Art and Culture issues in oxford cowley road Essay

Art and Culture issues in oxford cowley road - Essay Example The tradition of celebrating the Cowley Road Carnival started in 2001. It was a regeneration project. Before the Carnival project, the Cowley Road had a notorious image of crime. It was the local communities demand to cleanse the Cowley Road from the negative impact through East Oxford Action’s regeneration programme. Since then, the Carnival has become a regular practice for the regeneration of the area (seco). The Cowley Road has become a place for art and culture exhibition openly. According to Marcusen (2006), artists are not evenly scattered in cities, their distribution depends on their choices to live, employment opportunities in industries like media, advertising and publishing and keen interest taken by local authorities to support art work for its development. Artists add to the regional economic growth by exporting their art work and creating opportunities for import functions from other cities and areas to their city. Smaller performing art spaces also play a significant part in expansion of art work to other areas. A group of artists get formed in such urban spaces where local art flourishes and gets a place in economy of the region (p.1). It seems so true of the experience the Cowley Road Carnival of cultural show is giving to the ethnic communities there. The Cowley Road Carnival attends to local communities’ aspirations by contributing to specific themes and resolving of certain issues, which have become a priority. Issues and themes include: The carnival has become a symbol of local peoples’ tolerance of each other communities with the celebration of their feelings through the multicultural show. The carnival has become a raging success because of the collaborative support from the people, groups, schools and local organisations, representing art and culture but where from these artists come? (seco, 2010) In this context, it is argued by social theorists that artists are the soul of society, attacking aggressively

Arguments For and Against Personality Predictors

Arguments For and Against Personality Predictors Arguments in favour Anyone seeking to measure personality has an abundance of useful psychometric instruments at their disposal, include the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) (e.g. Archer, 2005), the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) (Watkins et al, 1997), the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (Myers McCauley, 1985; McCrae Costa, 1989), and the, NEO Personality Inventory (revised) (Costa McCrae, 1992), and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (Cramer, 1996), just to mention a few. Thus it should be simple matter to generate a reliable and valid set of scores, which can then be used to make various predictions about future behaviour. Studies have shown that the more established personality tests have acceptable levels of reliability (i.e. they measure personality consistently, both in terms of stability over time/across situations, and internally), and validity (they seem to measure personality, rather than some other psychological feature) (e.g. Costa McCrae, 1992; Wa tkins et al, 1997). Indeed, use of some of these measures is so widespread that they have become a standard part of psychological assessments in health care and recruitment, marriage counselling, and other fields (Davey, 2004; Myers, 2007). The data obtained can for example be used to make a prediction about the success of a marriage, professional abilities of a candidate for a job, or medical outcomes. For example, the MMPI is regularly used to make determinations about future behavioural problems in psychiatric patients (Arbisi et al, 2002). The NEO Personality Inventory and Myers Briggs Type Indicator have been fund to be particularly useful at predicting future behaviour. For example Moutafi et al (2003) asked 900 people to complete various psychological tests as part of an exercise conducted by a business consulting company. These tests included the MBTI and the revised version of the NEO Personality Inventory. Multiple regression analysis showed that various personality scales contained in both personality inventories reliably predict multiple dimensions of intelligence, at the 5% level of significance (Howitt Cramer, 2005). Clearly, the availability of tried and tested measurement tools suggests that it personality can be measured reasonably accurately, and hence used as the basis for making predictions. Another argument concerns the dispositional nature of personality traits. Personality has long been conceptualised as a stable and enduring feature that once developed does not change much during a person’s lifetime (Allport, 1937; Ryckman, 2004). This stability means it is possible to formulate a clear idea about the nature of a person’s personality (e.g. using a personality test) (Myers, 2007). This idea, once formed, can then be used to make predictions. To better appreciate this argument consider more volatile psychological characteristic like stress or coping (Janis, 1986). A persons stress levels can fluctuate widely over any given period of time. For example, an individual may experience high stress levels when the go to work during the day, but then feel relaxed once they return home. Similarly an individual may become highly agitated when flying in an aircraft and then subsequently experience little or no stress once they are back on the ground. Given the volat ility of stress levels it may be rather difficult for a researcher to conduct an overall and accurate assessment of a person’s anxiety. By contrast, personality shows sufficient continuity to enable a researcher develop a reliable personality profile (Engler, 2006) for any one individual. The accuracy of personality measurement is facilitated by the availability of suitable statistical tools, notably factor analysis (Tabachnick Fidell, 1996; Field, 2000). Factor analysis is a statistical method that allows one to condense a large amount of data into a small number of more manageable dimensions. In particular, a persons’ responses to a large number of items in an inventory can be reduced to a small number of basic dimensions that encapsulate the individuals’ personality. This is important given that personality is a multidimensional construct that can be described with thousands of words, phrases, and sentences, in the English language (Livesley Jackson, 1986). Consequently, personality theorists have routinely used this test to identify the basic dimensions of personality, such Goldberg’s (1993) ‘Big Five’ personality themes – agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience. It is well known that renowned psychologist Hans Eysenck (Haggbloom, 2002) was one of those to first grasp the utility of factor analysis for developing accurate measures of personality. He subjected a large number of personality items to factor analyses, over several decades, yielding several dimensions: a proclivity to experience negative feelings, which he called neuroticism; an interest in social activity, labelled extraversion; and later a susceptibility to mental illness (e.g. schizophrenia), named psychoticism. These dimensions have been used to make predictions about a wide variety of behaviours, in many different situations (e.g. see review by Riggio Riggio, 2002). Furthermore, a person’s personality is a significant determinant of their behaviour in many different situations (Ryckman, 2004; Myers, 2007). This is a scientific fact, as demonstrated by the large number of studies that have used personality measures as the basis for determining various aspects of human behaviour under disparate conditions (McCrae Costa, 1990). For example, studies have shown how a defensive, unreceptive, or evasive personality can lead audiences to reject health warnings issued on a variety of topics and in a multiplicity of situations (see review by Eagly Chaiken, 1993). Empirical studies show that personality scores predict a significant amount of the variance in various behavioural scores, with the influence of chance factors falling below the five percent level (e.g. Moutafi et al, 2003). For this reason psychologists have spent a considerable amount of time and effort studying this construct. Once an accurate measurement of a persons personality have been obtained it should be fairly simple to make a significant prediction about their current or future behaviour in any given situation, using analytic procedures such as multiple regression analysis. Arguments against Psychologists cannot agree on the proper definition of personality, let alone measure it accurately and make reliable predictions. Open any relevant psychology textbook and one is confronted with several different theoretical accounts of precisely what personality means (e.g. Davey, 2004; Myers, 2007). For example, the legendary Sigmund Freud conceptualises personality as a multidimensional construct (incorporating the id, ego, and superego) that transcends the conscious, preconscious, and subconscious, and is driven by unconscious emotional problems. By contrast behaviourists, such as Burrhus Skinner, view personality as learned behaviours shaped by reinforcement and conditioning. Trait theorists like Gordon Allport conceptualise personality as stable behavioural characteristics that manifest across different situations. Thus, psychologists are far from reaching a consensus. Therefore, the idea that personality can be measured accurately is nonsensical. How can one measure a phenome non that isn’t clearly defined? Until psychologists can agree on a universal definition of personality, accurate measurement will remain an unattainable dream. At the beginning of this essay I provided a list of measurement tools for assessing personality, for example the MMPI, MBTI, and NEO personality inventory. While these instruments do appear to have some accuracy, their psychometric properties are continually the subject of doubt and criticism (e.g. McCrae Costa, 1989; Watkins et al, 1997). Reliability coefficients, while good, aren’t often high enough, and validity tests are rarely conclusive (Arbisi et al, 2002). Given these problems in the measurement of personality, accurate prediction of behaviour is bound to be impaired. For example, it is known fact that measurement error, resulting from the use unreliable and invalid measurement tools, can obscure significant relations between variables, resulting in a type II error (Baron Kenny, 1986; Howitt Cramer, 2 005). The idea that personality could be used to predict behaviour across situations rests on an important assumption – that how people respond in any given situation is necessarily predictable. The truth is that a person’s behaviour may sometimes be random with no apparent cause. This idea is echoes chaos theory (Gleick, 1987), a scientific school of thought that proposes that an event may be unpredictable due to various complexities or errors in its antecedent conditions. For example, long-term weather forecasting is often difficult because so many unstable climatic factors interact in such a complex fashion that minor changes in the nature of these interactions, and the elements which interact, could produce random, unpredictable, and escalating weather patterns. Chaos theory is applicable to the social sciences (Kiel Elliot, 1997). Different personality characteristics may interact (Howitt Cramer, 2005) in extremely complex fashions that any slight changes in the nature of these interactions or the variables involved can produce statistical and computational problems that reduce predictive power (Field, 2000). For example, any error in measurement of personality will be magnified to such an extent that it would obscure significant relationships between personality and behaviour. Baron and Kenny (1986) document this magnification in measurement error resulting from interactions between multiple variables. It means that behaviours produced by overly complex interactions between personality characteristics may to all intents and purposes be mathematically unpredictable, and hence appear random and sporadic, irrespective of the situation (Gleick, 1987). This is especially likely when trying to predict fleeting or eccentric behaviours (e.g. deliberate self-harm) often resulting from the complicated interplay between not just personality traits, but also other psychological phenomena, not to mention situational factors. There are others concerns. Psychologists can’t agree on whether personality traits are best conceptualised as stable entities that persist across situations or variable characteristics that change from one situation to the next (Davey, 2004). Which is it? Whatever view one subscribes to has measurement implications. Stable personality dispositions are generally more difficult to measure accurately, for various reasons (Leventhal et al, 1993). For example, people are less accurate at describing how they ‘generally’ behave, showing a memory bias towards positive rather than negative characteristics: in which case it would be more difficult to predict behaviour in any given situation, due to reliability and validity constraints. Finally, there is what social psychologists call the fundamental attribution error (Aronson, 1995). This refers to the tendency to overestimate the effect of personality on behaviour and underestimate the impact of the situation. Consider for example a person who has a fear of flying. They become highly stressed, agitated, and sometimes even panic stricken once a plane reaches cruising altitude. However, their anxiety disappears once the plane is back on the ground. The primary determinant of this individual’s emotional stress is situational – flying in a plane. Although personality may be important – for example, he/she may have a neurotic personality, making them more prone to stress (Riggio Riggio, 2002) – it would be a mistake to underestimate the effect of the situation (Janis, 1986; Engler, 2006). The essence of the fundamental attribution error here is thus: even if personality could be measured accurately, it may still fail to predict behaviour effectively to the extent that the behaviour in question is primarily a function of the situation rather than personality characteristics. Conclusion Can we predict a person’s response in any given situation if personality could be measured accurately? This essay presents arguments for and against. Regarding the former, psychometrically useful measures of personality abound, yielding reasonably reliable and valid personality scores that can be used for making behavioural predictions. Furthermore, analytic tools like factor analysis and the purportedly stable property of personality traits may both facilitate accurate measurement and further improve predictive power. Various empirical studies exist the support these arguments. However, there are several strong counterarguments that are difficult to refute. There is as yet in psychology no unanimous definition of personality. This raises serious questions about the psychometric attributes of any instrument that purports to measure personality. Indeed existing personality inventories are continually plagued by concerns about reliability and validity. Even without these psychom etric issues, a person’s behaviour is often heavily (if not entirely) determined by the prevailing situation, rather than their personality characteristics. Thus, even the most accurate personality measures will exhibit poor predictive power. In any case it is questionable whether human behaviour is always predictable. Certain responses may appear random, sporadic, and to all intents and purposes, unpredictable, due to analytic and methodological limits of existing science. In the midst of these constraining realities it is unlikely that personality traits could reliability predict behaviour across different situations References Allport, G. W. (1937). Personality: A Psychological Interpretation. New York: Holt,  Rinehart Winston. Arbisi, P., Ben-Porath Y. McNulty J (2002). A comparison of MMPI-2 validity in  African American and Caucasian psychiatric inpatients. Psychological  Assessment 14, pp.3-15. Archer, R.P. (2005). MMPI-A: Assessing Adolescent Psychopathology Lawrence  Erlbaum Associates Aronson, E. (1995) The Social Animal. New York: Freeman. Baron, R. M. Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in  social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical  considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51,  pp.1173‑1182. Costa, P.T., McCrae, R.R. (1992). Revised NEO personality inventory and NEO  five-factor inventory professional manual. Florida: Psychological Assessment  Resources, Inc. Cramer, P. (1996) Storytelling, Narrative, and the Thematic Apperception Test. New  York City: Guilford Press. Davey, G. (ed) (2004) Complete Psychology. London: Hodder Stoughton. Eagly, A. Chaiken, S (1993). The Psychology of Attitudes, Fort Worth, TX:  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Engler, B. (2006). Personality Theories. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Field, A. (2000) Discovering Statistics using SPSS for Windows: Advanced  techniques for the Beginner. London: Sage. Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American  Psychologist, 48, pp.26-34. Haggbloom, S.J. (2002). The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century.  Review of General Psychology, 6, pp.139-152. Howitt, D. Cramer, D. (2005) Introduction to Research Methods in Psychology.  London: Pearson. Janis, I.L. (1986). Coping patterns among patients with life-threatening diseases.  Issues in Mental Health. Nursing, 7, pp.461–476. Kiel, L. D. Elliott, E.W. (eds) (1997). Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences:  Foundations Applications. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.. Livesley, W. J., Jackson, D. N. (1986). The internal consistency and factorial structure  of behaviors judged to be associated with DSM-III personality disorders.  American Journal of Psychiatry, 143, pp.1473-1474. Leventhal, E.A., Suls, J. Leventhal, H. (1993) Hierarchical analysis of coping:  Evidence from lifespan studies. In. H.W. Krohne (ed) Attention and Avoidance.  (pp.71-99) Seattle, Hogrefe and Huber Publishers. McCrae, R.R. Costa, P.T (1989) Reinterpreting the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator  From the Perspective of the Five-Factor Model of Personality. Journal of  Personality, 57, pp.17-40 Moutafi, J., Furnham, A., Crump, J. (2003). Demographic and personality  predictors of intelligence: A study using the Neo Personality Inventory and  Myers Briggs Type Indicator. European Journal of Personality, 17, pp.79–94. Myers, D. G. (2007). Psychology: Eighth edition in modules. New York: Worth  Publishers. Myers, I., McCauley, M.H. (1985), A Guide to the Development and Use of the  Myers Briggs Type Indicator, Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Ryckman, R. (2004). Theories of Personality. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth. Riggio, H.R. Riggio, R.E. (2002) Emotional expressiveness, extraversion   neuroticism: a meta-analysis. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 26, pp.195-218. Tabachnick, B.G. Fidell, L.S. (1996). Using Multivariate Statistics. New York:  HarperCollins Watkins, M.W., Kush, J., Glutting, J.J. (1997). Discriminant and predictive validity  of the WISC-III ACID profile among children with learning disabilities.  Psychology in the Schools, 34, pp.309-319.

Bill Gates :: essays research papers

In his high school years, Bill Gates proclaimed that one day he would be a millionaire. He greatly underestimated himself. He became interested in computers while in the 8th grade. His school received a hookup to a high powered computer. Bill and his good friend Paul Allen used to skip gym class to use the computer. Sometimes they would even break into the school at night to spend time on the computer. Eventually Bill made his first program. A virtual tic-tac-toe game. The Computer Center Corporation (CCC) wanted to rent a computer from the Digital Co., but they couldn't pay for it. Digital said they would provide it at no cost if they could find any bugs in their computer. CCC put an add out in the local paper, and Bill and Paul applied immediately. Although skeptical about hiring two teenagers to do the job, their doubts were quickly dissolved. When they were done, Bill and Paul had compiled a list of bugs that was over 300 pages long! Bill was next hired by his school. They wanted him to write a program for use in class scheduling. Bill was happy to do it. He used a programming language called FORTRAN for the first time in this program. FORTRAN was one of the major languages later used at Microsoft. With this program, Bill first took advantage of his skills. He designed the program to put him in classes with no other boys and all the girls he thought were cute, what a guy! At this time Paul and Bill also started their first company called Traf-O-Data. Keep in mind that they are still in high school! They designed a program that could analyze traffic counts by machine so counties could get government funding for road projects. They had clients in British Colombia and Delaware but went out of business in 1973 when the government offered the same services for no charge. Bill Gates scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT's. However, instead of going into computers, which would seem logical, he went to Harvard to become a lawyer. In 1974, a company in Albuquerque, NM, known as MITS made the first home computer. The computer was useless because it had no monitor or keyboard. In place, it had switches to input data and a device similar to a printer to display data. This computer was called Altair and when Bill and Paul heard about it, they were a-twitter.

Diabetes in Developing Countries

Diabetes in developing countries Deaths from diabetes, which has two primary forms including type1 and type2 diabetes, have become a significant problem in the world. Nowadays, diabetes is still a disease not having precise method to cure. As a result of surplus blood sugar, it has a negative effect on the human body and leads to several complications, such as vision problems, kidney damage, nerve damage and heart and circulation problems (Pollock, 2006). Consequently, the increased risk of these diseases makes it become one of the major causes of deaths.For example, according to the WHO (2011), more than 346 million people were diagnosed with it worldwide and between 50% and 80% of them died from CVD. With the development of health care, the mortality in developed countries was decrease, while the situation in developing countries is so serious that 80% of diabetes deaths exist in low and middle income countries (WHO, 2011). For instance, such countries in The Middle East, Pacific I slands and Southeast Asia had 115million diabetic patients in 2000 and the WHO (2011) predicts that the number will double between 2005 and 2030.To mitigate the effects of diabetes, the causes of it need to be detected. Type 1 diabetes, which is known by lacking insulin production, results from several causes and possible factors. First, genes attribute mainly to it. More than 18 genetic locations related to it have been discovered by researchers and they have found that people with an especially HLA complex which means human leukocyte antigen, are more likely to develop it. A good illustration of it is other autoimmune disorders may caused by such complexes, such as rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, or juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (Smith, 2010).The second factor is a viral infection which may affects the disease by attacking immune system. For instance, Kamiah (2010) states that a series of diseases from gastrointestinal problems to myocarditis can created by the coxsa ckie B virus. In addition, there are some special conditions which may attribute to it. For example, certain drugs including corticosteroids, beta blockers, and phenytoin, rare genetic disorders such as Klinefelter syndrome and Wolfram syndrome, and hormonal disorders such as acromegaly and hyperthyroidism all raise the possibility of it (Simon, 2009).It has been one of the most increased diseases worldwide, however, type 2 diabetes is more common. Unlike type 1 diabetes, causes of type 2 diabetes, which results from the ineffective use of insulin (WHO,2011), usually are multifactorial. First, being overweight or obese is a primary reason for it. The increased risk of it may bring several complications including heart disease, stroke and some cancers. A good illustration of this is 82% of people with it are caused by overweight or obese and such complications (Vann,2009).The second is genetic factors which have been found more than 10 genic material associated with it. For example, there are more possibilities for people to get it if they have close relatives having it, such as parents and siblings. Thirdly, ethnic origin also plays a part in it. For instance, NHS (2010) points out that people with it from South Asian, African, and Middle Eastern are six times likely than people in the UK. In addition, incorrect living styles such as poor eating habits, too much TV time and physical inactivity also have a negative effect on it.It is often not a single factor but two or more causes above combined to lead to it. According to the CDC (2010), such combinations give rise to approximately 95% of it in the U. S. As can be seen from data, diabetes in developing countries has become a huge problem and the mortality from it has a continued increase worldwide. Not only government, but people should change their attitudes and aware the importance in order to prevent it.

Jack Ma (Ma, Yun), “Alibaba” of China’s E-Commerce Business

Alibaba Group, even only with 12years history, is one of the biggest e-commerce platforms for small businesses in the world. Its business includes: Alibaba. com, which is for small firms to find customers and suppliers without going through middlemen, has 57million users, nearly in every country. Another marketplace, Taobao. com, is for individuals buying goods from each other; it has 300million customers and $29 billion-worth of goods. Also, China Yahoo! , One of China's leading Internet portals, was acquired by Alibaba in 2005 as part of its strategic partnership with Yahoo! Inc. In 2010, the revenue of Alibaba Group increased by 49% and with 47% profit increase compared to 2009. It had been named by Forbes as one of the best B2B platforms in the world for 5 years. Jack Ma (Ma, Yun), the founder of Alibaba, is the key to lead the success of Alibaba. Ma was chosen by the World Economic Forum as a â€Å"Young Global Leader† in 2001; He was named one of the â€Å"25 Most Powerful Businesspeople in Asia† by Fortune in 2005. He shows his charisma always, in front of his employees, and also be admired by all youngsters in China who dream to found their own companies. Jack Ma reveals his transformational leadership from the set-up stage. By envisioning his vision and the desirable future, even though without any promises of return, he built up an 18-â€Å"Arhats† team to start this â€Å"new concept† business in China. After developing B2B business, Jack Ma has created and grasped big opportunities in these 12 years in C2C platform, online payment system, loan service, etc†¦huge investments didn’t give him and his team any chances to retreat, with the high expectations ; inspirational motivations, his team has gained successes of almost all strategic business plans. But recently in Feb, 2010, Alibaba admitted that it had granted â€Å"gold† global suppliers (a mark of supposed integrity) to 2,236 dealers who it says subsequently defrauded buyers globally in 2009 and 2010. The top two executives at Alibaba. com have resigned to accept responsibility. In the statement from Alibaba, an internal investigation had found that about 100 sales staff and â€Å"a number of supervisors and sales managers† were â€Å"directly responsible in either intentionally or negligently allowing the fraudsters to evade† various controls. Conclusion of the investigation report is: Excessive pursuit of performance makes the sales/managers to obtain short-term economic interests by any means, leading to the persistence of fraud. Jack Ma expressed his pity to lost 2 good leaders, especially when they were not personally involved in the fraud for any direct benefits. But Alibaba should be holding on the ethical principles, customer first value. Jack Ma emphasized that Ethics is the baseline when pursuing for performance. Although CEO or Alibaba. com – David Wei had lead to 4 years big increases, he still chose to agree his resignation. However, it shows that as the company is getting bigger, Jack Ma met difficulty to drive his own values ; principles to the whole organization sustainably, if just by personal influence. As a big company already, should be Alibaba directed and managed by one people, or managed based on effective systems are more important at this stage? The origin of the fraud was: the performance evaluation system in B2B team(Alibaba. com) relies on Sales KPI too much. If Ma wants to get company’s value ; principles back, review and re-design would be necessary. As an individual, Ma can’t influence over 22,000 employees directly. When getting to mature stage of Alibaba, Ma’s leadership needs to be more focusing on build up the suitable systems to motivate employees in the right direction. This also reflects in another area, assessing ; selecting the right leaders and the systems to develop talents. In the past 4 years, Ma changed 3 people for CEO for Yahoo(China) from hiring externally. Furthermore, he is still the one who leads the business direction/strategy on his own. In stead of challenging the followers to get them developing fast enough to lead the business, Jack Ma preferred to hire CEO out of Alibaba in the past few years. but still, what’s getting better is, we can see recently, he started to put his followers into bigger ; leading roles to lead the business directly as they are getting more mature. Jack Ma ; Alibaba Group is facing fierce competitions from the threat of new entrants-some big internet companies in China. Let’s talk a look whether Ma’s leadership will help Alibaba group achieve it’s â€Å"Big Taobao† strategy, and go forward in the future. References: 1. Alibaba, China's king of e-commerce, http://www.economist.com/node/17800299 2. Alibaba and the 2236 thieves, http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/02/online-fraud_scandal_china 3. www.alibaba.com 4. http://baike.baidu.com/view/2296.htm