train ticket firmly to save it from blowing away in the cold gusts of wind. â€Å"I can help† Petunia offered with a sigh. Dudley couldn’t help but blink at his mother, was this actually happening? â€Å"I remember the gateway that my sister walked through every year, I can lead the way† she announced in response to her families questions looks. She walked away from her husband and began weaving her way through the bustling crowd. Everyone stared after her before Dudley shrugged his shoulders and beckoned for his family to follow him. He didn’t know what to do, and his wife certainly didn’t – so what else were they supposed to do? They followed Petunia, taking care not to hit anybody with the twin’s overloaded trolleys as they navigated their way through the station. After a few minutes of walking and making sure Vernon hadn’t fainted from his wifes actions, they stopped at a red-brick wall that separated platform 9 and 10. They each huddled around it, exchanging uncertain looks. What happened now? What now Gran? † Dave asked excitedly, his eyes wide and fixed on the wall in front of him. This was about to be his first real experience with magic! â€Å"I-I don’t know to be honest! I never went through the barrier†¦only my parents and L-â€Å" she hadn’t said her sister’s name in years, and she struggled to get the name past the emotional lump in her throat â€Å"-Lily did†. Dudley was both impressed and astonished. His mother never spoke about his late aunt or uncle, or anything related to the world of magic that Petunia had intentionally blocked out for the most part of her life. Right then! Well that’s enough of  that  nonsense! Come along Petunia, we’re leavi-â€Å" â€Å"Big-D? Is that you?! † came a rather familiar voice from behind them. As Vernon turned around, his eyes widened to the size of cup saucers and popped out of his head. Walking towards them was another family. One lead by somebody that Vernon had purposefully hated ever since he could remember first laying eyes on him. A person who Vernon had neither seen nor spoke to for almost 20 years. Harry Potter. Of course this was not the same Harry Potter that Vernon remembered. The man walking towards them was much happier than he had been in his youth – as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. His dark hair was combed to the side, although a few messy strands fell into his Emerald-green eyes. He had also filled out over the years, sporting a pair of strong arms and a little bit of stubble on his well-defined jaw. He wore a simple pair of jeans, a dark collared shirt and a black leather jacket over the top to protect him from the cold. Although he was dressed casually and his hair was blowing around in the blustery wind, Vernon had never seen his nephew look happier – or better for that matter. Petunia couldn’t believe her eyes, not just when it came to Harry but the stunning red-head by his side or the children trailing after them. As Petunia surveyed the lady who was scrutinizing Petunia in return, she couldn’t help but find this somewhat ironic. Here was Harry, a grown man, practically a clone of his Father (except the eyes, he had Lily’s eyes) with a beautiful fiery red-head at his side. ‘Must be a thing with Potter men’ Petunia reasoned as she saw Harry step closer to Dudley. â€Å"You are Dudley Dursley aren’t you? † Harry asked curiously. He and the rest of the Potters had been approaching the barrier to Platform 9 ? when he heard Vernon’s irreplaceable grumbling voice, and he figured that the man standing between him and his aunt must have been Dudley. Unlike his father, Dudley had lost weight over the years. He was still a good head taller than Harry was, but he was in shape! No trace of the chubby whale-like boy that Harry remembered from his childhood remained in the man standing before him. His features were also a lot kinder, much to Harry’s surprise. ‘Are those†¦wrinkles around his eyes? From smiling? From  laughing?! Surely not, not on Dudley Dursley’ Harry rationalized in his head. â€Å"It’s me Harry† Dudley responded in a dazed sort of voice as he stared open-mouthed at his cousin. Dudley had absolutely no idea what to do when you met someone you hadn’t seen in what felt like a lifetime. So he did the first thing that came to mind – he extended his right hand in a handshake gesture. Harrys eyes moved between Dudley’s face and his hand. His face, his hand. His face, his hand, and over and over again. He had no idea what to do either in a situation like this, but he knew that a handshake wasn’t the right thing. So he did the first thing that came to mind – he extended his arms and wrapped them around Dudley’s shoulder and pulled him into a manly embrace, patting him on the back as he did so. To say Dudley was taken aback was putting it mildly. The two men hadn’t even breathed a word to eachother in years and yet they were acting like they were family! ‘What are you thinking you numpty, ofcourse you’re family! He’s your cousin for God’s sake! ’ the voice inside his head reprimanded him. ‘My cousin†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Dudley thought to himself, and then the walls in Dudley’s mind came down and the memories came flooding back to him. All of the times he had bullied Harry. All of the times he had pushed him around. All of the lost opportunities he had to tell him that he actually didn’t hate him, that he was grateful to him for saving his life all of those years ago. An emotional boulder began to form in his throat and he had to blink to hold back the guilty tears. He regained movement of his arms and embraced his cousin back, trying to communicate without words how sorry he was. How much of a Prat he felt. Neither of them knew how long they had stood their like that, but Harry immediately felt better when he pulled away from his cousin and smiled up at him. Ye, Dudley had been a Prat when they had been growing up together. But judging from how he had just responded to Harry’s hug, he felt pretty bad about it. Dudley’s eyes began to well up with tears that he dare not let fall, he was ashamed to admit that this was the first time he had ever shown public affection for his cousin. Somebody cleared their throat to Dudley’s left and he turned to see Regina standing there with a shy, awkward smile on her face. Regina didn’t need to be told who this person was that had just hugged her husband – she could tell from the way that he and his parents were acting that this was Harry Potter. Also, she remembered Dudley mentioning once how much little David resembled his estranged cousin and now that she saw him – she realized it was true. She stepped forward and like her husband had done only minutes before, extended her small, pale hand to greet him in a handshake. â€Å"I’m Regina Dursley, I can’t tell you how very happy I am to finally be meeting you Harry† she said with as much sincerity as she could muster in this emotional moment. Harry took in the woman by Dudley’s side. ‘Bloody hell, I guess she is the cause of his happiness†¦who’d have thought Dudley would settle down with someone who was genuinely nice?! Harry thought to himself. As Harry grasped her hand in his own, he realized that this woman might have just been Dudley’s saving grace. Truthfully she was very beautiful, on the inside as well as the out. Her blonde hair hung in ringlets over her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face and stunning gr een eyes. Her lips were a soft shade of pink to compliment the baby-pink scarf she had wrapped around her neck to stop her rosy cheeks from flushing anymore with the chilly air. As dazzling as she was, she was also incredibly natural looking, especially her warm and friendly smile. It’s a pleasure to meet you too. I’m Harry, Harry Potter. And this is my wife-â€Å" he motioned for the pretty red head to step forward and she did so happily, taking Regina’s hand in her own and shaking enthusiastically. â€Å"-And his better half† she teased her husband with a coy smile and turned her head back to Regina. â€Å"I’m Ginny, it’s nice to finally meet the lovely lady who’s been sending us Christmas cards all these years† she remarked playfully. â€Å"Actually, it was Dudley who sent you the cards every year Ginny – I just took them to the post-office† Regina replied with a smile as she looked up at her husband. She said it as a joke, but there was no denying the truth that filled her words. Dudley looked down at his feet and shuffled from side to side awkwardly. ‘Trust the wives to bring up the Christmas cards and make things awkward’ he mentally mumbled to himself. â€Å"Really Dudley? You were the one th-â€Å" â€Å"Dad who’s that? † Harry was interrupted by a curious voice and he looked around to find it’s source. He couldn’t contain his startled gasp when he saw a small boy peaking his head around his Mothers body to get a look at Harry. The boy looked exactly like Dudley when he had been young: chubby cheeks, blue eyes and a head of short, blonde wavy hair. Sweetheart it’s not polite to interrupt† Regina lectured in a motherly voice, running her fingers through her son’s hair while she said it. Harry could tell that Regina was strict, but very gentle and incredibly caring. He had to admit he liked that about her. â€Å"â €™Dad’ eh? † Harry remarked as he smirked at his cousin. â€Å"It’s alright Regina, really –â€Å" Harry insisted as he knelt down so that he was at eye-level with the boy. â€Å"Hello, I’m your Uncle Harry – what’s your name? † he asked with a smile. He couldn’t believe that he was actually meeting his nephew – could he call him that? I’m Richard Dursley† the little boy proudly announced and smiled up at his Dad. â€Å"Well it’s very nice to meet you Richard, this is your Auntie Ginny† Harry introduced his wife who was also smiling down at the little boy. â€Å"Guys! Come on over, don’t be shy! † Harry called over his shoulder to his own children who were huddled around the trolleys a few feet away. A tall boy with a self-assured smirk and mischievous sparkling eyes was the first to step forward. His shaggy brown hair swayed in the breeze and he flicked it out of his eyes – not dissimilar as to how girls in shampoo commercials do – and stood inbetween his Mum and Dad. Brilliant – I could use a new cousin to torture, the other ones were getting boring† James said before his mother swatted him over the head. â€Å"Ouch, I’m just joking! Nice to meet you mate, I’m James† he said with a chuckle as he took in his little cousins shy face. James smirked when he held out his hand for the little guy to shake, but he looked hesitant to do so. â€Å"Come on, I don’t bite† he joked and smiled when Richard reached out his hand slowly and took James’s hand in his. â€Å"See? That wasn’t so hard now was it? † he asked in a light-hearted voice. Richard shook his head, smiling too. He had always wanted a big cousin. â€Å"You should write a book James, ‘How to Freak People Out in Ten Syllables or Less’† somebody scoffed from behind James who was pushed out of the way as a miniature version of Harry smirked at his older brother. â€Å"Ignore this numpty, I always do. I’m Albus, Albus Severus Potter† the boy introduced himself. James couldn’t help but roll his eyes – why did his brother  always  have to say his entire name when ever he met someone? â€Å"I’m Ricky† Richard replied, excited to be meeting someone who looked the same age as him. â€Å"And this little rascal is L- Harry where’s Lily? Ginny asked, sounding worried as her eyes darted around the platform looking for her daughter. â€Å"I don’t know love, where did you last see her? † Harry responded, copying his wife and looking around frantically for his little Princess. â€Å"She was over by the tro- Lily Luna Pot ter! What have I told you about petting animals that  don’tbelong to you? † Ginny demanded as she cocked an eyebrow at her daughter and crossed her arms. â€Å"But Mummy isn’t he lovely? † Lily chirped back at her mother as she reached up on tiptoe to put her fingers through the bars of the Snowy owl’s cage. Yes darling he is, but he’s not yours – wait, who’s is he? † Ginny asked looking to Regina and Dudley for an explanation. Harry followed his wife’s line of vision and his breath caught in his throat when he saw the owl. It reminded him so much of Hedwig! â€Å"He’s mines. His name is Archimedes. I’m David† a timid voice registered in Harry’s ears and his jaw practically hit off of the floor as another boy stepped around his Father and stood infront of Harry. Harry couldn’t believe it – he simply couldn’t. Where the other boy looked like a smaller version of Dudl ey, this one looked so much like Harry had done when he was young. Dark brown hair, with even darker shades spread throughout his messy hair which fell into his eyes – much the same as James’s did. Oh Merlin, those eyes! They were Harry’s eyes! Lily’s eyes! Petunia’s sisters eyes! As odd as this was, Harry couldn’t help but find it sweet at the same time. Dudley’s boys were loving, caring, kind miniature versions of themselves when they had been this age. Albus couldn’t quite believe it either. Besides his Father, he had never met anyone else with his Grandma Lily’s eyes before. â€Å"Wow, we’re identical! † the two boys said in unison as they looked at eachother for the first time. Ginny couldn’t suppress her watery smile as she was reminded of a young version of Fred and George, and Dudley and Harry exchanged knowing smiles as they watched their sons interact with eachother – their conversation growing more animated as Ricky joined their conversation too. It was as if the Universe was giving Dudley and Harry a second chance through their sons. That’s when something else clicked in Harry’s brain and his head snapped around to take in the sight of the trolleys, loaded with two trunks with the Hogwarts symbol on them. Could it be? â€Å"Are y- are you two- what I mean to ask is, are you two w-w-wi-â€Å" Yes† Dudley answered for him. He could just imagine how big a shock this must be to Harry. Just the thought alone of two wizards being spawned by the son of Vernon Dursley was enough to make you want to faint and then burst out laughing. â€Å"Well I’ll be†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Harry replied in a far away voice. He certainly di dn’t see this one coming. â€Å"It’s been a while Harry† Petunia acknowledged from her spot over by the barrier. Harry didn’t quite know how to react. He’d just met his two nephews, reunited with his cousin, met his cousins wife and now he was running into Petunia too? His head just might explode. â€Å"It has Aunt Petunia, you’re looking well though† he replied somewhat reserved. He was wary around Petunia given the way she had always felt about magic. â€Å"Thankyou dear, you are too† she knew it wasn’t much, but hopefully she was on the right track to some sort of reconciliation with her nephew. ‘She’s calling me ‘dear’? Blimey, someone must have spiked her morning tea with happy juice. Hmmm maybe she has changed’ Harry thought to himself as the corners of his mouth turned up into a small smile. Petunia smiled back and was about to keep up the conversation, when she was rudely cut off. â€Å"Well where is this flipping train then? I want to see it! I thought the boys were supposed to be getting on it!? † Vernon exclaimed in a rather huffy voice as he stamped his foot on the ground and crossed his arms like a moody child. â€Å"Hello to you too Uncle Vernon. And well that depends, you can come onto Platform 9 ? if you want to. But do you believe in magic? † Harry asked, knowing fine well what the answer would be, but it couldn’t hurt to try could it? â€Å"There’s no such  thing  as magic boy! Vernon retorted, his face turning purple with frustration. â€Å"I’ll take that as a no then. Ginny? Would you mind escorting the kids through the barrier with Regina and my aunt please? I’ll take Dudley through† â€Å"Come on then Ricky! I can’t wait to tell you all about Quidditch! † James called to his little cousin who’s face was the very definition of confusion as he closed his eyes and followed James through the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10. â€Å"What’s Quidditch? † was the last thing Dudley heard his son ask before he disappeared infront of his very eyes. Come on Dave, I’ll take you through† Albus offered as he and Dave lined their trollies up alongside eachother and raced to get through the barrier before the other one could. Ginny, Regina and Petunia smiled at the boys antics and Ginny offered her arm to Regina. â€Å"Shall we then? † she asked kindly, motioning towards the brick wall. Regina was a little nervous but excited at the same time. This was her first proper experience with magic. â€Å"We shall† she replied playfully. Before the women were at the wall, Ginny turned back around to face Petunia. â€Å"Aren't you coming Mrs. Dursley? Ginny inquired. She no longer felt the same hostility she had before to the woman, she seemed ready to make amends after all these years. â€Å"I think I am. You know, I always wanted to walk through this barrier. For some reason, it feels like it’s the right thing to do† Petunia stated with a smile and followed her daughter-in-law and her nephews wife, giving Harry one last smile before disappearing through the veil of magic. â€Å"Ready Dudley? † Harry asked, excitement coursing through his veins. â€Å"H-Harry, I don’t know how† Dudley admitted, sounding a bit dejected and scared. What if the barrier didn’t let him through? Harry gave his cousin’s shoulders a reassuring squeeze and smiled up at him. â€Å"Don’t worry Dudley, we’ll do it together† Harry assured him. Dudley wiped away a sentimental tear that spilled over his bottom eyelid and down his cheek – this is what he had been wanting for him and his cousin for almost 20 years. He nodded and that was all the encouragement Harry needed to lead Dudley through the barrier. He kept his eyes closed the whole time, but when he heard a whole new set of noises and felt the steam in the air, Dudley opened his eyes. He honestly couldn’t believe it. Families were huddled around the platform in groups, saying their last goodbyes. Owls soared through the air and through the open windows of the train to meet their owners. The train, how could Dudley not ogle at the train?! It was huge, shiny and incredible to look at. It’s red glossy paint sparkled in the light of the old-fashioned oil lanterns that lined the walls of the platform and it appeared to radiate a sense of warmth, of welcoming. Dudley couldn’t believe that he was finally here – in Harry’s world. A world that was far better than he ever could have imagined. Dudley’s marveling of the world around him was interrupted by a grunting sound and a loud thud behind him, and he and Harry turned around – unable to contain their laughter. Vernon had apparently felt left out, standing out on the Muggle platform by himself and had felt the need to run through the barrier with his eyes closed – meaning he tripped over his own feet and face planted the ground on the other side of the barrier. Witches and Wizards looked with concern at the odd man, who lifted his head and took in his surroundings – his eyes boggling and his mouth hanging open. L-looks like Da-dad believes in m-magic after all! † Dudley managed to say inbetween outbursts of hysteric laughter. â€Å"What? Oh no, that was just something I made up. The barrier will let anyone through that has a right to – he’s a grandparent of two students, so it let him through no problem. I just wanted to get the satisfaction of hearing Vernon Dursley admi t that magic was real, althought I'm pretty sure that man will go to his grave swearing it's not – even after this! † Harry confessed and wiped away the tears on his cheeks from laughing so much. That day, Harry and Dudley reunited and waved goodbye to their children. Dudley was thankful that Albus was starting school that year too, at least Ricky and David would have someone they knew in their year. That was also the day that Harry and Dudley realized something. Standing with their families, on the platform of the Wizarding world, together after all of these years as family should be – both men had never been happier. If two people could come together after almost 20 years and put aside their differences like this, then it definately proved something – something that Vernon would still refuse to admit. Magic definitely did exist.