Leadership and Management - Critically analyse the effectiveness of Research Paper

Leadership and Management - Critically analyse the effectiveness of leadership as portrayed in Elizabeth (1998) - Research Paper Example The effectiveness of her leadership is demonstrated by her ability to shape the politics of England as well as the critical decisions that shaped the political environment of that time. Elizabeth (1998) is a 1998 biographical film, in the role of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The movie explores the leadership outlook and the reign of Elizabeth, which started after the death of her half-sister Mary I, who had held her as a captive (Elizabeth 1998). Her reign over the bankrupt and divided territory was considered to pose a high risk of invasion by Spain and France, but the effectiveness of her leadership appears to dissolve the issues facing the territory. Through the effective leadership outlook of Elizabeth, she is able to surmount major internal threats, including that of Eccleston, the 4th Duke of Norfolk and that from the armies of Ardant (Mary of Guise), which took place at Scotland. Using her leadership outlook and using the wits of leadership, she evades plots from Gielgud (Pope Pius V). Through her effective teamwork with partners like Rush (Francis Walsingham), she masters both external and internal threats, and manages to execute the plotters of the attacks very effectively. After realizing that her affair with Fiennes (Robert Dudley) was compromising her effectiveness as a leader, she resolves to stay married to England only. At the conclusion of the movie, the effectiveness of her leadership leads to the initiation of England’s golden age, which demonstrated the positive outlook of her reign and leadership style (Elizabeth 1998). This paper will explore the leadership characteristics of Elizabeth, which signify that her leadership was effective – like it is portrayed through the film. The paper will also explore relevant leadership issues, towards demonstrating the effectiveness of Elizabeth, citing relevant

Indo-European languages Essay Example for Free

Indo-European languages Essay The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and dharma texts. Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the forms of hymns and mantras. Spoken Sanskrit has been revised in some villages with traditional institutions, and there are attempts at further popularisation. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sa? sk? ta- may be translated as put together, constructed, well or completely formed; refined, adorned, highly elaborated. It is derived from the root sa? -skar- to put together, compose, arrange, prepare,[5] where sa? together (as English same) and (s)kar- do, make. The term in the generic meaning of made ready, prepared, completed, finished is found in the Rigveda. Also in Vedic Sanskrit, as nominalised neuter sa? sk? tam, it means preparation, prepared place and thus ritual enclosure, place for a sacrifice. As a term for refined or elaborated speech the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit, in the Manusmriti and in the Mahabharata. The language referred to as sa? sk? ta the cultured language has by definition always been a sacred and sophisticated language, used for religious and learned discourse in ancient India, and contrasted with the languages spoken by the people, prak? ta- natural, artless, normal, ordinary. Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pa? ini, around the 4th century BCE. [6] Its position in the cultures of Greater India is akin to that of Latin and Greek in Europe and it has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent, particularly in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. [7] The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, its oldest core dating back to as early as 1500 BCE. [8] This qualifies Rigvedic Sanskrit as one of the oldest attestations of any Indo-Iranian language, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European languages, the family which includes English and most European languages. [9] Sanskrit, as defined by Pa? ini, had evolved out of the earlier Vedic form. The beginning of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced as early as 1500–1200 BCE (for Rig-vedic and Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni). Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pa? inian Sanskrit as separate dialects. Though they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a large collection of hymns, incantations (Samhitas), theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas and Upanishads. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, composed by many authors over several centuries of oral tradition. The end of the Vedic period is marked by the composition of the Upanishads, which form the concluding part of the Vedic corpus in the traditional view; however the early Sutras are Vedic, too, both in language and content. [10] Around the mid-1st millennium BCE, Vedic Sanskrit began the transition from a first language to a second language of religion and learning. For nearly 2,000 years, a cultural order existed that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent, East Asia. [11] A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of the Hindu Epics—the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The deviations from Pa? ini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations and not because they are pre-Paninean. [12] Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ar? a ( ), meaning of the is, the traditional title for the ancient authors. In some contexts, there are also more prakritisms (borrowings from common speech) than in Classical Sanskrit proper. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is a literary language heavily influenced by Middle Indic, based on early Buddhist prakrit texts which subsequently assimilated to the Classical Sanskrit standard in varying degrees. [13] According to Tiwari (1955), there were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit: pascimottari (Northwestern, also called Northern or Western),madhyadesi (lit. , middle country), purvi (Eastern) and dak? i? i (Southern, arose in the Classical period). The predecessors of the first three dialects are even attested in Vedic Brahma? as, of which the first one was regarded as the purest (Kau? itaki Brahma? a, 7. 6).

Characters, Themes and Imagery in Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay ex

Characters, Themes and Imagery in Their Eyes Were Watching God      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Zora Neale Hurston was one of the first widely acclaimed black writers to "assimilate folk tradition into modern literature and express her interpretations of the black culture throughout her books" (Bailey, 175).   She was also one of the most influential of black American writers during the twentieth century because she exceeded the barriers of race, sex and poverty.   Hurston's most acclaimed work is said to be Their Eyes Were Watching God, and has been read, adored, rejected, reviewed, and badgered by many literary critics.   "In a book rich with imagery and black oral tradition, Zora Neale Hurston tells us of a woman's journey that gives the lie to Freud's assertion that 'the difficult development which leads to femininity seems to exhaust all the possibilities of the individual'" (Morgan, 163).   In this as well as in other of her writings, Hurston expresses many of her opinions of race relations, sexism, and classism through her characters, themes and imagery.    The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God focuses on a character named Janie who is raised by her grandmother on a white plantation in Georgia, and until seeing a photograph of herself, she has always assumed that she is white.   She loves her grandmother, but after her grandmother's death, she realizes that she resents her as well.   Her grandmother has been strict with her and has taught her that love is obtained only through marriage.   Janie feels that her grandmother has taken all of her dreams away.   Although she is independent, Janie marries three times.   Because of her grandmother she marries Logan Killicks, who works Janie so hard that she decides to leave.   Then she meets Joe Star... ...ir Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2008. Print. Dawson, Emma J. Waters. Images of the Afro-American female character in Jean Toomer's Cane, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Michigan: UMI Dissertation Information Service, 1990. Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Wagvtching God: A Novel. New York: Perennial Library, 1990. Print Kubitschek, Missy D. "`Tuh de Horizon and Back': The Female Quest in Their Eyes Were Watching God." BALF 17.3 (Fall 1983): 109-15. Morgan Grant, Alice. ed. All About Zora: Views and Reviews by Colleagues and Scholars. Florida: Four-G Publishers, Inc., 1991. Wall, Cheryl A. "Zora Neale Hurston: Changing Her Words," American Novelists Revisted: Essays in Feminist Criticism. Ed. Fritz Fleischmann, New York: G.K. Hall and Co. 1982:371-93.   

Henry Walker and the Three of Hearts Essay

Henry Walker, the self-made Negro magician or rather the â€Å"self-made freak† can simply present his life through the analysis of his signature card trick – the use of the Three of Hearts. Each of these hearts represents one of the women who played significant roles in his life. These women were his mother, his sister Hannah, and his assistant and lover, Marianne la Fleur. Henry’s mother The mother of Henry Walker best represents the primary source of tragedy in the story. It can be noted that the setting of the story best emphasizes its tragic theme only when the plot reaches a recollection of Henry’s youth, where the young boy loses his mother. In one way or another, Henry’s mother symbolized familial care and love which should be nurturing, supportive, and developmental – something which the â€Å"magician† was deprived of at a very young age. Technically, the lack of a mother equated to the lack of family, the conflict which Henry tries so hard to resolve all throughout the story. To a certain sense, the mother – or rather the lack of having a mother best depicts Henry Walker as a â€Å"lost soul in perpetual mourning over his departed family†. She is the first of Henry’s losses and probably the most dreadful of all. However, unlike other losses, the loss of Henry’s mother is probably the only real event in the story which is not masked by any illusion or schizophrenic dilemma. It was clear that his mother died from a disease before his ninth birthday and from there, his life has gone towards the worst as he is left in the arms of his lying father. To a certain sense, much of Henry’s doomed destiny can be blamed on the fact that he had lost his mother. With a mother, perhaps Henry might have had a more â€Å"real† life and he might have not lived under pretentious and perplexing situations fostered by his imagination and his father’s false encouragements. The role of the mother was to create a â€Å"real† reality, upholding a family that is essential for the foundation and formation of emotionally, socially, and psychologically healthy individuals. The lack of fulfillment for this motherly role in Henry Walker’s life shows why almost everything went wrong. It can also be noted that whenever the lack of motherly care is tackled in the story, Henry is almost always merely seen as a little young boy – helpless and innocent, not an egomaniac who is forging stories and lies for his own benefit. With his mother, Henry becomes a victim of life’s cruelty, a once pure soul who has been corrupted because of the lack of love. As such, apart from setting what was supposed to be real and right in the magician’s life, the mother was supposed to maintain Henry’s chasteness. Through his mother, Henry is blameless and naive: â€Å"You have to know what’s true to lie and Henry didn’t. He didn’t know the difference. † What’s more is that the early loss of a mother therefore established a series of losses for Henry. As noted in the book, for Henry, life is â€Å"One losing battle after another†¦ Winning doesn’t even exist, really, not as something you can hold on to; it’s just something that happens between losses. † Henry’s sister, Hanna If Henry’s mother – or rather the lack of her – was the ultimate source of tragedy in the magician’s life, his sister Hannah was the reverse. Although the boy also lost her sister when he was nearing eleven, the loss of her sister gave his life meaning – although an illusionary one. As shown in the story, because Henry Walker believed that his sister was stolen by the Devil – Mr. Sebastian, he had devoted his life into looking for her. That search gave her a source of life and a direction which he cannot simply find. In this sense, Hannah symbolized a crusade for both vengeance and righteousness for the magician. Hannah’s loss shows the different side of the magician – one who is no longer lured by innocence and youthfulness. Instead, through the vanishing of his sister, Henry becomes a miracle worker, someone that has power and will to defeat the devil. This determination and motivation originating from the loss of his loved one and from his guilt showed a singular Henry, a surprising persona that cannot be expected from a feeble man that the â€Å"Negro† magician posed himself to be. As claimed by Adam Sobsey, â€Å"When late in the book he (Henry Walker) declares that he’s spent his entire life looking for his lost sister and her kidnapper, it’s almost a surprise: He’s scarcely shown that kind of will or anima. He is, in the words of one character, ‘like a puddle in the sun: every day he became smaller and smaller. ’† Hannah symbolized the fight against evil for Henry. As noted by the Daniel Wallace, the author, in one of his interviews: â€Å"The stories that Henry has embraced, generated by his father, that only the Devil could have engineered the taking away of Henry’s sister. So, Henry had to believe in that evil in order to set himself up as a force of good in the world. † This was symbolically emphasized in the story as Hannah was often referred to have angelic qualities. As such, the loss of Hannah – which Henry though was his fault – made Henry’s life a struggle between good and evil and that somehow presented a sense of order into the complexities of the real scenarios that the magician was involved in. However, Hannah was also a source of Henry’s tortuous frustrations for he never can really rescue her from the â€Å"Devil† and Henry will never win against evil. This was emphasized by Henry in the novel: â€Å"Evil always wins†¦ Eventually evil wins. We fight it because it’s the right thing to do, but in the end we’ll always lose. Always. Because to be good- truly good- there are rules, we have rules inside of us, rules we have to follow to be that way, to stay good. And evil can do anything it wants to. It’s not a fair fight. † Wallace, the author, also notes that Henry will always fail at his goal to defeat the Devil because â€Å"The fact is that evil doesn’t exist. There isn’t this Manichean struggle between the two. † Marianne La Fleur, the unattainable Marianne La Fleur, the stage assistant, was the centerpiece in Henry Walker baffling life. In the novel, Henry brings her back to life in one of his shows. This stunt proves to be a success in Henry’s career. This somehow symbolizes Henry’s one good shot back at life; however, the trick fails to receive much awe as its eeriness does not impress the popular audience. In his attempt to love and to be loved, Henry also fails to no avail. Yet, Marianne serves a very defining role in Henry’s life. In a sense, she was the magician’s hope to life and love which remains unattainable, despite their similarities in â€Å"freakishness†. If Henry was presented as a man who had a devastatingly depressing life, his assistant – whom he loved – mirrored the same degree of oddity that he posed: â€Å"Marianne La Fleur was not ugly, though; she was something worse. She was scary. Or no – haunted. She was a haunted woman about whom, when you looked at her, you would wonder, What happened to her? . . . She was odd, and everything she did was odd. . . . Ask her a question, and there was always an uncomfortable pause before she replied. Even the simplest question, ‘How are you? ’ One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three. Fine, she said. One, one thousand. ‘How are you? ’† As described in the novel, Marianne was someone whose characteristics dwell between the living and dead. She was as troubled as the magician and that was probably why he became attracted to her. Through Marianne, Henry defines his fondness of the odd and the haunted. By being attracted to his weird stage assistant who is described as â€Å"a creature ever fluttering on the border between Life and Death†, the magician embraces the divergence from normalcy and tries to embrace the life of a â€Å"freak†. This tendency to be fond of what’s strange and unnatural gave him what he was always looking for: the love of a family. The freakishness was what defined the people who were in the circus – the people whom, as based on their narratives and recollections of Henry – loved and cared for the magician in the way that his family failed to do so. In the narratives of Rudy the Strongman, Jenny the Ossified Girl and JJ the Barker, the life of Henry was delivered not only to deliberately emphasize the horrors of the magician’s life. Rather, through their narrations, Henry was given more than pity. The circus denizens sympathized with their friend and even honored him by saying that â€Å"In the end, Henry was a man with two stories: one story was about revenge, and the other was about love. † In Henry’s life, Marianne was both his mother’s and his sister’s substitute. Through her, the author was able to emphasize an important theme that he tried to present in the story: â€Å"It’s about getting (a) family, losing (a) family. All of the stories presented are about family. Henry loses one family, but in the end he gets another since the circus becomes a family in itself, where the freaks are able to live a normal life with each other and love each other as real people, where their similarities are more important than their differences. † Marianne was the supposed fulfillment to Henry’s final vision which is to gain â€Å"that final ideal of community and family and being a part of the world. † References: Sobsey, Adam (2007). Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician: The new novel from Chapel Hill’s Daniel Wallace. Published 25 Jul 2007 (Retrieved April 6, 2009 from http://www. indyweek. com/gyrobase/Content? oid=oid%3A157570) Turner, Daniel Cross (2009). The Magical Work of Fiction: An Interview with Daniel Wallace. Published March 2009 (Retrieved April 6, 2009 from http://www. storysouth. com/2009/03/interview-with-daniel-wallace. html) ____________ (2007). Bigger Fish Swim in Wallace’s Latest. Published 19 August 2007 in the Mobile Register (Retrieved April 6, 2009 from http://www. weirdplots. com/2007/08/that-old-multicolored-magic. html) Wallace, Daniel (2007). Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician. Doubleday. 257 pp.

Psychological Testing Essay

Psychological testing refers to as a field which is characterized by the use of samples of behavior in to the way of generalizations of every given individual. In psychological testing, however, it is usually not possible to control all the extraneous variables, but the metaphor here is a useful one that forces us on the standardized procedures, on the eliminations of conflicting causes on experimental control and on the generation of hypotheses that can be further investigated. Thus, psychological testing a narrower concept referring to the psychometric aspects of a test. The actual administration and scoring of the test and the interpretation made of the scores. Tests Test is define as an objective and standardized measure of a sample of behavior. objectivity is at least a theoretically, most aspects of a test such as how the test is scored and how the score is interpreted, are not a function of the subjective decision of a particular examiner but are based on objective criteria. Standardization: that is, no matter who administers scores and interprets the test, there is uniformity of procedure and a sample behavior. A test is not a psychological X-ray, nor does it necessarily reveal hidden conflicts and for-bidden wishes; it is a sample of a person’s behavior, hopefully a representative sample from which we can draw some inferences and hypotheses. Tests are used for a wide variety of purposes that can be subsumed under more general categories. These categories include classification, self-understanding, program evaluation and scientific inquiry. (Kline, 2000). Major Categories of Tests Classification  Classification involves a decision that a particular person belongs in a certain category, For example, based on test results we may assign a diagnosis to a patient, place a student in the introductory Spanish course rather than the intermediate or advanced course, or certify that a person has met the minimal qualifications to practice medicine. Self-understanding Self-understanding involves using test information as a source of information about oneself. Such information may already be available to the individuals, but not in a formal way. For example, a student studying electrical engineering her high GRE scores confirm what she already knows, that she has the potential abilities required for graduate work. Program evaluation Program evaluation involves the use of tests to assess the effectiveness of a particular program or course of action. You have probably seen in the newspaper, tables indicating the average achievement test scores for various schools in your geographical area, with the scores often taken, perhaps incorrectly as evidence of the competency level of a particular school. Program offered by a mental health clinic, or the effectiveness of a new medication. Scientific inquiry If you glance through most professional journals in the social and behavioral sciences, you will find that a large majority of studies use psychological tests to operationally define relevant variables and to translate hypotheses into numerical statements that can be assessed statistically. (Kline, 2000). Major Users and Uses of these Tests  Tests are tools usually used by professionals to make what may possibly be some serious decisions about a client: thus both test and the decision process involves a variety of ethical considerations to make sure that the decisions made are in the best interest of all concerned and that the process is carried out in a professional manner. There are serious concerns on the part of both psychologists and lay people, a about the nature of psychological testing and its potential misuse, as well as demands for increased use of tests. Kline, 2000). Concepts of Reliability and Validity The word reliability refers to the extent that a measure is relatively free or random error and is consistent in the numbers assigned to objects or events while validity refers to whether the number obtained truly reflects what the user intended to measure. Therefore, validity requires reliability because validity is not a property of the measure, but instead it is to the truthfulness of the inferences that are drawn from the measure. However, a concept of reliability usually gives the accuracy of a measurement, while the concepts of validity it relates to the truthfulness of a measurement. The concepts of reliability and validity can be explain as when estimating parameters from some data with statistical methods, it is important to understand the uncertainty of parameters. The uncertainty comes from two sources: sampling and measuring the study units. Often the data is a (random) sample from a population. (Hoshmand, 1994). The first error then comes from collecting the data and generalizing the results to a population level. Another source of error is present when measuring the study units when assessing the quality of the collected and measured data set, we end up with questions: Are we measuring the right thing? How accurate our measurements are? The former question leads us to the concept of validity which is the most important property of measurement. The latter question is related to the concept of reliability. The concept of reliability and validity has a major impact in the field of psychological testing. this is because that since generalizability theory is for investigating and designing the reliable observations, thus, each has test score, a single true score, single reliability and validity coefficient and belong to one family of parallel observations, but the generalizability theory which serves both may produce error which is due to multiple scores. (Rush, First, & Blacker, 2008).