Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Maddalena Speaks monologue from the play by Neith Boyce Essay Example For Students

Maddalena Speaks monologue from the play by Neith Boyce Essay A monologue from the play by Neith Boyce NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from Forum: Volume 51. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1914. MADDALENA: Listen, Signora! I am speaking, I, Maddalena, the poor slave, the dirt beneath your feet. You bought me. A hundred lire a month, and Carme, my husband, working hard every day, cannot earn half as much! A hundred lire a month, for my milk to feed your child! Bought like a beast! A hundred lire a month, a fortune for poor people like us how thankful we should be! Yes, and presents, and fine clothes. Look at the linen I am wearing, look at my dress, look at my lace and my long ribbons that touch the ground! Could I ever have worn such things if I had not been bought? Could I have a soft bed to sleep in, could I have good food to eat, could I walk in a garden like yours, could I live in a palace like yours? Never! I am so fortunate! And I gain a hundred lire a month for my husband and he made me come. He sold me. Do you think I would not have run away long ago, if I had dared? Do you think I would not have begged my way, walked on my two feet, all the way back to Naples? But I dared not. Carme would be angry. He had sold me. And my baby! Yes, I am a mother, too, like you, Signora! But not like you, for I would never have given my baby to be nursed by a stranger woman, I would have kept him close, close and safe, on my own breast. But I was forced. I had to give him up, my little baby, my little Beppino, I had to give him to a neighbor to care for, and who knows how she cares for him? For we are poor people, Signora, we cannot buy flesh and blood for our children, like you. My baby, my first, my only one! So beautiful and strong he was, his little head with thick black hair, his little body, so brown and strong! How he pulled at my breast! Not like your puny baby, Signora, that could not take half my milk and left me aching! Oh, and my heart, my heart ached, day and night, for my baby and Carme. Carme my husband who knows? He is handsome, and he is young, and the women, the other women. There is a girl there who would have taken him from me if she could but he love d me but who knows if he loves me yet? We were married only a year who knows if he is faithful? I am here, far away, far away, and I cannot know.

Monday, December 2, 2019

Whether we are opera singers or shower-wailers, ba Essays - Music

Whether we are opera singers or shower-wailers, ballet dancers or awkward shufflers, we all understand how music makes us feel, and more importantly, makes us move. Moving to music is so much a part of the human experience that it seems innate to us as a species. A recent study supports this, showing that fetuses react to music with increased motion, and in some cases, open their mouths as if to sing. Once out of the womb, this response only grows: a catchy tune makes hips swing and toes tap, and in certain situations, heads bang. The music that moves us is itself a product of movement. As a musician who is a tactile learner, I'm keenly aware of the way a piece feels as I play it. Despite years of piano teachers telling me to read the page in front of me while I play, my eyes habitually wander to my hands, where the music is really happening. This gap between reading and performing music keeps me from fully expressing my musical ideas. As a way to bridge this divide, I am trying to create a simple instrument that translates movement directly into music, using motion to capture melodic ideas and expressions. I got this idea while watching a lively orchestra conductor, who sometimes overshadowed the players so much that he seemed to be dancing alone, pulling notes through the air with his baton. Enchanted by how effortlessly he stirred the ocean of sound around him, I caught myself swishing my hands back and forth to the beat. As I lifted my arm to match the swelling tempo, I wondered: what if we could turn all kinds of movement into melodies? It occurred to me that I could apply my skills in computer science and digital media to create a movement-to music application. To a computer everything is math, including music and movement. Every note and motion can be tracked, stored, and broken down into a set of variables, based on information from an outside source, such as a computer mouse or touchpad. I am currently taking advantage of this relationship by creating a web-based application that synthesizes music based on interactions with the cursor. The program, once completed, will play notes as the mouse is pressed, with unique pitch and tone determined by the position and motion of the pointer. Eventually, I'd like to take this concept further using more sophisticated technology. I plan to take data from a motion sensor or camera and convert it directly into sound, using a simple device that tracks movement and translates its vertical position into musical pitch, its horizontal position into musical dynamics (soft to loud), and its speed into musical tone. Imagine being able to move your hand to generate a pitch that changes with the direction of movement, producing a musical phrase. Sophisticated users would be able to control relationships between variables to suit their needs; for example, they could link various components of movement (such as direction or speed in all three dimensions) to a wide range of musical characteristics, including, but not limited to, timbre,harmonics, and distortion. Ultimately, artists could use my instrument to make music from anything that moves: dancers onstage, migrating birds, traffic at a busy intersection. It would not only close the gap between the conception and realization of music, but it could open new creative pathways that combine music and motion. As for me, I look forward to performing on an empty stage, directing an invisible orchestra with the flick of my wrist.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Smart Cities Essays - Ministry Of Urban Development, Free Essays

Smart Cities Essays - Ministry Of Urban Development, Free Essays Ministry of Urban Development Government of India June 2015 Smart Cities Mission Statement & Guidelines Government of India Ministry of Urban Development (June, 2015) Contents 1. The Challenge of Urbanization 5 2. What is a smart city 5 3. Smart City Features 7 4. Coverage and Duration 7 5. Strategy 8 6. Proposal Preparation 9 7. Smart Cities Selection Process 10 8. How Many Smart Cities in Each State/UT? 11 9. The Process of Selection of Smart Cities 11 10. Implementation by Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) 12 11. Financing of Smart Cities 13 12. Funds Release 14 13. Mission Monitoring 15 14. Convergence with Other Government Schemes 17 15. Challenges 18 Annexures Annexure 1: Scope of work for the Smart City Consulting Firm 21 Annexure 2: Number of cities allocated to States based on urban population and number of statutory towns 23 Annexure 3: Challenge Stage 1: Preconditions and Documents to be submitted by each State 25 Annexure 4: Challenge Stage 2: Criteria and Indicative Table of Contents 33 Annexure 5: Structure and Functions of SPV 37 Annexure 6: Utilization Certificate Format 41 Annexure 7: Score Card for Smart Cities 42 5 Smart Cities Mission 1. The Challenge of Urbanization 1.1 Cities are engines of growth for the economy of every nation, including India. Nearly 31% of Indias current population lives in urban areas and contributes 63% of Indias GDP (Census 2011). With increasing urbanization, urban areas are expected to house 40% of Indias population and contribute 75% of Indias GDP by 2030. This requires comprehensive development of physical, institutional, social and economic infrastructure. All are important in improving the quality of life and attracting people and investments to the City, setting in motion a virtuous cycle of growth and development. Development of Smart Cities is a step in that direction. 2. What is a smart city 2.1 The first question is what is meant by a smart city. The answer is, there is no universally accepted definition of a Smart City. It means different things to different people. The conceptualisation of Smart City, therefore, varies from city to city and country to country, depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform, resources and aspirations of the city residents. A Smart City would have a different connotation in India than, say, Europe. Even in India, there is no one way of defining a Smart City. 2.2 Some definitional boundaries are required to guide cities in the Mission. In the imagination of any city dweller in India, the picture of a Smart City contains a wish list of infrastructure and services that describes his or her level of aspiration. To provide for the aspirations and needs of the citizens, urban planners ideally aim at developing the entire urban eco-system, which is represented by the four pillars of comprehensive development institutional, physical, social and economic infrastructure. This can be a long term goal and cities can work towards developing such comprehensive infrastructure incrementally, adding on layers of smartness. 2.3 In the approach to the Smart Cities Mission, the objective is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of Smart Solutions. The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development and the idea is to look at compact areas, create a replicable model which will act like a light house to other aspiring cities. The Smart Cities Mission of the Government is a bold, new initiative. It is meant to set examples that can be replicated both within and outside the Smart City, catalysing the creation of similar Smart Cities in various regions and parts of the country. 2.4 The core infrastructure elements in a Smart City would include: i. adequate water supply, ii. assured electricity supply, iii. sanitation, including solid waste management, 6 iv. efficient urban mobility and public transport, v. affordable housing, especially for the poor, vi. robust IT connectivity and digitalization, vii. good governance, especially e-Governance and citizen participation, viii. sustainable environment, ix. safety and security of citizens, particularly women, children and the elderly, and x. health and education. 2.5 As far as Smart Solutions are concerned, an illustrative list is given below. This is not, however, an exhaustive list, and cities are free to add more applications. 2.6 Accordingly, the purpose of the Smart Cities Mission is to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially technology that leads to Smart outcomes. Area-based development will transform existing areas (retrofit and redevelop), including slums, into better planned ones, thereby improving liveability of the whole City. New areas (greenfield) will be developed

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Showing Dialect in Dialogue

Showing Dialect in Dialogue Showing Dialect in Dialogue Showing Dialect in Dialogue By Maeve Maddox A reader asks how a writer wishing to create â€Å"a redneck swagger† would rewrite the â€Å"regular English† sentence â€Å"You’re surprising to me.† He offers the following options: â€Å"Y’a surprisin’ t’a me.† â€Å"Y’ah surprisin’ t’ah me.† â€Å"Ya surprisin ta me.† â€Å"Yah surprisin tah me.† Note: You can find my thoughts on the use of the term redneck here: Better Use â€Å"Redneck† With Care. My reaction to the model dialogue is that a â€Å"redneck† is not likely to utter the original sentence, with or without apostrophes. A native English speaker of any dialect would be more likely to say, â€Å"You surprise me.† But the point of the question has to do with the use of apostrophes and contractionsand presumably funny spellingsto represent dialect in fictional dialogue. Fashions in writing change. Representing dropped letters with apostrophes was a common device with 19th century authors. Well, then, Master Marner, it come to me summat like this: I can make nothing o the drawing o lots and the answer coming wrong; it ud mayhap take the parson to tell that, and he could only tell us i big words. George Eliot, Silas Marner. â€Å"I got hurt a little, en couldn’t swim fas’, so I wuz a considable ways behine you, towards de las’; when you landed I reck’ned I could ketch up wid you on de lan’ ‘doubt havin’ to shout at you, but when I see dat house I begin to go slow.† Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn. Modern readers have little patience with this kind of writing. For one thing, multiple apostrophes and odd spellings are visually distracting. For another, such detailed attention to pronunciation in a novel distracts from the thought that the character is expressing, thereby interfering with an understanding of the narrative. In addition, some readers who speak nonstandard dialects find attempts to represent their home dialectseven if they are successful renditionsdisrespectful. Sprinkling dialogue with odd spellings is especially pointless when the misspelling conveys the same pronunciation as the standard spelling. For example, sez for says, and shure for sure. The consensus among today’s writing coaches is that dialect is best expressed with vocabulary, grammar, and easily understood regional expressions, rather than with apostrophes and made-up spellings. For example, the following bit of dialogue conveys rural speech without recourse to dropped letters or misspellings: That woman runs around with anything in pants. Can’t figure out how her and him got together in the first place. Good Lord knows he’s boring as a fence post.† –Nancy Hartney, Washed in the Water. Words like drawl and whine, and expressions like â€Å"a clipped Northern accent† can also be used to suggest a specific way of speaking. In writing dialogue, let the words do the work. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Fiction Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Apply to, Apply for, and Apply withDoes "Mr" Take a Period?9 Forms of the Past Tense

Thursday, November 21, 2019

International business(fail in emerging economies) Essay - 1

International business(fail in emerging economies) - Essay Example This is because globalization of markets, as Czinkota, et al (2010) says, has also led to the globalization of business risk. There can be a myriad of reasons for these divestments but there has not been any detailed research to investigate the underlying factors that affect the divestment. The most generic definitions of divestment is a situation where a business willingly sells off some of its assets as a result of a discontinuation of part of it operations (Nees, 1978). Divestments can therefore happen locally or in a situation where a firm requires divesting from a one of its overseas branch (Davis, 1974, p. 16). There are some generic reasons why a firm may opt to divest. These include raising funds, need to focus on core business, specialization, asset consolidation and cleansing (removing dysfunctional parts of the firm) etc (Hamilton & Chow, 1993, p.479). The current trend to divest from international markets may indicate that none of these may be involved and therefore there is a need to investigate the real dynamics behind multinational divestments from emerging markets. Wal-Mart is one of the oldest and most successful retail chains in the US. The firm runs hundreds of stores in America and across a number of other countries across the world (Wall Mart, 2013). Wal-Mart was one of the first retail chains to use information technology to help in meeting customers’ needs and also in increasing efficiency. To achieve this, the firm uses high end computer servers and system that make data sharing easy and efficient. The firm is able to have a real time data sharing using a wide area network that connects all its stores. With this kind of sharing of data the firm is able to increase efficiency and therefore make customer service better (Wall Mart, 2013). For instance, data collected at the point of sale units in every Wal-Mart satire is sent to a computer in real time. This data is used in managing inventory and also in helping

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Governance in the Caribbean Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Governance in the Caribbean - Research Paper Example In political dimension, the Caribbean is defined by such countries as the republic of Guyana, Suriname and the Belize. In understanding the region of Caribbean, this paper intends to analyze the governance systems that are exercised within the region with special attention to the role that the legislative and or civil societies play in improving the governance practices within the region. Democracies have taken a central role in the modern day government systems across the globe. The provisions of democracy as a school of thought within the political government dictate the government that is instituted to cater for the people by the people. This has therefore given rise to active participation in governance structures and practices by civil societies and collaboration of these groups and the legislature of the democratic countries. Therefore the focus of this paper will be on understanding how the legislature and the civil institutions get involved in government processes within this region. The civil societies and institutions have come up to be very influential in matters of leadership and governances across the globe.1 In the Caribbean region, the governments have not failed to recognize the strategic role played by the legislature as well as the civil society institutions. For instance, the Caribbean region countries together with other sovereign countries found within Africa and North America have sought ways to have the civil society organizations included in policy deliberations.2 Corporate governance has gained special attention in the government systems across the globe in the recent past. It has been studied with special attention, as it is perceived to be an integral constituent in developing the appropriate infrastructure necessary for the realization of transparent as well as sound money as well as capital markets. The sound governance in the institutions defines the levels of investor confidence created within these countries as well as determinin g the levels of liquidity within the markets. 3 Nevertheless, some regions such as areas within the Caribbean region organized markets have been and continue to be nascent with weak corporate control, which necessitates deliberate efforts to realize governance structures, which are credible. The government corporate has suffered great losses through corrupt activities, under competent directors as well as other negligent corporate scandals. The civil societies have therefore come up strategic in addressing these underperformances with the objective of restoring sanity to government institutions, which are responsible in corporate management. Poor governance structures as instituted by the current constitutions governing many of the Caribbean states have led to observable conflicts between the public as represented by the civil groups and the government represented by the military and the political class. Powerful political executives as well as authoritarian rule characterize the go vernance frameworks within many of the Caribbean countries such as Jamaica. This has been evidenced by one party dominance and control in parliaments within the Caribbean region. Ratings by the Transparency international on corruption indices within many of the countries within this region has been low and the general perception by majority of the electorate within the

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Mary Magdalene Essay Example for Free

Mary Magdalene Essay Do you know who i am? are you not attracted to my beauty? Many lovers have come and gone through my life. but a lot of people hate me. They say i am an adulterous woman. They say i have seven demons in my body. I hate this kind of life, you know. Nobody really loves me, and the burden of my sin is heavy upon me. I am Mary of Magdala. Just call me Mary Magdalene. I am in search of true love and acceptance. But who will ever love a sinner such as I? (walks sideways and to the center of the stage) Jesus I heard that a certain jesus has come to our town. He was healing the sick ones, and calling the sinners to repentance. Who is this man that He would even proclaim forgiveness for the sins of many? I must see Jesus! He must have answers to my questions! One day, a Pharisee named Simon hosted a feast and Jesus was one of the invited guests. I will not miss the chance to meet Jesus. I will prepare myself for the feast. (Mary removes the beads on her head, wears a veil and got ready with an alabaster flask of perfume) With this alabaster flask of perfume, I will annoint Jesus feet. (Many tries to see from afar the crowd at Simons place) Oh! There is a big crowd in Simons house. How could I possibly get inside? Oh, Ill wait until Jesus enters. By then, the crowd at the gate wil be ushered in. There is Jesus sitting near the host Simon. I tried to inch my way through the crowd until I finally knelt down at His feet. I wasted no time to pour the ointment on His feet and I wipe His feet with my hair. Then with a gentle voice he said to me, Woman, your sins are forgiven, your faith has saved you, go in peace. My heart rejoiced as I went away. The burden of my sins rolled away. Now Im free to obey Him. The next time I saw Jesus, He was haning on the cross, crucified between two thieves. My heart was crushed with grief. Who has done this crime? Who killed my Jesus? Can anybody tell me? Who killed Jesus? Was it the Hebrew children? A while ago, they were shouting: Crucify Hiim, (pause), crucify Him, crucify Him! Was it Pontius Pilate? he was the Governor who gave permission for His crucifixion. Was it the Roman soldiers? Torture of criminals is part of their profession. But Jesus wasnt a criminal! He was a sinless man. Who killed Jesus? Now its plain to see. It was really me! My sins! He died for my sins! Jesus, thank You for forgiving me at such a great price.