Job Satisfaction Essay

INTRODUCTION Job satisfaction is one of the most important areas of research for many researchers, and as such it is one of the most frequently studies work attitude. We observe closely that in most organizations the job satisfaction is highly depend upon employee’s performance, employee’s attitudes, organizational support & job commitment. (Muhammad Masroor Alam).We are studying about that factors which the employee is satisfied with his/her job. Some more important factors are HR management policies & relationship with co-workers. Primarily pay has been considered as the major factor for job satisfaction however other related Factors like promotion, work efforts and the importance/challenge of the job are also taken into Account. Through HR management policies increase effectiveness in employees relationship, personal communication & strong decision making. (Effects  of job satisfaction). The main objective of our research is known how different factors affect an employee during his /her job. Job satisfaction and its related factors like style of management style, leadership behavior & coworker relationship played important role to increase satisfaction level of employee. Job satisfaction is influenced by many organizational contextual factors, ranging from salaries, job autonomy, job security, workplace flexibility, to leadership. In particular, leaders within organizations can adopt appropriate leadership styles to affect employee job satisfaction, commitment and productivity.it is true to said that A satisfy employee is an important resource of employee for achieving organizational goals. High job satisfaction enhances employees’ psychological and physical wellbeing (Ilardi, Leone, Kansser, & Ryan, 1983)Primarily pay has been considered as the major factor for job satisfaction however other related factors like promotion, work efforts and the importance/chal lenge of the job are also taken into account. The banking sector in Pakistan after changing rapidly into a services sector has a lot of emphasis on its customers both internal and external. A common phrase implied in the corporate world is that satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customer retention is highly dependent on how employees deal with customers. Satisfied employees are more likely to be friendly, upbeat, and responsive which the customers appreciate. (Kamal) Morale of employee is also played a role as an important factor that influences the employee satisfaction. Employee morale is the spirit, or tone, of an organization. According to a January 2005 article in Entrepreneur, morale is an effect, or end result, of workplace conditions, relationships, changes or other elements. Job Satisfaction is the most common way of measurement is the use of rating scales where employees report their reactions to their jobs. Questions relate to rate of pay, work responsibilities, variety of tasks, promotional opportunities, the work itself and co-workers. Some questioners ask yes or no questions while others ask to rate satisfaction on 1-5 scale (where 1 represents â€Å"not at all satisfied† and 5 represents â€Å"extremely satisfied†). To sum up each element of the organization environment and system can contribute. To or detract from job satisfaction (William B. Werthe, 2000) Every organization tries to achieve their objectives. In this connection they must concentrate in many aspects. As human resource of an  organization is considered as an importance resource,organizations wish to keep well trai ned and effective work force. LITRATURE REVIEW Employee satisfaction is the terminology used to describe whether employees are happy and contented and fulfilling their desires and needs at work. Many measures purport that employee satisfaction is a factor in employee motivation, employee goal achievement, and positive employee morale in the workplace. Employee satisfaction, while generally a positive in your organization, can also be a downer if mediocre employees stay because they are satisfied with your work environment (Airborne) In this review we discuss that that a number of researcher have emphasized the importance of factors affecting job satisfaction. Job satisfaction involves several different spheres such as satisfaction with pay, promotion opportunities, fringe benefits, job security and the importance/challenge of the job. (Nguyen, 2000). In today’s turbulent, often chaotic, environment, commercial success depends on employees using their full talents. Yet in spite of the myriad of available theories and practices, managers often view motivation as something of a mystery. In part this is because individuals are motivated by different things and in different ways. In addition, these are times when delayering and the flattening of hierarchies can create insecurity and lower staff morale. Moreover, more staff than ever before are working part time or on limited-term contracts, and these employees are often especially hard to motivate. Twyla Dell writes of motivating employees, â€Å"The heart of motivation is to give people what they really want most from work. The more you are able to provide what they want, the more you should expect what you really want, namely: productivity, quality, and service.† (An Honest Day’s Work (1988)). Career development involves managing your career either within or between organizations. It also includes learning new skills, and making improvements to help you in your career. Career development is an ongoing, lifelong process to help you learn and achieve more in your career. By creating a personal career development plan, you can set goals and objectives for your own personal career growth. (Career Development) Colleague morale of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.  (Weekly Electronics). The focus of literature on promotion systems is their validity in predicting performance, another factor to consider is the length of time that a system will continue to be used. Over time, one would expect promotion and selection systems to be modified or replaced entirely. The cost of administering performance testing is considerable, and management periodically evaluates a system’s validity and its ability to assess employee attitudes, qualifications and perception of business need (Smith, 2007). It is worth considering why firms might use promotions for incentives. Individualistic schemes, especially ones that do not depend on job assignments, allow more flexibility in providing incentives. In other words, promotions are often used to achieve two goals simultaneously that in principle might be separated: putting employees in the right jobs, and generating motivation. Thus, it is not immediately obvious why promotions should be used as incentives. (Gibbs). An important reason that promotions are sources of incentives is worker reputation, or â€Å"career concerns† (Fama, 1980). Where does reputation come from? Often it is the worker’s history of positions or promotions which provides the greatest evidence on productivity and potential. (Waldman, 1984).Social interaction with colleagues is a highly valued job aspect for many workers. Research in psychology, sociology, and management shows that receiving affective support from colleagues and having good interpersonal relationships at work are positively associated with job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. (Sol, August 3, 2009). Social interaction with colleagues is also one of the most missed job aspects under retired workers in Australia. (Shacklock, 2005). Lastly, using time-use data for France and the US, Krueger and Schkade (2007) show that worker who are in jobs that entail more frequent interactions with co-workers are more satisfied with their jobs and in a better mood during work time. (Sol, August 3, 2009). These findings have a clear managerial implication: In their struggle to attract and retain workers, managers should strive to create and maintain high-quality co-worker relationships. Employees, who satisfy with their job, may exert high effort to organization wish to satisfy their employees for getting effective more work done. To make the best use of people as a valuable resource of the organization attention must be given to the relationship between staff and the nature and content of their jobs. The organization and the design of jobs can have a significant effect on staff. Attention needs to be given to the quality of working life. According to organizational commitment can be defined as an employee’s level of identification and involvement in the organization. Mowday et al.defined organizational commitment as a strong belief in an organization’s goals, and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of an organization and a strong desire to remain a member of the organization . Age and job tenure are significant predictors of organizational commitment. Job satisfaction as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience. It is a result of employee’s perception of how well their job provides those things that are viewed as important. Several researchers have reported mixed findings on the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment. For instance, Curry, Wakefield, Price and Mueller found no significant relationship between the two. However, other researchers. Many studies use different facets of job satisfaction to predict organizational commitment. Job satisfaction is a key instrument to gauge the organizational health as service quality largely depends upon the human resources. (Crossman & Abou-Zaki, 2003). Since the transformation of personnel into HR, and its inception in the industry new concepts related to human capital has been emerging day by day. Apart from the bread and butter the organization used to act as their sanctuary and no one was much concerned about the job itself or job satisfaction. Locke (1976) defined job satisfaction as â€Å"a pleasurable or positive emotional state, resulting from the appraisal of one’s job experiences.† In general, therefore, job satisfaction refers to an individual’s positive emotional reactions to a particular job. In Pakistan the concept of HR is also flourishing day by day and employers as well as the employees are getting awareness of their rights and demands. Job satisfaction involves several different spheres such as satisfaction with pay, promotion opportunities, fringe benefits, job security and the importance/challenge of the job (Nguyen, 2000).Job satisfaction can lead to cost reduction by reducing absences, task errors, and turnover. Since work is an important aspect of people’s lives and most people spend a large part of their working lives at work, understanding the factors involved in job satisfaction is crucial to improving employees’  performance and productivity. Job satisfaction has often been linked to organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and absenteeism. These variables are costly to an organization, as they could lead to low morale, poor performance, lower productivity, and higher costs of hiring, retention, and training. (Opkara, 2002).Recent studies emphasize that job satisfaction may be an important determinant of the choice between self- and wage-employment (Blanch-flower 2000, 2004; Georgellis et al. 2007; Taylor 1996, 1999). THEORATICAL FRAMEWORK JOB SATISFACTION JOB SATISFACTION Relationship with Co-workers Relationship with Co-workers FAIR PROMOTIONS FAIR PROMOTIONS Organizational research indicates that employees develop attitudes toward such job facets as work variety, pay, promotion, co-workers, company policies, and supervisors (Johnson & Johnson, 2000;Taber & Alleger, 1995). Job design affect the job satisfaction, as jobs that are rich in behavioral Elements such as variety autonomy, task unimportance and feedback contribute to employees satisfaction. (Kamal) .Locke (1976) defined job satisfaction as â€Å"a pleasurable or positive emotional state, resulting from the appraisal of one’s job experiences.† Job satisfaction has significance towards human health both physical and mental and is positively or negatively correlated. . Satisfied employees are more likely to be friendly, upbeat, and responsive which the customers appreciate. (R. T. Mowday, 1982 New York) The purpose of study is to investigate about the relationship of job satisfaction with fair promotion & relation with coworkers of the organization. HYPOTHESIS Based on the literature discussed this study attempted to answer the following questions: 1) Increase in promotion increases job satisfaction. 2) Increase in relation with coworkers increases job satisfaction. So there is a positive relationship between fair promotion, Relationship with coworkers & job satisfaction. METHODOLOGY A sample of 60 employees was randomly selected from different education institutes & different public offices in Rawalpindi & Islamabad. Purpose of study is descriptive because we know something but exactly we want to prove this about the characteristic of employees. Convert it in exactitude i.e. Mean, Median, Mode. Sampling used in this research is convenience sampling. Different educational institutes in Pakistan were targeted in the vicinity of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. . The target audience was officer level & Teachers. . A tested questionnaire has been used with a number of variables related to job satisfaction, Promotion & Relationship with Coworkers. Questionnaires were circulated among the employers and their responses were collected. A total of one hundred questionnaires were distributed out of which sixty questionnaires were filled by the respondents, which is successful ratio in social research. The major problems faced during the data collection procedure were mostly peoples’ unwillingness to fill and not taking this as a serious research. Another problem was that employees were reluctant to write the truth as their supervisors might know and would create problems for them in future. However, once they were realized that this effort is done purely for research purposes and their responses should not bear their identity as well as will be kept confidential then they filled the questionnaires with ease. Data analysis in a quantitative research is essential as the interpretation and coding of responses can be very critical. The analysis part has been dealt with using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The questions and responses were coded and entered in SPSS for analysis followed by the interpretation of the results. The variables were coded in SPSS and certain statistical methods were applied on the data to get the results which were analyzed. In the first instance the reliability of the tool used was measured to find out whether the instrument used is reliable or not. Their satisfaction with promotional opportunities, co-workers was also compared. Linear regression analysis was employed to examine the  relationship between different overall job satisfaction, promotion and co-workers. ANOVA along with its extensions has been used for comparing means and the results. Simple correlation has also been applied to the data to find out relationships among different variables and a comprehensive regression model with its extensions is applied. Reliability Analysis In the first instant the reliability analysis using the SPSS was done to find out the reliability of the instrument used for data collection. Cronbach’s alpha is the most common form of internal consistency reliability coefficient. The value of alpha should lie between 0 and 1. * Reliability of job satisfaction is 0.645 & the no. of items is 8 * Reliability of promotion is 0.667 & the no. of items is 2 * Reliability of relation with coworkers is 0.537 & the no. of items is 4 Correlation Analysis Correlation is a statistical tool which can determine the strength and direction of relationship between two variables. The value of correlation ranges from +1 to -1 and both these values show strong positive and negative relationships. While the value 0 show no relationship. Results shows that the correlation between relation with coworkers, Promotion, Job Satisfaction. The value of correlation coefficient for coworkers & promotion with job satisfaction is 0.209 and 0.420 simultaneously, which shows a positive relationship of both variables with job satisfaction. This relationship is significant at ÃŽ ± 0.01.for coworkers & 0.110 for promotion. Promotion & coworkers are equally correlate with each other at 0.232 & level of significance is 0.074 of both. Regression Analysis The value of is 0.436, and R Square is 0.190. The value of R shows a moderate to strong positive relationship between two variables and job satisfaction. The value of R Square shows that model explains 19% variance in job satisfaction. The rest of variance is explained by other variables not included in the model. This results support our alternate hypothesis which assumed a causal relationship between our model (independent and dependent variables). CONCLUSION This research accepted that the employee’s promotion and relation with  coworkers has positive impact on job satisfaction. That is high level of fair promotion, good working condition leads to high level job satisfaction. So we accept our H1 that shows positive relationship b/w job satisfaction, promotion and relation with coworkers. There are several factors affecting employees’ satisfaction, but as a researcher we consider only two independent variables: promotion, relationship with coworkers. We take minimum sample of 60 and it take less time through less financing. The entire formulated hypothesis have been accepted, it is necessary to improve job satisfaction through promotion and relation with coworkers. Following are some suggestions given to improve job satisfaction. * Organization should develop good working condition. This facilitates employees to do their work effectively. * Organization should develop good relationship among employees. Through which, promotion of employees is enhanced. As a research, employee’s job satisfaction will be at high level. * Organization should provide unbiased promotion. That is promotion should be provided based on the qualification of employees and or experience. References [1]. G. Beukhof, M. J. de Jong and W. J. Nijhof, â€Å"Employee Commitment in Changing Organization: An Exploration,† Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 22,No. 6, 1998, pp. 243-248. [2]. Thornhill, P. Lewis and M. N. K. Saunders, â€Å"The Role of Employee Communication in Achieving Commitment and Quality in Higher Education,† Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1996, pp. 12-20. [3]. R. W. Rowden, â€Å"The Relationship between Charismatic Leadership Behaviors and Organizational Commitment,† Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol.21, 2000, pp. 30-35. [4]. R. T. Mowday, L. W. Porter and R. M. Steers, â€Å"Employee-Organization Linkages: The Psychology of Commitment, Absenteeism and Turnover,† Academic Press,Inc., New York, 1982. [5]. L. T. Mullins, â€Å"Management and Organizational Behavior,† 5th Edition, Financial Times Management, London,1999. [6]. S. O. Salami, â€Å"Demographic and Psychological Factors Predicting Organizational Commitment among Industrial Workers,† Anthropologist, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2008, pp. 31-38. [7]. E. Luthans, â€Å"Organizational Behavior,† Irwin/McGraw Hill, New York, 1998. [8]. J. Curry, D. Wakefield, J. Price and C. Mueller, â€Å"On the Causal Ordering of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment,† Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 29,No. 4, 1986, pp. 847-858. [9]. B. Mannheim, Y. Baruch and J. Tal, â€Å"Alternative Models for Antecedents and Outcomes of Work Centrality and Job Satisfaction of High-Tech Personnel,† Human Relations, Vol. 50, No. 12, 1997, pp. 1537-1562. [10]. T. Busch, L. Fallan and A. Pettersen, â€Å"Disciplinary Differences in Job Satisfaction Self-Efficacy, Goal Commitment and Organizational Commitment among Faculty Employees in Norwegian Colleges: An Empirical Assessment of Indicators of Performance,† Quality in Higher Education, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1998, pp. 137-157.

On the black hill family and identity Essay

The fact that they remained bachelors, despite Lewis’ desperate longing for a woman in his life, is also the work of Mary, who, knowing that Benjamin will never want to marry, made Lewis promise â€Å"never to marry unless Benjamin did too†. Lewis is identified by his love of aviation and longing for adventure, but he is tied down by family obligations. He is aware that his life would be different if not for the inescapable bond binding him to Benjamin, stating â€Å"Sometimes, I lie awake and wonder what’d happen if him weren’t there†¦ Then I’d have had my own life, like? Had kids? † Ironically, it is his family that sets him ‘free’ in the end and satisfies his desire for an heir and an adventure. This comes in the form of Kevin Redpath, the twins’ long lost nephew, who comes back to inherit the farm and also give Lewis an opportunity to do what he had always desired, to fly an aeroplane. These â€Å"ten magnificent minutes† completes the missing part of Lewis’ identity, and â€Å"all the frustrations of his cramped and frugal life now counted for nothing†. No other family is described in such detail as the Joneses, but their neighbours, the Watkinses from ‘The Rock’ also shows how a family-style group affects the identities of the individuals in the family. The Watkins family is a rather complicated family, for Tom and Aggie Watkins can not have kids of their own and hence resort to adoption. The Watkinses show that despite having no biological ties, the family environment can also affect the characters and lives of individuals. The Watkins family is a typical poor low-class Welsh family, and the adopted children consist of Jim, Ethel, Sarah, Lizzie and Brennie hence turn out to be uneducated children, â€Å"If anyone said, ‘He was raised at The Rock’ , or ‘She was reared at The Rock’, you knew for sure the child was illegitimate or loony. † This shows that the family environment plays a big part in who they are, and how other people view them. In the end, Sarah, Lizzie and Brennie all marry off and escape from The Rock. Lizzie â€Å"pretended The Rock did not exist†, and while Sarah still kept an eye on The Rock, â€Å"her one great fear was of lapsing into poverty†, clearly a fear born out of her experience of childhood poverty. Lizzie and Sarah are examples of the opposite way which family can affect children; instead of falling into the patterns of the family themselves, the children choose to escape and fear these patterns. This opposing respond to family pattern is also evident in David Malouf’s Fly Away Peter, where Jim Saddler fears of inheriting his father’s ‘savagery’ and tries to keep it â€Å"at arm’s length†. On the other hand, Jim’s biological children seem to inherit his traits. For example, Ethel’s son Alfie was identified as Jim’s son for â€Å"the lad had Jim’s carroty hair and cauliflower ears†. Alfie also â€Å"grew up simple†, the result of inheriting the combination of both Jim and Ethel’s mental disabilities. As the novel progresses, Jim has another child, this time Mrs. Musker’s. His daughter Meg is even more like him; she grows up to share his love for animals, mistrust of outsiders. She even speaks like him, and clings to The Rock with fierce determination and optimism. Like the twins, Meg’s identity is shaped greatly by her parent, and she continues his way of life even after his death. The Bickerton family is one of the more minor families in On the Black Hill. A high-class English family, the Bickertons owned the Lurkenhope estate and hence was possibly the most powerful family in the village. In contrast to the Watkinses, the family environment of the Bickertons is wealthy, refined, and educated, and hence the children of Colonel and Mrs. Bickerton, Reggie, Nancy and Isobel, are naturally identified as figures of the higher class. As a result, Reggie grows up to be an arrogant and overly-confident young man and went â€Å"to war with a head full of chilvaric notions of duty to caste and country†. These â€Å"chilvaric notions† are most likely the influence of Colonel Bickerton, who has been persuading all young men to fight for their country. Even after coming home crippled, he â€Å"made light of his injuries with upper-class stoicism† and his high-handed treatment of Rosie Fifield shows that his arrogance hasn’t changed. On the other hand, his sister Nancy Bickerton shows traits of Mrs. Bickertons; like the way her mother seeks companionship in Mary, Nancy is bored by the gentry and finds great pleasure in the twins’ visits. Even the way she offers tea to the twin reflects her mother’s; â€Å"China or Indian? † Nancy is hence another example of an identity shaped by her parent and upbringing. Thus the identity-shaping forces of family are quite evident in the families of On the Black Hill. These are clearly portrayed through the characters of the Joneses twins Lewis and Benjamin, whose identities and lives are clearly shaped by their order of birth, their roles in the farm and the house, the traits they inherit from their parents, their upbringing, as well as their bond to each other. Their way of living even after the death of Amos and Mary reveal how the impact of these family dynamics can last forever, also portrayed through the way Meg or Nancy each inherit their parents’ traits and behaviours. On the other hand, these impacts can also have an opposite effect, as shown by Lizzie and Sarah in the way they try to fight against the Watkinses’ family pattern of poverty-stricken lives by leaving The Rock. Through On the Black Hill, Chatwin patently demonstrates the relationship between one’s identity and family, reinforcing the notion that our families make us who we are today. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Miscellaneous section.

How Information Literacy Influences Scholarship, Practice

Higher education is widely recognized for academic excellence; students come from all over to study in U. S. colleges and universities. At the same time colleges and universities are often criticized for their unmanageable administration, organizational incompetence, and a lack of service orientation Ruben, B (2005). To the extent that these circumstances are present within a particular institution, they contribute to the critique of higher education in general, but also more directly undermine the perceived value of faculty and staff work, weaken financial and political support, and create barriers to fulfilling the mission of the institution (Ruben, 2005) College administrations have unmanageable direction because of a generation gap. Different generations have a different way of learning. Teachers have a hard time teaching the Net Generation students how to properly to research information because the Net Gen students depend highly on the Internet and Google scholar to retrieve their information. Students lack an understanding of what constitutes good-quality scholarly information (Badke, 2009) Teachers presently let the students use their search engine for information the students in higher education are making libraries last on their list for resource information simply because they were not taught the old methods of researching in a brick and mortar library. Researchers found that current and future generations are lazy and would rather watch videos or tutorials instead of reading information found in text materials. Why did they become lazy? In the early 1990’s the World Wide Web was born and it made life and researching easier, not thinking that the information could be erroneous ( Badke, 2009). Anyone pursuing higher education will have to obtain to the thought of incorporating scholar practice of information literacy. Students lack an understanding of what constitutes good-quality scholarly information. Students have difficulty evaluating the glut of information available and depend on questionable sources. (Russell, 2009) Information competence is a basis for long-life learning competence. It is necessary in any way of learning, it makes learning needs-oriented, more self-directed. Information competence is a skill to determine the size of the necessary information; to use the necessary information effectively; to evaluate the information and its sources critically; to develop own knowledge base with the information chosen; to effectively use the information for goal achievement Ruben, B (2005). Not less important is the skill to understand, at what time some information is needed, as well as the skill to get, evaluate, and use the information effectively. Information is available at libraries, public resources, special organizations, media, the Internet, but the information received in a non-filtered way, which arouses a question about the material authenticity, validity, and quality. (Turusheva, 2009) Students will hopefully grow stronger in the use of information literacy, and then society can be exposed to higher educational opportunities such as universities, trade colleges, skill centers, or career enhancement programs. Today’s society is experiencing a need for individuals to take an interest to learn (Thrusheva, 2009). Citizens can take control of their own learning by exposing information literacy for the following reasons: students could become open to higher education and technology, students communicate in an educational setting, and students relate to the numerous students. To correct everything for the next generation must first let the Net Generation know that all the information received on the Internet is not accurate and familiarize them with how to research material other ways. Next we must show that the academic libraries will be very comfortable with the new environment. (Badke, 2009) Letting the new generation just use the Internet makes the brick and mortar libraries become more unfamiliar to them. The world is changing before our very eyes. Elementary teachers point to documents, standards, and programs for information literacy as far a few decades in the past. Students tend to trust the beginning of the Google results or lack the skills to evaluate what they have found (Badke, 2009). Secondary school students have hardly any understanding about the library systems. Google dominates the universities with Google Books and scholar. Now is the time to start to educate all students about the Internet and they need to understand it. Teachers should educate the future students about information, and to go beyond Google. Students can benefit from using more sophisticated researching techniques, so that they can go beyond the search engine (Badke, 2009). To understand Scholarship, Practitioner and Leadership Model is essential to guidance in the field of education. Recognizing and classifying strengths and weaknesses within the institutes is essential to survival. Specifically, organizational information literacy can press forward toward the next level. Expanded literacy will provide opportunities for collaboration and feedback, which will grow the organization. The SPL model works interdependently with information literacy, in that one cannot survive without the other.

Counterterrorism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Counterterrorism - Essay Example The government became stricter in implementing rules and evaluating traders, immigrants, and other travelers going inside the country. Drug traffic is also carefully monitored. The military is also taking action in the war against terrorism. A bigger budget is allocated to support the war. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11 , 2001 , Arab, Muslim, Sikh, and South-Asian Americans, and those perceived to be members of these groups, have been the victims of increased numbers of bias-related assaults, threats, vandalism and arson in the United States. In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the United States and other countries around the world were placed on a high state of alert against potential follow-up attacks. It is defined as the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons. We often hear the term terrorists'' to describe the bad guys or terrorism'' to describe every act that opposes the government. It has been used so loosely that we need to redefine the term to give back its meaning. "This is a proposal to lend some clarity to the definition, and thus hopefully to the use, of the word terrorism. Currently, the term terrorism is applied to the use of force most often on the basis of whether the speaker agrees with the goal of the violence. Hence the expression . One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." (The Rational Radical, 2001) Homegrown terrorists Most of the time, terrorism is directly associated to the Muslims. Actually, one's conversion to Islam does make him more likely to be a terrorist. It can not be denied that religion greatly influences one's beliefs, morals, ideologies and way of life. Although being a Muslim does not make one an instant terrorist, they are more exposed to the preaching of the Islamic extremists. This makes them more vulnerable, especially because Muslims are noted to be an incredibly united group. They share the same beliefs and goals. One's enemy becomes the enemy of the whole Muslim community. This is why the United States is alarmed by the radicalization of American-Muslim converts. Although the government is doing everything to reinforce the security against outside terrorists, it should be pointed out that rebellion inside the country poses a serious threat to national security. Much attention is also needed to fight domestic terrorism. Domestic terrorists are driven by their political and social beliefs. They are the government's opposition. They go all-out to fight for their beliefs, including stealing, hurting civilians, and other criminal acts. These homegrown terrorists are very diverse and their familiarity and easy access to the country makes them more dangerous. Some of the most distinguished domestic terrorist groups are the white supremacists, the black separatists, and the militia/sovereign citizen movement. The white supremaci

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Symphony No 1 (Brahms Analysis) - Essay Example The popularity and success of this Symphony are richly deserved. It is a work of perfect technical achievement and profound emotion, of beautiful melody and detailed counter point. The most important structural feature, and that is undoubtedly original with Brahms, is the acquisition of a short but striking phrase which introduces the exposition, and for which the phrase basic motive seems most appropriate, since it principals the entire movement, either as a component or as a generating factor. The themes are all based on it, or obtained from it. The subordinate Theme is, for scant measures, similar to the principal one: such a likeness between the chief themes has been frequently done before and is identified as one of the conditions of the early symphonic movement. The first codetta also shows remarkable likeness to the principal theme; the basic motive is set forth in the upper most tones, but the principal theme is given to the basses.... This introduction was composed after the remainder of the piece had already been scored. The allegro section of the movement is a huge orchestral sonata, wherein musical ideas are developed, clearly expressed and restated with changed relationships among them. The key of the allegretto is A-flat major. The allegretto starts with a tranquil, stepwise tune in the clarinet. The four bar figure experience an extension making it an asymmetrical five bars resulting from a small bridge between the phrases by the strings. The â€Å"A† theme in the allegretto is rounded off by the clarinet making the invasion of the first five bars audible. The B the infiltrates in m. 11 and then features a dropping dotted eighth pattern in the clarinet, bassoon, and flute with the falling arising figures of the rhythm being echoed by the strings. A appears to emerge with the violins repeating the first theme and a longer, chromatic bridge segment which lengthens the phrase composition to seven bars. D and C themes are different from A and B in the sense that they are more angular and shorter rhythmically. The first two themes are almost persistent eighth note pizzicato in the string. On the other hand, C and D have more complexity to the sixth note pattern that is interlocked accompanying the wind. The movement to F minor from the major mode marks the sections as apart from heralding material. The contrast that is obvious in mood and character can make someone to think of the D and C sections as a trio appearing within them first allegretto section in the greater ternary form shown by the whole movement (Wilson 137). The symmetry of the whole is reflected in the symmetry of each section. The A†

Conversation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Conversation - Essay Example I had never thought that my grandmother had such a good memory. She would narrate of events that happened decades ago as if thy happened just yesterday. Her name is Cecelia Goddu. She is 90 years old, which is quite surprising since she still, looks and sounds very young. She started by telling me that she was born in South Dartmouth Massachusetts. I was surprised to learn that she had a twin sister called Hilda Rodrigues. This was something I had never known before. Their parents were Antonio and Dimantina Reis, both of whom were born in Azores, Portugal. This was another interesting piece of information I had never thought I had relatives outside United States. She continued to tell m how my ancestors ended up in United States. Antonio moved to United States where he became a prominent farmer after which he invited my great-grandmother whom she married. On Jun 23 1922, 90 years ago, my great-grandparents got twins whom they called Cecelia and Titia Hilda. They both had many children and the family grew large. My father is one of the grandchildren of Titia Hilda. It was interesting to have this wonderful discovery of my

Finance Class paper on Asset Bubbles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Finance Class paper on Asset Bubbles - Essay Example The focus of this document it is to examine the cause of asset price bubbles using classic decision model. Classical decision-making model presumes that people objectively scrutinize the challenges affecting them and that they have full information of the situation (Kahneman et al. 53). By relying on that information, they can examine various alternatives of addressing those issues being aware of the repercussions of those alternatives before making an optimal resolution. This model when applied by investors it assumes that the investors assess various investments alternatives impartially having complete knowledge about the market value of the assets currently and in the future. Since they make an objective analysis, there is usually high demand for assets as many people purchase them the future price will continue to rise indefinitely (Kahneman et al. 61). However, the situation reverses causing a sudden drop in value of those assets resulting to the economic crisis. The issue of the decision-making model involves bound and unbound problems and can be used to elaborate the occurrence of the reverse situation of the asset prices. Bound problems are issues within the control of decision makers while unbound problems are beyond the power of the decision makers. For example, investors make predictions and commit their resources to the assets. (Kahneman et al. 94). However, the financial system such as the banking industry affects the market liquidity. The implication of the change in market liquidity is that at first the bank reduces lending rates attracting investors to take more money for investing in various assets and consequent increase in market liquidity (Kahneman et al. 124). As the demand for assets increases so is the increase in their values. However, banks raise lending rates in the future due to excess liquidity resulting to decline in market liquidity (Kahneman et al. 175). The decreased flow

Summary of a chapter Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Summary of a chapter - Essay Example Brown’s God and Igbo gods but Mr. Brown responds as if he does not feel the need to support the claim. This response shows that he believes community’s religion does not require an explanation and is just correct. For instance, when Akunna says: â€Å"†¦or Chuckwu (Whittaker and Msiska, pg 129). He appoints the smaller gods to help him because his work is too much for one person.† which Mr. Brown replies angrily and becomes disrespectful to Akunna. Hence, Mr. Brown’s disrespectfulness is not intentional but to persuade the people to change to Christianity. The villagers do not understand the Christian faith since they did not know more about the white men.This happens Okonkwo is resistant to the onset of the missionaries as they tend to undermine the community’s life long culture to please it gods and ancestors. This feeling of absolute betrayal is seen in Okonkwo when his son Nwoye transfers and joins the missionaries. This is evident by the quote, â€Å"The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peacefully with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart† (Whittaker and Msiska, pg129), Nwoye however, sees the whites as more compassionate so he finds understanding them easy. Therefore, the new converts are seen as outcasts and that lack of understanding between the remaining people of the tribe is seen as the matter holding the community apart. If both groups were willing to agree and comprehend one another then there would be more improvement (Whittaker and Msiska, pg129). But this cannot happen since; both the tribe and the missionaries have diverse perceptions on the one true god. Eventually, the clan has a big problem in understanding the Christian beliefs because they have conformed to untouched tribal existence for a long time. In

'The Cubie Report' Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

'The Cubie Report' - Essay Example The report had broken its parts into the committee's recommendations, the remit, the committee's approach, the elements of approach, and the initial responses to the committee. Before these, however, was some background information on the Scottish Parliament Debate and Proposals for England and Wales. In the first, there was to be a debate if agreed - In the second, David Blunkett had proposed for a 'a major new package of extra measures to widen access to higher education and tackle student hardship in England and Wales'. Blunkett was the Secretary of State for Education and Employment then. The elements of support referred to non-repayable support, tuition fees, student loan entitlement, and costs which were discussed as subtopics. Purpose. Written at the bottom-most part of the research note is the purpose of this document that Research Notes are compiled for the benefit of Members of Parliament and their personal staff. The document then serves as a digest for Members of Parliament and their staff to orient them of specific topics covered at specific times to help them be abreast of issues. Readership. The target readership of this document is clearly the Members of Parliament and their personal staff. ... Readership. The target readership of this document is clearly the Members of Parliament and their personal staff. However, secondary target could be the public, especially students and student leaders who are the most affected. As reflected in the responses to Cubie, there were many groups interested on the issue to include the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party, The Scottish Conservatives, The Scottish Green Party, The National Union of Students Scotland, COSHEP, The AUT in Scotland, and The CBI Scotland. Evaluation of content. The issue being discussed was capsulised and placed in a box. Clearly, it was about student support that should maximise opportunity for all to be able to access high quality lifelong learning. Such support, the box shows, "should promote social inclusion, the knowledge economy and an enhanced civil society." Then the system which can enable this is described and finally tells of the government role "to remove barriers to widening access and participation." The content, as discussed, is complex, because aside from the issue of student tuition, the work of Cubie as a committee is also hashed out, including Parliament motions and actions, and the reactions of political parties and student leadership. Format. The format presentation of the website caters to the more conscious readers like the government officials and the professionals. This judgment is based on the visual and contextual representation of the website. The conscripted color template of the presentation suggests formality and its gravity, thus it could be appreciated by sophisticated readers. The single dominant color of violet in the header signifies authority and discipline. Language impact. The language used in the document addressed the

Management and Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 3

Management and Business - Essay Example Through its Technical Training College, KLM UK Engineering also offers Aviation Safety Agency Part 147 provisions. The company increasing customer base comprises Europe highly established airline operators plus leasing firms like British Airways and Air France. The main base of the company is Norwich International Airport, and the company has three hangars, around eight bays and a wider on site workshop. Moreover, the company has a line maintenance stations located at Edinburgh airport, Glasgow airport and Norwich airport. Due to the constant changing nature of the air industry, the burden on the company is mainly on its staff training. The challenge of training its technicians to support the maintenance demands of constantly renewed fleet is becoming heavy. This is mainly because modern Aircraft are being added to the growing carrier fleet with more advanced equipments, flight decks, and advanced forms of control structures. In addition to the incorporation numerous structural materials, therefore, the challenge is to get and maintain the right human resources and factors to ensure that its personnel skills keep pace with the constantly changing nature of the industry. The technology is changing at very a  rapid pace compared with the speed at which the company personnel are being acquainted with the changing landscape. Cost management is also a major challenge facing KLM UK Engineering due to the increasing industry wide concerns on maintenance efficiency (KLM UK Engineering Limited 5). KLM UK Engineering Limited mission is to offer its clientele with enhanced service solutions leading to safe and dependable aircraft delivered within the client schedule necessities under most favourable cost. KLM UK Engineering invests in talented plus experienced professionals and sustenance systems to enable its customers to attain their operational goals. We offer a competent, rate effective, and specialized aircraft maintenance management, in addition to providing

The accurate assessment of blood pressure Essay Example for Free

The accurate assessment of blood pressure Essay The accurate assessment of blood pressure is a critical way to develop the appropriate treatment plan and monitor its course during the process of medical intervention. Blood pressure can be measured three different ways, including the insertion of a catheter into the artery, manually, and automatically. The most common way to assess blood pressure in hospitalized patients is through the use of automatic blood pressure measurement devices. The accuracy of these devices has been questioned in the past, but manufacturers have responded with numerous changes. This study sought to examine the usefulness of these automatic devices. This research compared the automatic and manual blood pressure measurements of 126 patients from a community hospital. Caution was exercised to standardize the procedures and randomize the assignment of the participants to each of the two treatment groups. A number of statistical analyses were utilized to compare the measurements, determine differences, and estimate the accuracy of each assessment approach. A significant difference between manual and automatic assessment was found in the systolic blood pressure measurement. No significant differences were found between the groups for pulse rates or diastolic blood pressure measures. One graphing technique, however, indicated significant differences in all three components of blood pressure measurement. The overall conclusion from this study states that the attempts by manufacturers to improve the accuracy of automatic blood pressure devices have failed to render these machines equal to manual methods. The application of this study’s finding have great value for a number of various clinical settings. Blood pressure measurement is frequently an integral aspect of assessing a patient’s level of health. The importance of training staff to accurately assess this degree of bodily functioning cannot be overstated. The cumulative effect of multiple well-trained medical professionals frequently conducting manual blood pressure measurements appears to be the best course of action to obtain accurate results. Whenever possible, manual blood pressure assessment should be used in place of or to verify the findings of automatic devices.

Cause And Effects Of Land Degradation Environmental Sciences Essay

Cause And Effects Of Land Degradation Environmental Sciences Essay Land degradation is an issue of increasing concern to most countries. It is a concept in which the value of the environment is affected by one or more combination of human induced processes acting upon the land. It also means the deterioration in the quantity of land or soil that affects phenomena such as floods and bushfires. The land degradation threatens not only the viability of agriculture, but also water quality, human health, biodiversity and the fundamental ecological processes on which all life depend. The loss of arable land has been caused by a number of factors, many or most of which are tied to human development and agriculture used. The major causes are land clearance such as clear cutting and deforestation, agriculture activities, irrigation salinity and over drafting, livestock including overgrazing, pollution and industrialization. Overgrazing is a common problem in many parts of Australia. It is caused by animals, generally sheep, cattle, or other feral animals, all concentrated in the one area, all feeding on the grass and shrubs. Grass and shrubs hold the soil firmly together. The removal of grass and shrubs leaves the soil bare and susceptible to wind and water erosion. The soil can be broken up or compacted by hooves, this makes the problem worse. Irrigation salinity is when the irrigation water, used to provide water for crops and pasture, seeps down to the water table, with all the dissolved salts, rises and kills the crops and grass, as they are not used to the salty soils. Deforestation is the complete removal of a forest ecosystem and conversion of the land to another type of landscape. It differs from clear-cutting, which entails complete removal of all standing trees but leaves the soil in a condition to regrow a new forest if seeds are available. Over drafting is the process of extracting groundwater beyond the safe yield or equilibrium yield of the aquifer. Since every groundwater basin recharges at a different rate depending upon precipitation, vegetative cover and soil conservation practices, the quantity of groundwater that can be safely pumped varies greatly among regions of the world and even within provinces. Some aquifers require a very long time to recharge and thus the process of over drafting can have consequences of effectively drying up certain sub-surface water supplies. Land Degradation Processes The main outcome of land degradation is a substantial reduction in the productivity of land. The land degradation processes include soil erosion, nutrient depletion, salinization, desertification and soil acidification or alkalinisation. Soil erosion is a natural process that removes soil from the land. The critical aspect of soil erosion for our purpose here is that the rate of the process is highly dependent on human actions. Natural rates of soil erosion are lower for soil with a good cover of vegetation than for bare soil. In fact, any human actions that uncover soil (farming, logging, building, overgrazing, fires, etc.) greatly enhance soil erosion rates. Soil salinization is the concentration of salts in the surface or near surface of soils. It involves the processes of salt accumulation in the upper rooting zone so that many plants are inhibited or prohibited from normal growth. Human induced salinization is a major problem in drylands and is often associated with large-scale irrigation. Dryland Salinity When drylands are irrigated, the water evaporates quickly, leaving behind previously dissolved salts. These salts can collect, since there is little rain to flash the system. The salt in the soil inhibits the uptake of water by plant roots and the soil can no longer sustain a vegetative cover. Irrigation Salinity Irrigation salinity is when the irrigation water, used to provide water for crops and pasture, seeps down to the water table, with all the dissolved salts, rises and kills the crops and grass, as they are not used to the salty soils. Nutrients loss is an important problem in regions of low-input agriculture, such as Africa. In such regions, when crops are harvested, essential nutrients are taken away in the crop and not replaced. Desertification occurs whenever a non-desert area starts to exhibit the characteristics of a true desert. The term was coined by the United Nations in 1977. The main cause of desertification is not drought, but mismanagement of land, including overgrazing and felling of trees and brushwood for fuels. Soil acidification is when certain chemicals are used on the soil, for various reasons including pesticides, removal of salt from the surface and the soil, acid rain, the growth of certain crops, certain animal wastes and etc, these chemicals are often absorbed into the soil and become part of the soil-structure. With these chemicals now part of the soil, the soil may become acidic and therefore crops and pastures will not grow. Soil acidification can lead to a productivity decline up to and equal to 50%. Soil akalinisation is clay soils with high pH (> 9), a poor soil structure and a low infiltration capacity. Alkali soils owe their unfavorable physico-chemical properties mainly to the dominating presence of sodium carbonate which causes the soil to swell. Sometimes these soils are also referred to as (alkaline) sodic soils. Effect of degradation Several land degradation affected a significant portion of the arable lands, decreasing the wealth and economic development of nations. Land degradation cancels out advanced by improved crop yields and reduced population growth. As the land resource, base becomes less productive, food security is comprised and competition for dwindling resources increases. Thus, a downward eco-social spiral is created when lands are nutrient depleted by unsustainable land management practices resulting in lost soil stability leading to permanent change. Land degradation not only affects soil productivity but also have more significant impacts on receiving water resources. Since soil along with nutrients and contaminants associated with soil, are delivered in large quantities to environments. Land degradation therefore has potentially impacts on lakes and reservoirs that are designed to alleviate flooding provide irrigation and generate Hydro-Power. In summary, land degradation includes soil erosion, salinization, soil acidification or akalinisation and desertification. The rate of degradation has increased dramatically with growth in human populations and technology. Severe land damage accompanies large-scale of agriculture. The continued loss of arable land will jeopardize our ability to feed the world population. Land degradation is a worldwide problem which includes both of the developed and developing countries.

Design of Wind Turbine Control

Design of Wind Turbine Control ABSTRACT The main objective of this report is the design and analysis of the control of the wind turbine. In order to ensure an efficient energy capture from the wind and at the same time the mitigation of loads at natural frequencies, it will be designed the operating strategy of the machine. Furthermore, the control of the wind turbine will be also designed in order to ensure a stable performance of the system given the stochastic nature of the wind. As a last task, it will be analysed the differences and importance of having a system with a good or reduced crossover frequency. Introduction The exploitation of wind energy is undoubtedly the most popular tool for the tackling of climate change all over the world. The development of wind turbines has led to a variable speed pitch regulated configuration that aims to extract energy from the wind as efficiently as possible. As the penetration of wind energy becomes more and more significant in modern power systems, there is a need to meet certain criteria and quality of generation in order to maintain the reliability and security of supply above certain levels. In order to achieve an optimize energy capture and prevent the machine from excessive loads, the design of both operating strategy and controller of the plant need to be carried out. The difficulty of the design relies on the stochastic nature of the wind, so a carefully and detailed approach is needed. Also, as the controller of the turbine is the heart of its operation, the design of this will become more and more difficult with the size of the turbine [1]. The larger the turbine, the more structurally flexible the mechanical parts will become and it is at this point where the fatigue loads become a major concern, as they are closely related to the operating life of the machine and also to the operational and maintenance costs. The purpose of this report is to highlight the importance of the controller and the contribution to the energy capture, as well as the design of a suitable operating strategy that maximized the reduction of loads while ensuring an efficient performance. 2.1 Baseline and procedure The main objective of the control design of any wind turbine is to obtain a good trade-off between energy and loads. In variable speed pitch regulated turbines it is controlled both pitch and torque. The former is controlled to limit the aerodynamic power in above-rated power (hence, the loads), while the latter is primarily used to control the transmission torque in above rated wind speeds and to maximize energy capture below the rated power region. The operating strategy must be carefully design in order to achieve maximum power capture while limiting the aerodynamic loads in the mechanical parts of the wind turbine, as they are critical aspects of the lifetime of the machine. Therefore, the design of the operating strategy must include load reduction as an explicit objective. In this report, the design of the operating strategy has been carried out with a special focus on the control of the tower and drive train resonances, as well as the mitigation of the blade loads. In order to design the operating strategy, it has been provided a model of a 1.5 MW variable speed, pitch regulated turbine. In the model, it was obtained the mechanical characteristics of the machine (Blade length, Gearbox ratio and so on), along with the power coefficient values for below rated operation, where the pitch of the blades was -2 degrees and is fixed for below rated operation. With the above data, it was possible to set the Cp-ÃŽÂ » curve of the machine. This type of curves are used in wind turbine design to obtain rotor power for any combination of rotor and wind speed. By building this curve it is possible to obtain the maximum power capture. This is given by the power coefficient Cp, that it is a relationship between the power in the wind stream and the power generated by the turbine [2]. The desired operating strategy must try to achieve the maximum power capture, and hence the maximum value of Cp, and such operating point determines the optimum tip speed ratio ( ÃŽÂ »), which is the ratio between the rotor speed and the wind speed. Once the optimum point of power extraction is set, it is possible to build the model of the machine. For this machine, the generator will operate in a range between 1 rad/s and 170 rad/s. Therefore, having the gearbox ratio, it is possible to obtain the rotor speed given the following equation: By obtaining the range of rotor speeds of the machine, it can now be calculated the necessary wind speed for each rotor speed with the following equation: Where ÃŽÂ » represents the optimum tip speed ratio of the machine, which corresponds to a value of 8.4 in this design (for a Cpmax of 0.47). This range of wind speeds is used to obtain the aerodynamic torque, which is a function of the rotor speed and wind speed (when the pitch angle is fixed). Therefore, it is possible to derive the aero torque by the following equation: Where the values of and correspond to the optimum operating point. That is, for a given wind speed and rotor speed, the objective is to produce a torque such that the power extraction from the wind is maximum. Thus, the above equation will provide the torque values for the maximum energy tracking region. On the other hand, it is necessary to obtain the generator torque, as this will be used in order to determine the end of the first and second constant speed (To and T1). As it can be seen in the equation below, the damping losses have been considered. For this design, a damping of 5 has been assumed. The generator toque can be obtained by the following equation. Now it is possible to obtain the power generated in the machine by having an efficiency of 95% in this machine: And the torque at rated power of the machine is given by: The point where the rated power curve crosses with the second constant speed line, will determine the torque which will be generating at above rated operation. Finally, it has been calculated the values for the constant speed curves of the operating strategy. It has been applied equation 2.3, setting the wind speed constant (from 4 m/s to 12m/s) and calculated the torque for the different values of Cp and ÃŽÂ ». The resulting operating strategy will be such that will cross every constant wind speed by the point at which is the optimum power extraction point (Cpmax). 2.2 Operating strategy process Several factors must be considered in an operating strategy design. Having obtained the values in the previous section, it is possible to plot the maximum power extraction curve. The design must have special focus on the natural frequencies of the tower and blades. For this design, it has been provided the natural frequencies of both components. For the tower, the side-side and fore-aft frequencies. For the blades, the edge and flap frequencies were provided. Based on this, it must be analysed and compare those frequencies with the rotor speed (P), the 3P and the 6P component. It is desirable to design an operating strategy that avoids operating at multiples of the structural frequencies, as they are critical points of operation where the mechanical loads increase and the lifetime of the turbine can be reduced due to fatigue loads. Besides, the strategy must ensure a smooth switching at the first and second constant speeds with the operating curve. This has been achieved by setting both constant speed lines with a minimum length, in such way that the controller of the turbine is switching the to different operation modes excessively, as this could reduce the efficiency of the machine. Another important aspect to look at when designing the operating strategy, is to ensure that the wind turbine operation is not close to the stall front. The stall front curve is the curve that connects the maximum point of the constant wind speed curves. It determines the beginning of the stall region where the blades will be exposed to high loads and the power extraction will not operate efficiently. Based on the above, the design of the operating strategy was carried out. The first constant wind speed was set at 1.2 rad/s, avoiding a 6P frequency in the blades (flap natural frequency) that would appear at approximately 1 rad/s. As the design of the operating strategy must be a trade-off between energy capture and reduction of loads, it was decided the above as the best option for this machine. Rotor speed (rad/s) Generator torque (Nm) Aerodynamic Torque (Nm) Fist constant speed region (end) T0 1.2 1432.923 163076 Second constant speed region (beginning) T1 2.02 4640.24 462004 Rated torque 2.02 10137 853106 Table 2.0 generator torque at constant speed switching point The beginning of the second constant speed region is determined by the maximum generator speed which has been set at 170 rad/s (2.02 rad/s at the rotor side). It can be seen in Figure 2.0 the operating strategy curve of the machine, where it can be appraised that the operating strategy has avoided the 6P natural frequency stated above. The stall region is far enough from the operating region of the machine, ensuring a good performance and better efficiency. Figure 2.0 Aerodynamic torque-rotor speed diagram. Operating strategy curve of the wind turbine 2.3 Discussion of results In general terms, the design of the machine has been successfully carried out, as it can be seen in Figure 2.0, covering the following critical aspects of any operating strategy of a wind turbine: After carefully analysed the natural frequencies and compared with the 3P and 6P resonance frequencies, it has been set the cut-in speed of the machine at 1.2 rad/s. Also, this strategy will ensure that the damping losses in the machine do not have excessive effect on the power generated, as at very low rotor speeds the losses can overcome the power generated. The operating strategy ensures that the turbine will operate between the desired wind speed range. In this report, it has been set the wind speed range between 4m/s and 25m/s. It has been secured a smooth switching transient between the two constant speed regions and the maximum power tracking curve by establishing a reasonable size of the constant speed regions. It could be arguable whether this operating strategy is the most efficient or there are better options that would adapt to this wind turbine. The truth is that there are multiple options and different strategy plans depending on the preferences of the design. In this report, the aim has been to find a trade-off between load reduction and efficient power capture. 3.1 Baseline and procedure In order to achieve an efficient operation of the wind turbine, the control must play an important role in the operating strategy. An appropriate wind controller design will allow for a better wind energy capture as well as the mitigation of fatigue loads, as they considerably reduce the lifetime of the machine. Hence, the control task of a wind turbine is to maintain the appropriate operational state as the wind speed condition change, as well as enhancing its dynamic properties. In this report, the main goal is to design the operational controller, which is divided in two different regions, below rated and above rated power. At below rate conditions, the aim is to extract as much power from the wind as possible. This will be achieved by varying the reaction torque by measure the rotor speed or the output power. The second task of the controller is to ensure a smooth transition between the 1st constant speed region and the maximum power tracking curve. At above rated operation, the performance of the turbine will be carried out by pitching the blades. By doing so, it will allow the turbine to maintain the generation at the rated power value, take action to alleviate the increased loads at different parts of the wind turbine and to keep the desired stability margins of operation. For the above rated controller, it will be used a PI pitch controller along with an extra pole and zero and the set gain of the transfer function, resulting the transfer function as following: The nonlinearity nature of the wind turbine operation leads to a nonlinear control design. The gain scheduling is the most used control technique to accommodate the nonlinearities [3]. The performance of this technique is to continuously change the structure of the controller according to the local set points, such as aerodynamic torque, rotor speed and pitch angle. For instance, as the torque sensitivity varies nearly linear with pitch angle, it can be compensated by varying the overall gain of the controller linearly with pitch angle. As the design of the above rated controller is normally more tedious, it will be first designed the above rated controller and then, by varying the gain, redesign the below rated controller. Besides, when designing the controller of variable speed pitch regulated wind turbine, it must be paid special attention to the damage caused by the vibrations on the drive train, as it produces serious risks of failure. It has been noted that for the case of the wind turbine in this that the first drive train mode need to be actively damped, in order to alleviate the large torque transients at 13 rad/s. To obtain the transfer function of the drive train filter, it will be the general form of a band pass filter: The block diagram with the filter integrated can be seen in Figure 3.0. The design of the filter will be designed such that the filter feeds back only the oscillations at the resonant frequency. Figure 3.0 Plant with the drive train filter implemented As the drive train filter is located at the feedback loop, the equivalent transfer function of the plant and the filter will be given by the following equation: 3.2 Drive-Train Filter and Controller Design Drive Train Filter Design In order to damp to suppress the peak at the first drive train mode, it has been designed the transfer function of the filter. To do so, three parameters have been set in the transfer function. The gain (k), the frequency at which it is aimed to amplify in the feedback loop () and a scaling factor (n), which is used to set the frequency of the poles in the transfer function. After a trial and error procedure in MATLAB, the transfer function designed is the following: In Figure 3.1 is shown the Bode diagram of the system with and without drive train filter. It can be appraised that the peak in the drive train mode has been successfully damped, reducing the mechanical loads in the machine and hence, improving the lifetime of the turbine. Figure 3.1 Bode plot with the effect of the drive train filter in the system Controller Design for Above and Below Rated operation To control rotor speed and torque it is necessary to use pitch of the blades at above rated wind speeds. It has been designed a complete controller for the turbine for smooth switching between different operating modes. Apart from the pitch-PI controller, the gain scheduling technique has been applied to the design for the non-linear design section. The controller must assure a gain and phase margins above certain levels (4 dB and 30 degrees respectively) when checking the stability using the open loop functions, providing stability for the closed loop system. The aim is to provide good disturbance rejection at low frequencies, the required bandwidth at 1 rad/s, and good high frequency roll-off. With these main objectives, the transfer function designed for the given wind turbine is the following: It is shown in Figure 3.2 the Bode diagram of the controller, where it can be appraised the effects that the poles, zero and gain have on the systems. The proportional gain of the transfer function sets the initial gain value (20 log10 (|k|) and remains constant with the frequency. The proportional gain does not contribute to the phase of the transfer function.   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   Figure 3.2 Bode diagram Above Rated Controller The pure integrator , produces constant gain contribution of -20 dB/dec from an infinite frequency. It also produces a constant phase of -90 degrees. The pole in the transfer function contributes to the gain with a negative 20dB/dec slope at its frequency of operation (1.95 rad/s). With respect to the phase, it contributes with a -45 deg/dec between a decade after and a decade before its frequency. That is, for a frequency of 1.95 rad/s, it starts to contribute at 0.195 rad/s and will end at 19.5 rad/s. The zero in the transfer function contributes to the gain with a positive 20 dB/dec slope and with a positive 45 deg/dec slope for the phase. Analogous to the pole, the phase contribution starts and ends one decade before and after the frequency of the zero. Knowing the above concepts and after a trial and error procedure, the gain scheduling technique was implemented and the design of the controller has been successfully completed. It can be seen in Figure 3.3 and 3.4 the differences between the effect of gain scheduling. It has been designed the controller for the plant dynamics at speeds of 12m/s,15m/s and 25m/s and applies for the same system with and without gain scheduling. Figure 3.3 Bode diagram of the plant without gain scheduling Figure 3.4 Bode diagram of the plant with gain scheduling It can be appraised that the system with the effect of the gain scheduling becomes stable, while without the gain scheduling system the gain and phase margins do not meet the requirements stated above for a feasible strategy. The design of the controller gives a positive gain and phase margin to the system at 1rad/s, ensuring the rejection of disturbances above these frequencies [4]. Once the above rated controller is designed, it has been carried out the design for the above rated operation. It has been tested for below rated wind speeds of 4m/s and 10m/s (resulting roughly the same response) and as it can be seen in Figure 3.5, the system has been successfully integrated as the phase and gain margin meet the specified requirements. As part of the gain scheduling implementation, the transfer function of the controller for below rated condition will just adjust the gain of the transfer function. After a trial and error procedure the transfer function obtained is given by the following equation. Figure 3.5 Bode diagram of below rated operation (with drive train filter) Note that for the below rated system analysis, there must be included the drive train filter at the feedback loop. 3.3 Discussion of results Based on the results, the design of the controller by applying gain scheduling technique has been successfully completed. As in any controller design, it must be aimed for good stability margin, both phase and margin, otherwise the system could destabilize and therefore cause high load fluctuations. Both below and above rated controller have been designed accordingly to these requirements and the phase and gain margin meet the minimum stablished (4dB for gain margin and 30 degrees for phase margin). 3.4 Effect of wind turbine size in the controller design. An important aspect of the controller design of a wind turbine is the size of the aforementioned. The wind turbine industry is going towards an increasingly bigger size of the turbines, which brings out new challenges when it comes to the design of the controller of the machine. As the rotor is continuously interacting with a very complex wind field, the prediction of the behaviour of the machine will become more difficult with an increase in size. In other words, as the size of the machine increases, it might be extremely difficult (when not impossible) to achieve the desired margins of stability, as the structural elements will become more flexible and dynamically more active. This does not necessarily mean that the system will become unstable with a bigger turbine, but proposes that controller need to be designed and tuned more carefully as the gain and phase margins will reduce. 4.1 Baseline and procedure As stated in section 3, the importance of the controller remains at the stability of the system. A system with low crossover frequency will present more fluctuations and a poor stability in terms of power generation, rotational speed or generator torque. The aim of this section is to give a better understanding of the design of a system with acceptable crossover frequency and also the importance of the drive train filter design, which as it was shown in the previous section, will help to damp the first drive train mode and therefore considerably reduce the mechanical loads. The will be compared for variables of the wind turbine for both above and below rated operation. The first tasks have been the comparison between the system with good crossover frequency and the system with no drive train filter. In order to do so, it has been compared the power output of the machine, the generator speed, generator torque and the pitch angle. For simplicity on the interpretation of the results, it will be compared the simulations at 15m/s of wind speed (above rated operation), and 9m/s of wind speed (below rated operation). For each wind speed, different turbulence of the wind field has been analysed. The second tasks have consisted on the comparison between a system with a good cross over frequency and a reduced cross over frequency. Again, to give the reader an easier understanding of the simulations, it will be compared the different systems at a wind speed of 15m/s. 4.2 Investigation of the controller performance Comparison between the good cross over frequency and no drive train filter systems It can be appraised in Figure 4.0, the power output of the turbine for wind speeds of 15 m/s and 9m/s. It is immediately apparent that for each speed, the higher the fluctuation, the higher the disturbance and therefore the less efficient energy production of the turbine. The mean production for 15m/s and higher disturbance accounts for 4.83MW and for 9 m/s is 2.8 MW. Compared with the wind field with small disturbance, the differences are not very noticeable, as the production accounts for approximately 4.7MW and 2.4 MW respectively. With respect to the comparison between the different systems, the figures show negligible differences between the system response at different disturbances. This is because both systems have a crossover frequency of 1 rad/s. Besides the reason why the system with no drive train filter seems to have no effect on the system is because as stated in section 3, the aim of the filter is to damp the drive train mode at a certain frequency. As it is being plotted the response over time, the slightly differences at the frequency of damping cannot be appraised in these figures. Figure 4.0 Power output of the turbine for 15m/s and 9m/s In terms of the generator speed (Figure 4.1), the same pattern than in the power output has been acknowledge. The higher the turbulence intensity in the wind, the more difficult the control of the generator speed, and therefore the higher the fluctuations. In terms of mean values, the 15 m/s wind speed produces a mean generator speed of approximately 120 rad/s for a high turbulence intensity, and 111 rad/s at 9m/s of wind speed. Figure 4.1 Generator speed of the turbine for 15m/s and 9m/s Talking about the generator torque, it presents the same patterns than the previous simulation, as it can be seen in Figure 4.2, where there are no apparent differences between the two systems, and the turbulence intensity influence the variation of generator torque. The mean values for the higher turbulence intensity are 26.2KNm and 42.4KNm for 9m/s and 15m/s respectively. For the lower fluctuation of wind, the mean values of torque account for 22.7KNm and 42.7KNm. Figure 4.2 Generator torque of the turbine for 15m/s and 9m/s As a final analysis, it has been plotted the pitch angle for the different system at different speeds. It can be appraised in Figure 4.3 that the pitching of the blades does not perform at 9m/s, except when the turbulence intensity is significantly high, in which case it might overpass the above rated wind speed and therefore the pitching start to act. By contrast, for the 15m/s simulation speed, the pitching angle varies constantly trying to absorb energy from the wind more efficiently. Figure 4.3 Pitch angle of the turbine for 15m/s and 9m/s Comparison between reduced and good crossover frequency It has been simulated the response of the two system with good and reduced crossover frequency. The good crossover system has a crossover frequency of 1 rad/s while the reduced crossover system is 0.5 rad/s. The results are shown in Figure 4.4 and 4.5, where some differences can be noticed. The reduced crossover frequency system has a more unstable generation of power for both turbulence intensity scenarios. As stated in Section 3, the system with a reduced crossover frequency will have a poorer performance under disturbances and will reject those more inefficiently than the one with a good cross over frequency. Figure 4.4 Power output and generator speed of the turbine for 15m/s and 9m/s Figure 4.5 Generator torque and pitch angle of the turbine for 15m/s and 9m/s Having designed and analysed the different aspect of a wind turbine controller, it can be concluded that the design has been carried out successfully, ensuring a stable performance of the system with an efficient mitigation of loads. It can be argued whether the design of both operating strategy and controller are the best option in terms of performance, but the main objective of this report is to give an understanding of the performance of the machine and the control system operation, as well as to understand the new challenges that the increasingly size of the wind turbines might bring to the design of the control strategy. [1] E. A. Bossanyi, The Design of Closed Loop Controllers for Wind Turbines, Wind Energy, vol. 3, pp. 149-163, 2000. [2] T. Burton, Cp-lamda performance, Chichester, Willey, 2011, pp. 173-174. [3] A. P. Chatzopoulos, Full Envelope Wind Turbine Controller Design for Power Regulation and Tower Load Reduction, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 2014. [4] H. D. B. A. R. J. M. Fernando D. Bianchi, Control of Variable-Speed Variable-pitch Wind turbines Using Gain Scheduling Techniques, in Wind turbine control systems, London, Springer, 2007.

Docking With Mir :: essays research papers

Docking With Mir Last year something amazing took place, but it wasn't in a laboratory. It wasn't under the ocean, and it wasn't on the land. It was in space. The docking of the United States's Space Shuttle Atlantis and the Russian Space Station Mir was an important step towards international cooperation in space. This is not the first time the U.S. has been in contact with Russia in space matters. In 1965, an American Apollo capsule and a Russian Soyuz module were locked in orbital tango 245 miles above the earth, both crews tense with the feeling of peace and rivalry at the same time. In the past few years, American astronauts have used the Russian training facility at the Cosmodrome to prepare for work on the Mir space station. We couldn't give up the hope of peace and freedom.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Launch Day had arrived; June 29, 1995. During launch and ascent, there wasn't much to think about except the thrill of the ride. Then the tension rose. In less than thirty-six hours, they would have to close a gap of four thousand miles at an altitude of 245 miles while traveling at 17,500 miles per hour, only to have to move within three inches and two degrees of a quickly moving, very fragile object in space. One small thrust of a poorly aligned engine could cost one of four space-worthy shuttles and the world's first and only long-term space station.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Docking was over with soon, and was followed by the cosmonauts of Mir greeting the astronauts of Atlantis. Gifts of flowers, candy and fruit were given by the Americans, who in return, following a Russian tradition, received gifts of bread and salt. Knowing the importance of the mission, the Russians, as well as the Americans, forced the good nature of the mission to be seen. After an exchange in the crew of Mir, Atlantis disengaged the docking clamps, and returned home.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This mission was important to the future of the conquest of space, for the American scientists need help with the design of the planned International

Hamlet Essay -- Shakespeare

‘Critics often judge Gertrude as a weak, selfish and innocent woman, caught up in conflicts she does not fully understand.’ To what extent do you agree with this? The two female characters in Shakespeare’s tragedy seem to be drowned in the mist of the deceitful power-game played by the male characters, which contribute to the on-going tragic conventions of murder, revenge and betrayal so prevalent in this form of drama. The title of Hamlet’s metatheatrical play-within-a-play, 'the mouse-trap' is as applicable to the plot of Shakespeare’s 'Hamlet'; set in the especially patriarchal society of Elsinore, which is dominated by the authoritative actions of the male characters, Hamlet may be seen as a tragedy where the female characters have small and seemingly unimportant roles in the tragic plot compared to the climactic ‘masculine’ moments – the visitations of the Ghost, the dramatic agon between Hamlet and Claudius and the final conquest between Hamlet and his counterpart Laertes. Gertrude is a character whose fate is tragically overshadowed by the power of these men, indicative of the submissive role o f women in the Jacobean period. Despite the fact that directors often present Gertrude as a sensual and deceitful woman who is vain and self-satisfied with strong sexual appetites, if one looks to Shakespeare’s text, this character has a very small and arguably innocent voice in the play; indeed Rebecca Smith argues that ‘Gertrude’s words and action create not the lusty, lustful, lascivious Gertrude that one generally sees in stage and film productions but a compliant, loving, unimaginative woman whose only concern is pleasing others’. In order to assess Shakespeare’s characterisation of the Queen, it is necessary to exami... ...arded as selfish, weak and innocent, caught up in a conflict that she more than understands. Works Cited Bamber, L.(1990) â€Å"Class Struggle: Shakespeare and Sexism.† The Women’s Review of Books 7:5. Bradley, A.C. (1966) Shakespearean Tragedy. New York: St. Martin's Press. Burnett, Mark, ed. (1994) New Essays on Hamlet. New York: AMS Press. Granville-Barker, Henry. (1970) Prefaces to Shakespeare. New York: Hill and Wang. Heilbrun, Carolyn. (1957) Hamlet’s Mother. California: University of California Press. Kolin, Philip C. (1991). Shakespeare and Feminist Criticism an Annotated Bibliography and Commentary. New York: Garland. Loske, Olaf. (1960) Outrageous Fortune. Oslo: Oslo University Press. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Smith, Rebecca. ‘A Heart Cleft in Twain: the Dilemma of Shakespeare’s Gertrude’.

Glee Essay

Topic 2. ‘There is nothing ironic about show choir! ’ – Rachel Cohen Is Rachel’s assessment of the musical performances on Glee correct? Discuss the interplay of melodrama, irony and intertextuality in Glee. Your essay should contain detailed analysis of at least two scenes from Glee’s 1st season. Your essay should also make reference to your core course readings on television and postmodernism. Due 14 September heir true voice; and this one was, to me, ultimately about the series demonstrating its own voice and its space within the world of contemporary musicals. I don’t know what exactly I expected when I heard Joss Whedon would be directing, although it did send me diving for my Buffy The Vampire Slayer sing-along DVD. What I didn’t expect was an episode that didn’t feel like Whedon at all but felt intensely like Glee, more specifically the Glee that endeared itself to me in the first half of the season.What has always appeale d to me about Glee, and apparently to Joss Whedon based on this episode and his interview on Fox’s website , was the show’s delicate balance of tongue-in-cheek bitter cynicism, which keeps Glee blessedly away from High School Musical territory, and a sometimes heartbreakingly authentic sentimentality that draws me into a deeply emotional engagement with the characters and a desire to see them triumph.As others on this blog have mentioned, the stunt shows, focusing around a musical theme or dance conceit, are fun but can bring the show away from its narrative engagement and this mix of sincerity and cynicism that musical numbers have often been harnessed in service of. â€Å"Dream On† brought back this dynamic and foregrounded it in contrast to some of the more music-themed recent episodes. Neil Patrick Harris is the king of bitter(sweet) cynicism, and his performance as Bryan Ryan maintained the comedy in what otherwise was in danger of becoming a maudlin episod e.Rachel and Artie’s storylines gave both characters an opportunity for growth. Artie’s triumphantly joyful flash mob scene (fangirl moment – thank you Glee, for a flash mob! ) in particular made his final moments of aching vulnerability that much more poignant. There has been reflection on this blog about the way that Glee sometimes uses, one might even say exploits, disabled characters for emotional endings and to humanize its more difficult characters (Sue and Rachel), and Artie’s storyline comes dangerously close to becoming part of this trend.There are certainly issues with how Artie’s storyline is presented in this episode, and I leave those issues for other commentators more knowledgeable in these areas. Problematic though this is, it is consistent with the series’ ethos from the beginning. The show has always undermined its own after-school special themes, or at least made them less saccharine, by unabashedly drawing on stereotypes a nd refusing after-school special endings: Artie cannot dance, Tina doesn’t do the â€Å"right† thing. All is not well in McKinley High.If it were, it wouldn’t be Glee. That this episode spoke most clearly with what I feel is Glee’s unique voice is made even more important through its intertextuality, which evoked a self-awareness on the part of the series about its place amongst contemporary musicals. Here again we return to Joss Whedon and Neil Patrick Harris. Both figures have had important roles in bringing contemporary uses of the musical to television and the web. They worked together on the web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.Neil Patrick Harris has performed in musical episodes of How I Met Your Mother and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Whedon’s musical episode of Buffy often makes lists of the best musical television episodes of all time. In this same episode that the guest director and guest star positioned Glee within th e contemporary use of the musical on television, we discover that Shelby Corcoran is Rachel’s mother. Shelby is played by Idina Menzel, who originated Maureen in Rent and Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway, with Glee guest star Kristin Chenoweth.Menzel and Chenoweth further link Glee to the tradition of the contemporary musical that may be a much more appropriate reference here than for the more obvious, but deceptive, High School Musical. Contemporary musicals have become increasingly mature, cynical, parodic and subversive, trends that Glee falls squarely within. In an episode so drenched in references to the contemporary musical context, it was all the more important that Glee followed the examples of its characters in the last episode and emphasized its own unique voice.Whedon showed himself to be a true Gleek by emphasizing the voice of the show over his own. egardless of whether you are a Gleek (if you don’t know this term, read on), you may have noticed the buzz surr ounding FOX’s musical comedy, which returned Tuesday to the second-best ratings of the night after a â€Å"Gleek Week† of promotional appearances and news coverage. Created by Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk, and Ryan Murphy, Glee focuses on a diverse group of teenagers participating in a high school show choir, treating the participants in â€Å"New Directions† with alternating doses of warmth and snark.It also is one of the first series in the last few decades to successfully incorporate musical numbers; its music has become a lucrative cross-promotional element of the Glee phenomenon. The series has garnered ardent fans, or Gleeks, around the world — evident in the many websites dedicated to it, such as Gleeks United, Glee Club Online, Forum Francais de Glee, Glee Brazil, and my favorite, What Would Emma Pillsbury Wear? , inspired by the fashions worn by the eponymous guidance counselor with a penchant for all things sterile and for sexy-librarian sweaters.J ust as notable, it appears to have been embraced as particularly American. The cast was invited by First Lady Michelle Obama to sing at the White House’s annual Easter egg roll last weekend, and they followed that up with a Glee-themed episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show (she praised them as the â€Å"hardest working cast on television†). News coverage on the return of Glee and spoilers have followed in most major news outlets—including two dueling reviews in The New York Times—and in scholarly forums (a shout out to In Media Res, which recently hosted a Glee-themed week).What is it about Glee that has inspired this phenomenon? Based on my own experience, as a Gleek and as a scholar focusing on the series in my research, I find the show’s play with diversity equally satisfying and frustrating, and always compelling (arguably, it is â€Å"post-racial† and reinforcing of traditional racial stereotypes). And it seems that for many fans, the showà ¢â‚¬â„¢s focus on underdogs overcoming challenge, sly satire, and feel-good musical numbers are clear pulls.With respect to these and other appeals, Glee is a prime illustration of what Valerie Wee has described as hyper-postmodern media culture. A mash-up of generic influences, intertextual references, music, and ideological content that is both eerily nostalgic and forward-thinking, the series can be read and enjoyed by fans in multiple and diverging ways. This week’s episode, â€Å"Hell-o,† provided a full helping of these and other pleasures.We witnessed cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch)’s return to the high school and renewed mission of obliterating the glee club and the long-awaited blossoming of two romantic relationships, Mr. Shuester and Emma and Rachel and Finn, although difficulties naturally arise for both couples. In these and other entanglements as New Directions looks toward regionals, the timing and humor are spot on, not the least of which was the limiting of the musical numbers to songs with the word â€Å"hell† in the title.The hilarious mix that ensues includes â€Å"Hello, I Love You,† â€Å"Highway to Hell,† and â€Å"Hello, Goodbye. † And the narrative may not be important as the sum of Glee’s parts; they include the hyper-postmodern mash-up described above, exciting and talented performers, upbeat music that can be enjoyed in other arenas, sweetly geeky fandom, and the overall ethos of embracing the loveable loser in all of us. Are you a Gleek, and if so, what do you think encourages its appeal? What do you make of the series as a contemporary television, music, or theatrical text?In response to this complicated series we plan to follow Glee, its paratexts, and its fandom on a weekly basis as it continues to air this season. We hope you’ll take part in the discussion Reprinted with permission from our good friends at InsideCatholic. com, the leading online journa l of Catholic faith, culture, and politics. The musical comedy-drama Glee debuted on Fox just over a year ago. The story of a high school Spanish teacher's attempts to resurrect the Lima, Ohio, high school glee club surprised critics by ending its first season ranked at 33 in the Nielsen ratings.Now in its second season, the show's ratings have only gone up, as it climbed to the #15 spot last week. On May 23, the plans for a third season of Glee were announced. While there's no reason its popularity won't continue to climb, the challenge of producing a primetime musical series to appeal to a generation not brought up on the traditional musicals like Camelot, West Side Story, and The Sound of Music is obvious: How do you combine a contemporary story and characters with music and dance in a way that does not send viewers, especially younger ones, groaning in the direction of their PS3s and iPhones?The producers of Glee found their solution in the example of Chicago, the Broadway show where the musical numbers were always performed in the context of a cabaret. The characters of Glee don't burst into song in the manner of, say, Rodgers and Hammerstein; rather, the strongly choreographed musical numbers – five to eight each episode – are usually staged as the glee club's performances or rehearsals. Thus, Glee retains enough of a realistic feel to appeal to a younger audience. The music, a combination of pop and Broadway standards newly rranged by Adam Anders, appeals to all ages and has been a phenomenal success on CD and downloads, with over $2 million in digital sales. The cast of Glee had 25 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2009, more than any artist since the Beatles in 1964. Their performance of â€Å"Don't Stop Believin'† went gold last November, with over half a million dollars in sales. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Glee's achievement its ability to keep three generations of viewers – children, parents, and grandparent s – in front of the TV together.The choreography of Zachary Woodlee, sexy without being sleazy, evokes Broadway's Jerome Robbins rather than Bob Fosse, much less the crotch-grabbing antics of tuneless rappers. Viewers with memories of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, or even the June Taylor Dancers on The Jackie Gleason Show, find themselves smiling once again. The producers and cast members also maintain tasteful control over material chosen – from older classics like â€Å"Over the Rainbow,† â€Å"One Less Bell to Answer,† â€Å"Smile,† and â€Å"I Could Have Danced All Night,† with newer ones such as â€Å"Proud Mary,† â€Å"Piano Man,† â€Å"Jump,† â€Å"Bootylicious,† and Josh Groban's â€Å"You Raise Me Up. When a Rolling Stone critic snidely chides Glee's leading actor, Matthew Morrison, saying he â€Å"couldn't rap his way out of 98 ° rehearsal,† he seems oblivious to the fact that more than an occas ional nod to rap would immediately begin thinning its audience (starting with me). The choice to offset the Disney-like innocence of Will Schuester, played by Morrison, with the cynical cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), works perfectly. The conflict between Schuester and Sylvester becomes nothing less than the perennial clash of ars gratia artis (arts for arts sake) with the cultural philistines.The writing for Sylvester's character is so good it has spawned its own wiki thread. Take, for example, her attitude toward intimacy in marriage: â€Å"I, for one, think intimacy has no place in a marriage. Walked in on my parents once, and it was like seeing two walruses wrestling. † But beyond the Schuester and Sylvester rivalry, Glee fails to achieve the generational integration of taste in its characters and storyline that it has attained with its music and dancing. Will's wife, Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig), seems like a refugee from John Sayles' Serial Mom, where the ent irety of middle-class family life is cynically, and hilariously, parodied.The viewer is left constantly questioning how Will, whose fundamental decency and kindness are repeatedly evoked, could have married such a demented twit as Terri. Such jarring contrasts of character abound in Glee. Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith), the lead singer of the glee club and quarterback of the football team, doesn't seem to know a hot tub cannot serve as a medium for impregnating his cheerleader girlfriend, Quinn Fabray; meanwhile, his best friend, Puck Puckerman (Mark Salling), who did get Quinn pregnant, is rampaging though the neighborhood sleeping with the â€Å"cougar† mothers of his classmates.There are also politically correct touches. Kurt Hummel (Chris Kolfer), the member of the glee club who likes to dress in black lace, not only â€Å"comes out† in the course of the first season but also leads the winless football team to their first victory by teaching them all how to dance. Yet Kurt's character is not made into a complete caricature: While his achievement on the gridiron is simply silly, the scene where he admits to his blue-collar father his same-sex attraction is quite affecting – and, I might add, realistic.Not to be outdone, Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), who has the best voice in the cast, is also the most neurotic, having been raised by two homosexual fathers. Rachel eventually discovers that her birth mother is the coach of the rival glee club. Such is the search for postmodern innocence in Glee – there is too much water under the cultural bridge to directly revive the musical idiom and heritage of the 1940s and 1950s that became second nature to so many baby-boomers.Before Glee, of course, there was Stephen Sondheim, who throughout his career as a composer and lyricist struggled with the same question of how to extend the musical to an audience that no longer believed in the univocal meaning of â€Å"I love you. † We can be grate ful to the creators of Glee for making an effort to bring us a popular entertainment with such a high level of singing and dancing. The temptation will be to lose sight of the initial choices that have led to its success and, particularly, the generational breadth of its audience.Just as American Idol has found out the hard way from its plunging ratings, once you start trying to please only the teenagers, the whole enterprise will quickly collapse Mid-April, with its tax deadline, is a time that many people dread; this year, however, millions looked forward to it with great eagerness, because April 13th brought the first episode of â€Å"Glee† after a four-month hiatus. The Fox show, set in the fictional William McKinley High School, inLima, Ohio, is part satirical comedy, part musical, and—since its setting is high school—a bit of a drama. It’s not exactly a high-school musical, and it’s not exactly â€Å"High School Musical,† the Disney so ng-and-dance franchise, although, like that TV movie and its brand extensions, it has a long tail of tie-in merchandise and live performances. It also has over-the-moon fans—â€Å"gleeks,† they happily call themselves—which is a notable thing for a mainstream, non-niche network show that began only last fall.The first post-hiatus episode had more than thirteen million viewers; the second, which featured the songs of Madonna, was close behind. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the show follows â€Å"American Idol† on Tuesday nights—though the pairing did pain many people a couple of weeks ago, when a live edition of â€Å"Idol† ran long, causing DVRs across the land to cut off the last minutes of â€Å"Glee. † And â€Å"Glee,† although a work of fiction, is â€Å"Idol† ’s spawn, part of the current craze for watching star-making (and dream-crushing) machinery at work. Glee† was created and is written by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan. Of the three, Murphy is the best known, having created the just ended FX psychomelodrama â€Å"Nip/Tuck† (for which Falchuk was a writer and a producer) and the 1999 WB comedy â€Å"Popular,† which was also a sendup of teen-age archetypes—as in â€Å"Glee,† there was a star football player who was torn between sports and the stage—but involved much more extracurricular activity among parents and families.Except for the teachers and the administrators at McKinley High, few adults appear in â€Å"Glee,† which gives the series a cartoonish feel that’s reinforced by the fact that the grownups we do see, well meaning though they may be, are as cluelessly wrapped up in themselves as the young people are. (Oddly, or not, of the group of about ten students we hang out with two have lost a parent.It seems like a lot. ) The success of â€Å"Glee† depends on the energy and the obvious talent of its young (but way beyond high-school age) performers, and on Jane Lynch, who plays Sue Sylvester, the acid-tongued, sneaky, and completely loony cheerleading coach, whose every line of dialogue is quotable (and is duly quoted, minutes after being delivered, on Facebook pages and in Twitter feeds).Sue’s counterbalance, and nemesis, is Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison, who has a solid Broadway background and Leyendecker good looks, including thick, wavy hair that Sue mocks, in elegant variations, pretty much every time she sees Will), a youngish Spanish teacher and a graduate of McKinley High in the days when it had a top-notch show choir. Will makes it his project to bring back that glory, and he starts by tricking the captain of the football team (Cory Monteith), whom he hears singing in the shower after practice one day, into joining his ragtag crew.If Will gets funding for his group, the economy being tough—Sue’s cheerleading crew will lose theirs. Will also wants some of Sue’s girls—the Cheerios—for his group. She tells him that he doesn’t get it—that he can’t blur the lines in the rigid caste system that is high school: â€Å"Your jocks and your popular kids—up in the penthouse. Your invisibles and the kids playing live-action druids and trolls out in the forest—bottom floor. † What about the Glee kids? Will asks. What category are they in? â€Å"Sub-basement,† she says. from the issue * cartoon bank * e-mail this The real engine of the show isn’t the machinations of its characters or its unfolding plot but its basic structure. Because â€Å"Glee† is actually about a group of singers, it doesn’t seem artificial when the cast breaks into song; the music fits into the proceedings organically. The songs—which Murphy chooses—range from oldies to newies, so that there is, theoretically, something for everybody, from â€Å"Sing Sing Sin g† and â€Å"Sweet Caroline† to â€Å"Gives You Hell† and â€Å"Single Ladies. Still, it must be said, even people who love these songs may find something to hate in the style of singing sometimes showcased in â€Å"Glee†Ã¢â‚¬â€the earsplitting, maniacally melismatic car-alarm whine that Whitney Houston popularized—but, thankfully, there are quiet ballads to balance things out. Rachel, one of the choir members, has a bit of that pleading quality in her voice, but it suits her desperate ambition. She’s played by Lea Michele, who, at twenty-three, is a fifteen-year Broadway veteran.Yet her large talent doesn’t extend to the non-singing parts of her performance. I give it up for her gifts, but I don’t feel soul there. Rachel takes herself very seriously, and things very literally; one of the other kids, Artie (Kevin McHale), is wheelchair-bound, and Rachel complains to Will that Artie shouldn’t be singing â€Å"Sit Down Y ou’re Rockin’ the Boat† because he’s already sitting down. Artie’s take is that Will’s choice was meant to be ironic, and Rachel responds, â€Å"There’s nothing ironic about show choir! Of course there is, but there’s more, too—there’s also real glee, when things come together and when the characters get as much fleshing out as the stereotyping and the time constraints allow. With several production numbers per episode, almost all of which have remarkably weak choreography and poorly synched lip-synching, the writers haven’t been able to go very deep into anyone’s lif Read more http://www. newyorker. com/arts/critics/television/2010/05/10/100510crte_television_franklin#ixzz25UpjRdrc And then there’s Glee.Because there are no original songs, they’ve got to reference other works multiple times in every episode. When the show is at its best it takes cultural referents such as the video for Beyonce’s â€Å"Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)† and turns it into something else by putting it in the context of trying to win a football game. It’s an utterly ridiculous and goofy scene that belies the reality of the way football works, but it’s also enormously satisfying and pretty funny to boot.The show’s musical numbers are to me more successful when they transport their sources to locales away from the stage or the classroom. And even when a musical number starts within the walls of William McKinley High School, if there are sequences that take us to other places and/or elsewhere in time, such as when Kurt recently sang â€Å"I Want to Hold Your Hand† for his classmates, that can also work incredibly well.But when their numbers are stagebound things often become stagnant, sucking the life out of the song and leaving a strong distaste in the mouths of many viewers, or at least those who know the original. Kurt poses for photos when he ’s not transporting us through time via the power of song. The apotheoses of these occurrences take place in the episode titled â€Å"The Substitute,† which features renditions of classic numbers from Singin’ in the Rain (Donen/Kelly 1952), which were themselves new takes on old songs.I’m not saying some texts are untouchable, but if you’re going to cover something so culturally iconic, you might want to do something totally new with it. So Gus Van Sant’s shot for shot remake of Psycho (1998)? Probably not a good idea. Conversely, Martin Scorsese’s reimagining of Ford’s The Searchers (1956) as an urban western in Taxi Driver (1976)? That works. If you don’t approach homage in this way it becomes nothing more than imitation, which might be the highest form of flattery but doesn’t make for good TV or cinema.So Glee’s rendition of Singin’ in the Rain’s title song incorporates a mash-up with Rihan na’s â€Å"Umbrella† and takes place on a stage full of water featuring the cast re-enacting moves from Gene Kelly’s classic sequence while also incorporating new moves into their set-piece number. There’s revision, and there’s imitation, and then there’s shitting on sanctity. I’m no purist and I’m not saying they shouldn’t have done it, but I would argue that despite the attempt at innovation, it doesn’t go far enough in its departure from either original.And the one thing that it’s missing that makes the movie’s original so great is passion you can feel. Kelly’s rendition takes place within the context of his falling in love with Kathy (Debbie Reynolds) and it results in Dionysian abandon, bringing to Technicolor life the giddy exhilaration that comes with new love, whereas Glee’s version is akin to watching craftsmen make shoes: there’s artistry in their production and the fin ished product is expertly made, but it lacks the soul that still makes Kelly’s sequence so resonant.Worse still is their take on â€Å"Make ‘Em Laugh,† which features Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) and Mike Chang (Harry Shum, Jr. ) in a duet that is at times a near step for step imitation of Donald O’Connor’s version. Again, failing to revise the setting and context in an interesting way leaves their rendition flat. It lacks the visceral joy of O’Connor’s sequence, the best part of which is that it makes the audience do what the title suggests, which is laugh.Will and Chang are great dancers, but as there’s no real reason for the scene other than to show that they can do a rote imitation of the steps, their version is totally devoid of life and spontaneity, making it seem as though it’s performed by technically proficient but non-sentient automatons. There’s no reason you can’t do a scene that’s al most identical to the original, so long as you update it in such a way so as to give the audience a new way to interpret it. Take Spike Lee’s incorporation of the Love/Hate tattoo sequence from Night of the Hunter (Laughton 1955) into Do the Right Thing (1989).Robert Mitchum’s iconic scene is as seemingly inviolable as anything from Singin’ in the Rain, but by transposing it from a depression era white psychopathic murdering preacher in the deep south to Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), a socially aware young African-American male living in what was at the time contemporary Bedford-Stuyvesant, Lee both pays homage and avoids pastiche, creating something new in the process, a model of artistic quotation that I’m afraid might be falling out of favor in our current media landscape, as evidenced on Glee and elsewhere * Why a blog and not a website? TUESDAY, 30 AUGUST 2011 Project: Art History. † Evolution of musical film genre†. â€Å"Williams and Hall both have argued that culture is not so much a set of things (television shows or paintings, for example) as a set of processes or practices through which individuals and groups come to make sense of things, including their own identities within and even against or outside the group† Stunken ; Cartwright (2009) The intention of the essay is to link evolution in cinema genres with the changes in the structure of popular culture.The quotation expresses the approach to culture as a process in which individuals interact, and this is the way the essay would like culture to be seen. Cinema is the perfect method to analyse popular culture from this point of view. Since its invention, it has given human beings a new and different opportunity of enjoying simulated worlds. Musical genre is particularly interesting because it has been present since the beginnings of cinema as one of the main Hollywood genres, and it has needed to introduce new strategies to survive. There are periods whe n it nearly disappeared before coming back in a new form (Hayward 2000).This essay is structured in such a way that it describes the periods of the genre and how its codes and conventions have been applied in each, and then analyses the main ideas from a social and theoretical point of view. But first, it may prove useful to discuss genre theory. Genre can be considered a strategy created by the cinema industry to identify a category of film. But it also can be described as a cognitive mechanism to help the viewer and filmmaker to know the expectations and hypothesis of the viewers when sitting in front of a screen to watch a film.Any genre is formed by a set of codes and conventions that the spectator has learned and can decode automatically and unconsciously. He or she feels pleasure in identification. This last point of view agrees with the one of the essay, as its aim is to connect the research on genre with what spectators experience when watching a film (Nelmes 2007) (Hayward 2000). It is also interesting to analyse what makes the spectator enjoy watching a film. Hayward (2000) identifies three stages in spectatorship theory. The first stage in the 70's treats the spectator as a passive subject.It is inspired on Freud's idea of the Oedipal complex and on Lacan's idea of the â€Å"mirror stage† that says that our identity is not coming from within, but from the way we see ourselves for the first time from the outside. In our adulthood we are in a constant state of desire that cannot be fulfilled because our unconscious mind cannot be influenced by the world around us. Freud's ideas associate the mirror stage with the relationship between the child and his mother. The male character sees his mother as an object and identifies with the father to try to meet the child's feeling of â€Å"castration† of not having access to the mother (Ward 2003).The spectator identifies the cinema screen with this â€Å"mirror†. The second stage, from the middle of the 70’s, is influenced by Laura Mulvey. She introduces the idea of sexual difference in identification with personalities and criticises the masculine point of view in cinema narrative that fetishizes women. The option for the female spectator is to identify with the passive female or with a masculine third character. In the third stage, from the 80's, we find investigations derived from the debate started by Mulvey. Some ideas talk about the bisexual position of the female child after her mirror stage.She first has the mother as her object of desire and then she has to change to the father as her object of desire. And the male spectator can also position himself bisexually, when identifying with the active and passive modes of the male character. The spectator is treated as an active subject, he or she does not occupy just one position in relation to the characters. Dyer considers that there are three periods in a genre: primitive, mature and decadent (Hayward 20 00). On the experimental primitive period, before the 30's, musical is generated as a hybrid from European operetta and American vaudeville and music hall (Hayward 2000).On the mature period, from the 30's to the 60's, first we find a director such as Busby Berkeley. His films do not pay attention to the plot, but rather, are vehicles for song and dance that are introduced in an artificial way. It is pure spectacle and sensuality. Sex is offered through the gaze (Hayward 2000). Later, songs and dances move with the narrative and are introduced on a more natural way. Fred Astaire develops an elegant, stylised style and Gene Kelly develops a more energetic one. The music was often composed by talented authors brought from Broadway.In the 50's, it is the first time the studio system pay special attention to the youth audience, linked to the rise in the music record industry. Singers as Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard became actors (Hayward 2000). For Altman musicals of the mature perio d are an â€Å"ode to marriage†. The narrative is based on the principle of pairing and mirroring. Male and female are paired, maturity is paired to immaturity. The main characters are mirrored in other couples; settings are mirrored in other settings (Hayward 2000). This conclusion was made following a synchronic analysis, i. . , just focusing in a moment in the film, specifically in the final scene. Recently, this same author has reflected about that approach and has analysed musical films diachronically. He proposes two hypotheses. Following the first one, in musicals main characters are first paired with a â€Å"wrong† partner to be finally paired to the â€Å"right† one. Films such as â€Å"An American in Paris† (Minnelli, 1951) follow this structure. The second hypothesis is more speculative. It is based in the idea that the relationships of the characters turn from homosocial to heterosexual.This structure is found in many films, from â€Å"An Ame rican in Paris† (Minnelli, 1951), to â€Å"Grease† (Kleiser, 1978). In â€Å"Grease†, the main actress and actor belong to a group where all members are women or all men, respectively, and eventually left these groups to become a couple. This can be seen as an evolution from childhood to adulthood. The author also speculates on whether this structure tries to avoid the character moving from a homosocial relationship to a homosexual relationship (Altman 2010). Cohan (2010) considers that the dual register between narrative and performance is one of the distinctive conventions of the genre.It breaks the dominant codes of realism in cinema, whose aim is to guide the audience through the story, so the codes and conventions become â€Å"transparent† to avoid distracting them (Nelmes 2007). The concept of diegesis refers to the fictional world described inside the story. In musicals, filmmakers can add extra-diegetic shots that have no logical reason for being t here. And they can add a diegetic to call public attention to the star, to show that they are amazed when they see and hear the main characters dancing or singing, and to create the illusion that the real non-diegetic audience is part of that public (Hayward 2000).Dyer (2002) distinguishes three tendencies of musicals: one that keeps narrative and number separate, another that identifies narrative with problems and numbers with scape, but trying to integrate the number through signals, and a last one that dissolves this distinction between narrative and number, which makes this narrative also utopian. Richard Dyer writes that the strategy of the genre is to â€Å"provide the spectator with an utopia through the form of entertainment†.Any film reflects these categories: abundance, energy, intensity, transparency and community in opposition to the real society, where we can find: scarcity, exhaustion, dreariness, manipulation and fragmentation. Abundance is shown through the lu xurious costumes and huge settings. Energy is shown through the dance and also the camera work. Intensity refers to experiencing emotions directly. Transparency refers to spontaneity. Community refers to the sense of belonging. This utopia is associated with the specific mainstream ideology of this period: capitalism, economic and social stability (Hayward 2000), (Stacey 1994).Of the decadent period, from the 60's, codes and conventions are questioned. Musicals are more realistic; subjects such as racism and delinquency are treated. Examples are â€Å"West Side Story† (Wise, 1961), â€Å"Saturday Night Fever† (Badham, 1977) and â€Å"Grease† (Kleiser, 1978). We also find Julie Andrew's films such as â€Å"The Sound of Music† (Wise, 1965). This is identified as a family film that follows traditional conventions. But its structure differs from the classical one. There is no more a duality, instead, there is a female main character and the male character has a secondary role.She represents liberated femininity. In Barbra Streisand's films – â€Å"The Way We Were† (Pollack, 1973) – the girl needs a partner but does not always achieve it. When she fails to do it, the film shows her drive for freedom and female independence (Farmer 2010), (Robertsib Wojcik 2010). This reflects how conventions in cinema have changed with changes in society; in the 70's women rebelled against the traditional patriarchal society. It has been almost 50 years since the period of decline of the musical genre begun. It looked as if it was going to disappear. But lately, we are seeing a revival of the genre.Sometimes it is successful, such as â€Å"Moulin Rouge! † (Luhrman, 2001), â€Å"Chicago† (Marshall, 2002) and â€Å"Mamma Mia† (Lloyd, 2008), sometimes it is not, such as â€Å"Nine† (Marshall, 2009). At this point, we can ask ourselves about the reasons for bringing back musicals. Cohan (2010) mentions David R ooney and Jonathan Bing describing them. They mention how development of new technology can help with the task of shooting and editing, and reducing costs. Also, the after-market of the fans of musical can be economically attractive, as they are repeating viewers, so DVDs and soundtracks would sell well – as well as merchandising would do.Another interesting fact is that the youth audience has grown up watching music videos and Disney's animated films. Finally, another reason can be that the golden period of musicals happened during the 30's Big Depression. Maybe it is not a coincidence that in the actual moment of economic recession, the public is going back to watch films that supply escapism (Burgess-Alllen 2010). Feuer (2010) argues that in the decline period, there are reconstructive musicals and deconstructive musicals. Reconstructive musicals can be â€Å"Moulin Rouge† (Luhrman, 2001), â€Å"Chicago† (Marshall, 2002), â€Å"Nine† (Marshall, 2009). Cabaret† (Fosse) in 1972 already has influences of art cinema (Hayward 2000). They are targeted at art-house audiences, while keep the classical conventions, and show an interest in aesthetic and nostalgia for the past. Following the these, â€Å"Moulin Rouge† (Luhrman, 2001) mixes cinematic references, historical intertexts and cultural allusions, this makes it difficult to define which genre it belongs to as it can be considered a musical, a melodrama, and author film, or even a music video (Nelmes 2007).Deconstructive Musicals are oriented towards the teenage public and create new conventions, they do not represent lead performers but amateurs that love singing and dancing, they â€Å"take up the position of spectators of Old Hollywood musicals in a world where it is no longer possible to be Fred Astaire† (Daldry, 2000). Following these, there are productions for TV, such as â€Å"High School Musical† (Ortega, 2006) and, more recently, â€Å"Glee† (Murphy, 2009). Conventions in â€Å"High School Musical† (Ortega, 2006) follow the traditional ones. It follows the principle of duality with two main characters.What it adds new to the genre is a contrast between authenticity, represented by the main couple, and manipulated artistry, represented by another couple. It also adds a reflection of a rigidly hierarchical world, where the characters move between conformism and rebellion. The characters are stereotypes: jocks, cheerleaders, and brainiacs. â€Å"Glee† (Murphy, 2009) takes the idea of â€Å"High School Musical† and exaggerates it. We again find the same stereotypes but they are taken to the extreme of satire. All the characters know that to be someone at the school they have to belong to a group: cheerleaders, football team†¦Wearing a distinctive uniform is important for them. â€Å"Glee† also adds being playful with reality. It highlights being a simulation of reality and reminds us often about it, advising us not to take it too seriously. The narrative is an utopia in the same way as the performances. And this utopia again follows a specific ideology. Subjects that affect teenagers are treated: pregnancy, alcohol, sexuality, family relationships, †¦ (Cohan 2010), (Payne 2010). Another thing these films have changed from classic films is that musical soundtracks are not created specifically for the film, now it appropriates pop music or music from other films.The concept of film genre is directly related to the concept of intertextuality. The film is always going to be framed by the genre as each film belonging to it uses conventions previously used by other members of it (Nelmes 2007). But this can be a contradiction, because intertextuality is also associated with taking the text beyond the boundaries of the genre. This semiotic term was first used by Julia Kristeva, who understands that the text connects in two ways, first the author to the reader and then t he text to other texts (Chandler 2009). The growing preponderance of visuals in ads has enhanced the ambiguity of meaning embedded in message structures. Earlier advertising usually states its message quite explicitly through the medium of written text†¦ , but starting in the mid-1920s visual representation became more common, and the relationship between text and visual image became complementary – that is, the text explained the visual. In the post-war period, and especially since the early 1960s, the function of text moved away from explaining the visual and towards a more cryptic form, in which text appeared as a kind of ‘key' to the visual.In all, the effect was to make the commercial message more ambiguous; a ‘reading' of it depended on relating elements in the ad's internal structure to each other, as well as drawing in references from the external world. † Leiss (1997) This paragraph talks specifically about the use of intertextuality in adverti sing, which is not the subject of the essay, but it is included here because it expresses that the way creatives communicate messages has evolved from being explicit to being ambiguous. Leiss talks about how the â€Å"receiver's brain is an indispensable component of the total communication system†.Explaining it clearly, the spectator is no longer considered stupid. Viewers have a wider visual knowledge that make them able to understand messages transmitted on ambiguous ways. We have grown with the rapid association of images in film, TV, and advertisement (Kolker 2002). The visual knowledge of the spectator has helped to make it more sophisticated. The basis of the plot remains simple but the filmmaker can and must introduce mechanisms to appeal a target audience that has become highly media literate.As a result of the the research can be taken the most interesting ideas about the way contemporaneous filmmakers apply the codes and conventions of the genre. They follow some o f the conventions of films from the classical era: keeping a simple plot, selling an ideology. And they add to the genre: using soundtracks from pop music or other films instead of creating it specifically for the film, the creation of fictional worlds that make reference to another fictional world, playing with reality and stereotypes, playing with the dual register between narrative and performance.It can be found in several essays and articles that talk about contemporaneous musical films being postmodern, as the following one written by Edwards (Cohan 2010): â€Å"The charm and artistic merit of the original High School Musical movie lies in its ability to consider a sophisticated theatrical and musical heritage and consequently revise it for a modern audience †¦ it simultaneously conforms to genre expectations and pays homage to its textual influences while taking a postmodern delight in exposing its own limitations and playing with some gentle pastiche of literary and ci nematic predecessors†.Flanagan (2002) wrote about the features of a film that can be identified as postmodern. The first ones are playfulness and self reference. It reminds us that it is a construction, that is not real, and that we must not take it seriously. The musical film's creators play with the way they integrate the performances in the narrative, with the stereotypes. It follows the tendency of dissolving the distinction between narrative and number, meaning that this narrative is also utopian. The second ones are generic blurring and intertextuality.The use of references to other texts is very usual in musicals. The third ones are popular and commercial media mixed with high culture. Current musical films do not have a soundtrack created for them, but they appropriate music. The fourth ones are fragmentation and death of representation. This refers to the way audience make sense of things through representations of reality instead of doing it through the reality itsel f. And finally uncertainty and the loss of context as consequence of the previous ones. According to this, films such as â€Å"Glee† (Murphy, 2009) can be considered postmodern.But probably to label a film as postmodern is not going to influence the audience as to whether to be interested on it or not, what probably can be considered more important is the â€Å"sophisticated hyperconsciousness† in contemporaneous popular entertainment, i. e. , the high degree of media literacy in the audience that allows playing with the conventions (Collins 1993), (Nelmes 2007). Why is Glee Postmodern In this blog and our discussion of postmodern television, the TV showGlee  has come up as an example.. One of the theories we’ve learned about postmodernism is that it rejects the idea of metanarratives (stories about stories).In postmodernism there is not black and white, good vs. evil, etc. In the show  Glee  there is the character Puck, a football player who seems to be y our typical tough-guy bully. However, even though Puck is a bully and even shoves around some of the other characters that we like, we still do not dislike him. We don’t see him as the villain even though typically the jock/bully is seen as the â€Å"bad guy. † Plurality is another term we learned regarding postmodernism, and this is when there are multiple stories and multiple identities.This show has so many characters, each with their own personal story and all of their stories get told in one way or another. Within Season 2 episode 8 the character ‘David’ is focused on and he is being questioned about whether he is gay or not. The glee club is a dance singing club but within this is another story. This gives the program room to expand and here for example the program deals with modern day issues that are publicised in the media. Grand narratives are clearly contradicted in this episode as homosexuality is put in the limelight and is praised.One of the male characters shows very feminine attributes and in their rehearsal wears a top which says â€Å"Likes Boys. † This is done to try to numb the shock of homosexuals coming out and normalise it so that the program can move forward. There are different races, different personalities, different handicaps; different cliques, all represented in this show and all of their stories are being told. Nostalgia is another postmodern term represented in  Glee. Many of the songs performed on this show are songs from the past for example Les Miserables – Kareoke and Born this Way.The teacher in charge of Glee Club, Mr. Schuester, loves doing songs from when he was younger and this really brings nostalgia to the show. Convergence, the flow of media content across a range of different platforms is also part of this show. You can download the songs performed on the show, many viewers discuss the show online, and many people attempt to win parts on the show by creating videos of thems elves singing and performing and posting them online. There are many forms of media involved with this show other than simply watching the show.Not to mention the fact that you can also watch the show online, just one more form of media regarding this show Glee draws people in by creating stereotypical situations and characters, each with their own flaws that the audience can easily identify with. This identification process allows viewers to become more intimate with the show, especially when the actors begin to sing songs that modern viewers already know and love. Fox originally took a chance on the new musical project, but hedged their bets with innovative marketing strategies and with a huge lead in audience from American Idol.The use of cultural classics and songs that recently premiered on the top 40, drew in the American Idol audience members specifically, and music lovers generally. This target audience was strong in the 18-49 demographic, and particularly strong with women. The strength in these demographics enabled Glee to become the 3rd most expensive show to buy advertisements on. This advertising revenue is supplemented with a steady stream of money made from selling singles on ITunes. This model has been so successful that Glee has now become a tent-pole of its own and anchors the entire comedy lineup on Tuesdays. contrast, in recent years American television has brought us Scrubs, Ugly Betty and now Glee, shows that combine boldly imaginative approaches to narrative with a humour and humanity that is often exhilarating to behold. While we seem to be mired in an endless debate about platforms, content, news values and the multimedia revolution, the Americans have managed to retain an enthusiasm for the dramatic possibilities of television. And what's clear is that those possibilities are founded upon an enduring belief in sharp, savvy writing and deeply committed performances.At first sight, Glee (C4) follows a stupefyingly familiar path. It's se t in a midwest high school, amid the over-fictionalised world of geeks and jocks. And in a nod to the High School Musical fad, it focuses on a glee club, or singing society. However, Glee takes these tropes and cliches and stretches them in surprising directions to create a whole new form, as different to its original source as a butterfly is to a caterpillar. Last week, teen pregnancy, the difficulty of coming out in high school, and sexual attraction between teacher and pupil were plot themes but, unlike many American shows, not moral â€Å"issues†.Glee is possessed of a liberal heart but its balls, as well as some of its most memorable lines, belong to the politically incorrect coach, Sue Sylvester (played by Jane Lynch). Like two opposing grammarians, kitsch sentiment and killer sarcasm wrestle over every line. Yet, at the point where conventional drama plunges into pathos, Glee slips into song. At one moment the school quarterback was singing â€Å"I'll Stand by Youâ₠¬  to the ultrasound of his unwanted child (which isn't his), the next his friends were rallying round in a stirring rendition of â€Å"Lean on Me†.A lot of the humour stems from snappy social observation, but the show also boasts the kind of verbal extravagance that, in the wrong hands, can sound written rather than said. Typical was the scene in which a former schoolgirl stalker, who once responded to rejection by eating a lethally hot pepper, advised her equally deluded successor: â€Å"Let me tell you a few things I learned from two years of intense psychotherapy and an oesophagus transplant. The reason that line worked is the same reason the songs and outrageous storylines work: because the characters are immersed in their own reality. They never act as if they've said something funny. There's no pause for laughter, no nods or winks, as Glee shows the same faith in its audience as it does in its characterisations. Laughter isn't forced, so isn't false. In common with U gly Betty and Scrubs, there is plenty of cultural commentary and knowing asides but failure to spot the reference doesn't undermine the scene. The action just moves swiftly on.If Glee is postmodern, it doesn't bother knocking twice. The show has attracted a lot of plaudits, particularly in America, so it's probably soon due for a backlash. This might be an opportune moment, then, to say that the hype is deserved. It's a rare and heartening pleasure to watch so much energy and emotion expended in the unfashionable cause of family entertainment. Some of its fans might say Doctor Who performs a similar feat, though really the nearest British television comes, or attempts to come, to Glee is in shows like Strictly Come Dancing.Where US networks can be persuaded to invest in good writing and acting, our TV executives prefer to back the all-dancing duo of celebrity and reality. Only in an atmosphere in which originality is viewed as marginal or suspect could a series like Life of Riley (B BC1) be produced. It may seem unfair to pick out this harmless sitcom as an illustration of the failings of British comedy drama, but perhaps not quite as unfair as the decision to recommission another series. Why is Glee Postmodern?Glee is an American musical-comedy drama series. It started in 2009 and is produced by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, who originally wanted Glee to be a film, but decided to make it more interesting as a series. The episode I have chosen to focus on is the ‘Britney/Brittany’ episode, which pays tribute to Britney Spears when a member of the club Brittany Pierce experiences an anesthesia-induced hallucination in which she recreates iconic Spears moments, and comes to self-realization.I believe that this episode shows examples of being postmodern, as for a start the songs are in the past, and therefore have been created from an idea that’s already happened, Postmodernism postulates that many, if not all, apparent realities a re only social constructs and are therefore subject to change so Glee supports this view, it highlights that it is taking the original idea (song) that we all know from Britney Spears, and constructing it into their own, like the ‘Toxic’ version they performed on stage, straight away it’s obvious that this episode is showing pastiche, as the hole episode is making tributes to classic pop culture, and it gives us as audience ( or those who are old enough) a nostalgic feeling. One of the theories learned about postmodernism is that it rejects the idea of metanarratives (stories about stories). In postmodernism there is not black and white, good vs. evil, etc. There is the character Puck, a football player who seems to be your typical tough-guy bully.However, even though Puck is a bully and even shoves around some of the other characters that we like, we still do not dislike him. We don’t see him as the villain even though typically the jock/bully is seen as the â€Å"bad guy,† and in this episode, he shows examples of this by fitting in with the rest of the club and wanting to perform the Britney songs, when typically you’d expect the ‘jock’ to go against this idea as it wasn’t ‘cool enough’.Plurality is another term regarding postmodernism, and this is when there are multiple stories and multiple identities, and this is shown in this particular episode when although the focus is on Britney, there are several storylines going ahead with each individual character like with Will coming to terms that the girl he loves if with someone else, and then the high school problems the glee club members are all facing.The characters are also known for having multiple identities, this episode especially shows the members like Brittany and Rachel dressed up mimicking Britney Spears, and Santana also comes across as being tough, but in this episode she performs with Brittany in ‘Me Against the Musi c’ and we find out she is also in love with Brittany. Many of the songs performed on this show are songs from the past. The teacher in charge of Glee Club, Mr.Schuster, loves doing songs from when he was younger and this really brings nostalgia to the show, but in this episode he rejects the idea of doing Britney week, as he believes she gives out the wrong messages, but eventually he comes around and performs with them, which causes outrage to the school, which is also very postmodern, although Glee is a fun, light-hearted comedy series, it can also have many adult references in, especially in this episode, which I believe to be very postmodern as it ignores the typical conventions of a ‘high school drama’ and actually takes the stereotypes to an extreme but twists them.Glee has also been quoted to be described as hyper-postmodern media culture. A mash-up of generic influences, intertextual references, music, and ideological content that is both eerily nostalgic and forward-thinking, and this episode is a prime example showing all these things, the fact that the students go to the dentist to get their teeth fixed which is an ‘underlying’ important message, influencing the audience to take care of their selves, its then twisted when they get put under an anesthesia, and hallucinate Britney Spears fantasies, Glee is known for taking simple, conventional ideas and turning them to almost inappropriate. Like two opposing grammarians, kitsch sentiment and killer sarcasm wrestle over every line. Yet, at the point where conventional drama plunges into pathos, Glee slips into song† was quoted by a news article, showing how Glee takes a completely different take on high school drama. Convergence, the flow of media content across a range of different platforms is also part of this show.You can download the songs performed on the show, many viewers discuss the show online, and many people attempt to win parts on the show by creating videos of themselves singing and performing and posting them online. There are many forms of media involved with this show other than simply watching the show. Not to mention the fact that you can also watch the show online, just one more form of media regarding this show. In conclusion, I believe that Glee is postmodern because it uses examples of hyperreality, pastiche, intertextuality and is not your ordinary high school drama.