Charles Beard Essay Example for Free

Charles Beard Essay Charles Beard’s book, An Economic Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, was published in 1913 and soon became one of the most controversial literary works of its time. Beard’s main thesis in this book is essentially that the Founding Fathers chose the specific format of the Constitution of the United States to protect their personal financial interests. Beard then goes on to argue that the Constitution was written by an â€Å"elite† attempting to safeguard their own assets and financial status. Beard was expanding on Carl L. Becker’s thesis of class conflict. In the eyes of Beard, the Constitution was created by the Founding Fathers as a â€Å"counter revolution† that ran against the wishes of farmers and laborers. Beard’s theory and his publication of this book were so controversial because it seemed to demean the Constitution and everything it stood for, which angered politicians and most of the legal community, at least those who didn’t ignore it completely. However, many historians and history professors seemed to recognize it and accept it. Many people were angered by Beard’s theory because, since it disparaged the Constitution and Founding Fathers, it seemed to put down almost everything our country stands for. Taking a sacred piece of history that started our nation and trampling on it by saying that it was nothing more than rich men trying to save their bank accounts and put down the common man is bound to upset more than just a few people. One of Beard’s main critics of the 20th century is a man named Forrest McDonald. McDonald uses his study of the voting habits and financial and economic concerns of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to prove that their motives were not financial-based. He asserts that the majority of the delegates who had public securities were Antifederalists. He concludes his study by saying, â€Å"Anyone wishing to rewrite the history of those proceedings largely or exclusively in terms of the economic interests represented there would find the facts to be insurmountable obstacles†. What McDonald means by this is that Beard, who was attempting to â€Å"rewrite the history† of the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention, was doing so without any actual evidence and therefore had an empty argument. I believe that Beard’s thesis, although an interesting notion, was not necessarily a valid argument and did nothing except anger most people in the political community. Even though many people in the late 20th century accepted his thesis, I disagree with it. My reasoning for this is that, although the Founding Fathers were economically prosperous, I believe that their status made them the only ones that could be able to write the Constitution and who were in a position to make the most crucial moves in establishing the United States. I do not believe that the Founding Fathers created the Constitution simply protect their financial status, I believe their status was the reason they could write the Constitution.

Macbeth?s Responsibility :: essays research papers

The disaster in Macbeth mainly revolves around one person, Macbeth. Although other outside conflicts influenced Macbeth to start his killing spree, most of the killings are committed by Macbeth. The witches and Lady Macbeth were the ones who helped pushed him along his self-destruction path, but ultimately Macbeth decided to carry out the evil deed of murdering Duncan by himself. Macbeth’s meeting with the three witches is what first incites the disaster when they tell him that he is to be the Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland. Macbeth is surprised by this news and wants to hear more. Macbeth writing to his wife about his encounter with the witches also proved to be a mistake because she became ambitious about Macbeth becoming king and she becoming queen. Macbeth had outside influences involved in the death of Duncan, but the other deaths in the play are caused only by Macbeth. Macbeth was also responsible for the deaths of Duncan’s guards when he said â€Å"O, yet I do repent me of my fury, That I did kill them.† (A2, S3, 100-101) He had no reason for killing them but his rage enabled him to be irrational. When Macbeth became suspicious about Banquo knowing that he had killed Duncan, Macbeth ordered him and his son Fleance to be killed. Banquo was killed and Fleance escaped, which upheld the witch’s prophesy that Banquo’s future would not be happy and that his offspring would be kings. Macbeth showed his true evil when he ordered Banquo and his son to be killed. It showed that he had the ambition to act in a way that would protect his lust for power by retaining the throne of Scotland. When Macduff fled to England, Macbeth ordered that

Future of software engineering Essay

The term â€Å"Software Engineering† implies a literal meaning of the mechanics and the engineering aspects of building and deploying a software or program. However, the topic of this paper is to justify and explain the future support that organizational goals can get in the organization’s workings. The paper will be presenting the aspects of software engineering as a tool for helping organization’s fulfilling their goals. The area selected for this paper is â€Å"Decision Support Systems† i. e. the importance and suitability of such systems will be discussed as the future of software engineering. Decision support systems (DSS) will be defined in greater detail in the accompanying sections and their advantages and disadvantages will be highlighted in the final chapter. It is important to note that DSS’s are under-used in the world in terms of quantity as well as efficiency. There are very few organizations in the world that house a fully up-and-working DSS and use it extensively for the purpose of analyzing and summarizing data. The logical details of a DSS are also laid down in this paper that can lead to the relation of such systems with our topic and justify their future uses in achieving organizational goals and objectives. The level where DSS operate is also well-differentiated and the general misconceptions held about these systems are also explained to avoid confusions and expose their real job and workings. CHAPTER 2 Decision Support Systems are those systems that give an organization the edge in making decisions and understanding data by making it meaningful in a presentable and summarized output. These systems assist in the general decision making; they do not make or propose the decisions, as is the general misconception about them. Their job is to gather data, process it in pre-defined formats, accompany related information and present in an easy-to-read and user-friendly format. These systems basically cater to the needs of the executives who do not possess enough time to read all source data and need the top view of figures or data in order to shape up decisions. Thus, DSS organize data and fulfill management needs by using modeling software and/or simulation to produce reports and ad hoc queries consuming up data and raw facts and churning out meaningful information and figures. There is no restriction on the organization level on which a DSS can be installed and similarly a DSS can cater to a variety of organizational needs and objectives from all levels within the organization (Marakas, 2002). DSS are systems that take in raw facts and figures, process them, analyze and summarize those figures providing the top view or the analysis of that entire data set. Now it should be understood that the data taken by a DSS for analyzing purpose is not the basic data contained in organizational tables and files. In fact, this data is partially processed: it is the output from a Management Reporting System (MRS). An MRS is used to generate grouped reports at the Operational level (Marakas, 1998). An example would include the hours worked by each employee during a particular month. It should be understood that there is no bias or conditional filter used in disseminating the data produced by an MRS. Hence, the DSS is fortunate enough to lay its hands on data that is predominantly raw and organized. This leads to significant time saves in terms of organizing data by understanding its relevance and scope. An MRS produced report has a narrow scope (Marakas, 1998). However, DSS reports and documents are more long-lasting and can be used for future referencing. In fact, a DSS is used to produce summaries of work over time periods defined by the management or automatically set. These reports are then archived and are useful in personal analysis of trends and performance. DSS assist management in doing Trend-Analysis, forecasting and taking decisions based on the analyzed results (Holsapple and Whinston, 1996). It should be stressed again that the primary purpose of these systems is to gather data, organize it and produce analytical views that management can use in fuelling their decisional justifications. The main idea of a DSS being installed is that it can get its data from a variety of sources and still produce one summary useful for the decision. This means that managers no longer need to look at three or four different reports and spend hours trying to make sense out of them. A single composite report created by an intelligent system such as a DSS can help save time, productivity and make decision making timely and effective. This is the main aim and function of a DSS: to provide summarized and timely data for analytical purposes grouped into well-defined areas for inference (Marakas, 2002). The reporting format of a DSS is highly flexible. It can be structured or unstructured depending on the scenario, the person being reported to and the situation where the reporting is to be carried out. Although the question about the type of report is a secondary issue, the primary concern is the type of decision that can be taken using a DSS. Here again, no restrictions or barricades on the of decision, which can be anything between structured and unstructured, including a hybrid (semi-structured). DSS possess the capability to analyze data in four distinctive ways (Marakas, 2002): 1. What-If Analysis: Changing a variable and analyzing its effects on other dependent variables in the same time or work domain. 2. Sensitivity Analysis: Keeping all variables constant, except one, and noting down its individualistic effects on the output. 3. Goal-seeking Analysis: Opposite of What-If. It is done by setting the goal and looking at what changes need to be done to reach that goal. 4. Optimization Analysis: Using constraints defined by the management, it seeks for a possible set of solutions or optimizations DSS are intelligent data processors, not data creators. Without input data, DSS cannot perform any inferential tasks. Just like a car is useless without fuel, irregardless of the model and functions, a DSS, however much efficient and strong, is useless without input data and raw facts that are impediment for the decision-making and analysis purposes. CHAPTER 3 A Decision Support System is primarily for the tactical level in an organization, nevertheless it can well adapt to the other levels. It can be even be used in a hybrid of levels gathering data from one level, analyzing it and reporting it to another level. In this way, a DSS can contribute towards organizational objectives very aptly (Thompson, 1999). The fully functional DSSs in The world are a strong reflection of the fact that a DSS can really help a company to overcome its Information Reporting problems and become a leading firm in is business on the basis of the jobs performed by a DSS enabling workforce efficiency and effectiveness. The DSS works on the principle of arranging data so that inferences can be made as quickly and as easily as possible. Imagine the future corporate world without a DSS. A weary manager leading a bored, monotonous workforce that is dilapidated with the over burdening of compiling data from every nook and corner and making it meaningful and presentable to their bosses (Thompson, 1999). A DSS allows for the generation of routine reports as easy as it is to click on the Print button. The fact that a DSS allows for repeatable, routine and scheduled reports to be produced without the interference of any person makes its usage and relevance even more pronounced. The application of a DSS transforms greatly the way in which an organization works to achieve its organizational goals. Take the example of 4 workers divided in a hierarchical manner striving for the collection of data and organizing it. After this organizing, this data is given to another 2 workers who then process it and present it to the management. With a DSS in place, the job definitions change: only 1 worker from the upper hierarchy is required to monitor formats and give commands timely. Another worker is needed to key in the data, as it is automatically organized. This reduces the job for 3 lower workers and 1 upper worker. You might say, bad. But looking on the brighter side, these 4 employees’ forces and skills can be polished on another branch: say, the marketing department (Marakas, 2002). Now that brings the organization more closely and quicker to fulfilling its short-term goals, which are just a break-down of the overall long-term goals. DSS allow for Business Process Re-engineering. This means that a DSS can be implemented for a key strategy or technical change in the methodologies and the system specifications f the current work methods and practices. This may sound too subjective to be understood in a practical corporate environment. How do several firms manage a turnaround in their sales and efficiency by keeping the same bunch of employees, the same size of plants, marketing strategies and same old buyers? The answer is Business Process Re-engineering (Marakas, 1998). This means changing the old ways or trading them with new ones that are according to the practices required by the DSS implementation. A classic example is the retailer who did not have any inventory control and alarm system and was often low in certain inventory when it was high and demand and had excess of another when its season was off. After the implementation of a DSS, it was able to act an alarm system that gave beeps when certain inventory levels receded; no this conception is false. It was actually a reporting system that could use sales data and produce individualistic item reports. It simply meant that the retailer could now generate reports on the sales of his individual items on his list and compare it with what he expected each item to spend in his store. After looking at a couple or more reports, he can, ideally, identify the general time each type of grocery took to be sold and the time periods when certain inventory was needed and what was the best time to hold up more inventories considering the future aspects. One might argue as to the effectiveness of such a DSS as described above and point out the costs involved in setting up a DSS. But, believe me, in the long run, there will be a point where the decisions made using the information churned out by the DSS will result in significant cost savings and greater sales for the retailer since the retailer will now be having a fairer idea of each type of inventory and the time it took for it to be converted into sales. It is worth noting, that there was no change of inventory, marketing, employees or shop; only the DSS was implemented and BPR was carried out that lead to the retailer creeping more steadily towards his personal goals. Competition is the key for survival in today’s world, be it any industry. Globalization has meted out a strong barrier to entry for smaller firms into the global market and the existing big fishes are also finding it hard to compete with global giants. Here, comes the need and advantage of a DSS. A DSS makes it possible for an organization to keep its maintain its grip on the market as well as blesses new entrants with the opportunity to seize the market share from big giants on the basis of the reporting system they use. What do all companies have in common? Reporting that leads to Decision making. And what is the basic job of a DSS? Information organization and Reporting. So why not combine something needy with something that can fulfill the formers needs. Common sense and simple logic make it more than evident that a DSS is best suited for the achieving of organizational goals and objectives. This logic can be derived from the fact that quicker and more effective decisions fuelled by organized information will lead to strategic edges in competition and success (Marakas, 2002). History has borne testimony to the fact that often big giants in the market look to buying up small ventures in the market owing to them posing serious threats to their future goals and survival. Now the question that lies here is: what makes these small ventures so important in the eyes of big companies in that they regard them as threats, given the difference in their sizes and market shares? It must be the technology: specifically DSS and Expert Systems. While discussing the latter is beyond the scope and requirement of this paper, I would like to reinstate the use of DSS in the meeting of organizational goals and objectives. As a final bow, I would like to re-emphasize the fact that the tried-and-tested formula of the implementation of a DSS to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in company goal achieving capabilities has never been proved wrong in any major investment and changeover. Thus, we can safely assert that a DSS is essentially a valuable contributor and facilitator towards the achievement of organizational goals and objectives in a timely and successful manner (Marakas, 1998). CHAPTER 4 In compendium, I would like to end my discussion with the futuristic advantages as well as the disadvantages a DSS holds. Generally speaking, there are more visible advantages of a DSS than disadvantages owing to their easy-to-use nature and the variety of jobs they can perform. The most important advantage of a DSS is the use of data and producing a timely report that can be used to justify and influence organizational decisions. On a futuristic outlook, time will become more and more scarcer and decisions will have to me made more quickly if they are to have any impact. If managers are left doodling over 300 files to understand a trend and then make a decision then it is highly likely that at the end of the day, the company will be losing out to businesses using DSS’s (Holsapple and Whinston, 1996). This is due to the high level of automatic dissemination and organization of data done by a DSS that enables it to cater to the format and the needs of specific informational roles and managerial positions. The flexibility of a DSS will allow its extensive future use for organizational goals. A DSS does not mean a system that only produces analytical reports and stops. There is more to it. The DSS also records the decisions made and stores results of decisions and retrieves such data for future decision making purposes. An example would be when a manager was in a problem to decide on price cuts in order to remain competitive. The manager did not cut the price, and soon enough, there was a 65% sales cut. Instantly, the management decided to cut the prices but were still only able to recover just 60% of the lost sales. Slowly, they progressed, lucky enough not to go out of business. In the future, when a similar situation persists, the DSS will show the past decision along with the outcome. It is important to note here also, that in line with our past definitions of a DSS being a decision facilitator, not a decision maker, the DSS will just provide the course of action taken previously, and will not propose the manager to take the step of cutting prices as it had lead to a worsening period for the company. The decision still lies at the hands of the manager who can again decide to retain prices owing to a difference of situation or other factors. The variety of data that a DSS can handle is commendable (Holsapple and Whinston, 1996). It can be configured to use several data sources easing down managerial work. Time, efficiency and ease of work all lead directly to a guarantee of achieving organizational goals, since if decisions are made on time, with good hindsight and information, they are bound to be successful and contribute towards standards set to be met by the organization. Futuristic advantages of a DSS include giving one company a strategic edge over another through the effective use of a DSS which enables them to gather information from wide sources and work with them quickly in order to produce meaningful results that can be used to trigger well-timed decisions. DSS makes Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) a possibility, a process where the core activities and components of an organizational work flow or department are re-designed to improve their effectiveness towards organizational goal achieving. A possible disadvantage of a DSS might be their stagnancy with newer data types and the need to define reporting formats and the types of reports it can produce. A coffee maker knows how to make coffee. Similarly, a DSS cannot be programmed to work with data types as they come. It has to be informed, which is done in the designing phase, and once its made, there is no automatic way in which it can align itself to a data type without it having been configured earlier. So there is the need for redefinitions. On the positive outlook, a DSS is a well-oiled machine that is a very important part in running the organizational motors nonchalantly and stopping errors and inefficiency becoming an impediment to organizational goals and objectives (Thompson, 1999). The future is not happening without the use of a DSS, for sure. It is imperative that DSS be taken on into the future since it is an efficient part required to keep the wheels of efficiency and effective time management ticking on. REFERENCE: 1. Brooks Jr. , F. P. (1987). No silver bullet: essence and accidents of software engineering, IEEE Computer, 20(4), pp.10-19. 2. Marakas, George M. (2002). Decision Support Systems(2nd Edition) 3. Marakas, George M. (1998). Decision Support Systems in the 21st Century. 4. Holsapple, Clyde W. and Whinston, Andrew B. (1996). Decision Support Systems: A Knowledge Based Approach. 5. Thompson, J. Barrie (1999). Here, There and Everywhere: The Future of Software Engineering Education. Twenty-Third Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference, from http://csdl2. computer. org/persagen/DLAbsToc. jsp? resourcePath=/dl/proceedings/&toc=comp/proceedings/compsac/1999/0368/00/0368toc. xml&DOI=10. 1109/CMPSAC. 1999. 812708

Critical Analysis of Of Mice and Men - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1139 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2019/05/31 Category Literature Essay Level High school Tags: Of Mice And Men Essay Did you like this example? Scarseth is correct in saying that Steinbeckrs Of Mice and Men is a tragedy, yet not in the classic Aristotelian or Shakespearean sense. The majority of the characters in the novel are in stasis. The world is limited around them and results in limited possibilities, ands the lack of love and friendship both contribute to them being stuck. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Critical Analysis of Of Mice and Men" essay for you Create order J.A. Cuddon defines tragedy in saying, the overwhelming part about tragedy is the element of hopelessness, of inevitabilityTragedy is a disaster that happens to other people, and the greater the person, so it seems, the more acute is their tragedy (Cuddon). Yet this acute tragedy is found when the lowliest of lowly exploited people fail to become anything more. The characters are inevitably lead to disappointment, because of their social status, inabilities due to the worldrs limitations, and even the time period which plays a part in their struggles. A release from this cycle is hopeless. The struggle of limitation and constraint is a clear message that Steinbeck portrays through many of the characters. Scarseth is quick to notice and comment on this theme, though he only discusses the explicitly mentioned limited characters. Curley, as Scarseth mentions, is very limited. Curley doesnt know how to hold on to what he finds important: his young wife, his status as the Bossrs son, his reputation as a man [his] aim to be a respected husband/boss/man is foiled by his own limited abilities (Scarseth). Curley is stuck in his place. He, on paper, has the most power on the ranch compared to most of the other men. He is the boss son, rich, is able to boast about his wife, a sex object, a status symbolthe sexuality of the relationship (Scarseth), but he is lost. His aggressiveness and unforgiving attitude on life puts him into the same cycle of anger. Curleyrs wife, one of the most marginalized characters, evident by the name she is called and her gender, is also brought up by Scarseth. She is a lost little girl in a world of men whose knowledge of women is largely limited (Scarseth). She is called names, teased, and has no power, and is limited due to Curley. Scarseth also writes about George, Lennie, and their limitations, saying [the] aim of Lennie and George to have a small placeis doomed to frustration also by their own limitations (Scarseth). Lennie, being his poor dumb big (Scarseth) self cannot have his dream with George come true. The world limits this. However, Scarseth doesnt bring up the fact other characters can be limited, such as Slim. Slim is described as having God-Like eyes, (Steinbeck 40), he is the prince of the ranch [moving] with a majesty only achieved by royalty and a master craftsman, (Steinbeck 33) and that his opinions were law. (Steinbeck 45) Everyone respects Slim and considers him the highest in ranking. But why isnt he the boss? Slim seems like he has so much power on the farm, but hers just a farm worker. He doesnt have power in the outside world, and all he is able to achieve is making Curley tell everyone his hand was hurt in th e machine. He isnt anything outside of the labor and respect on the farm, and is exploited along with the other workers. Holding positions of power dont always equate to being unlimited. The tragedy in the novel is due to the characters inability to improve, gain, to come close in achieving their dreams, goals, or succeed because of their limitations. Friendship, love, and themes of dreams (Scarseth) are all mentioned in Scarsethrs analysis. He argues that they are what Of Mice and Men is all about. But there are few friendships or expression of love in the novel, so this cannot be true. George and Lennie have the only friendly relationship in the novel, but they do not love each other. The codependency of it is beneficial to Lennie alone. George helps keep him alive. There is no emotion or loving support, no attachment is present. This is emphasized when George explodes and says if I was alone I could live so easyyou keep me in hot water all the time (Steinbeck 11) and calls him names. Scarseth also mentions that George and Lennie as friends share a good dream (Scarseth). However, this dream isnt good, nor attainable. If their relationship isnt a two-sided one, this dream could never come true or be attainable in their limited world, and George comes to learn this. The men in the bunkhouse with George and Lennie share no intimacy either; their relationships consist of working, sleeping, and getting by day by day. The only example of a bond is when the men go to the whorehouse and play cards, but there still is no friendship present. Another example of the absence of love is with Curley and his wife. They have no care for each other or share a bond aside from the rings on their fingers.Curley uses his wife, labeled as his, for sexual pleasure and boasting. In turn, she is lonely. She [would] like to talk to somebody ever once in a while (Steinbeck 77), and Curley is just so caught up in himself and his own limitations that she was nobody. With no one to turn to and confide in, the characters are limited in themselves because of this lack of love, and limits what they can do. The fact that the book is a tragedy, yet not in the classic sense, is a direct result of the limitations of the characters and the lack of friendship and love in their relationships. Time and time again the characters fall into their fate, despair and the inability to overcome their limitations. But both Scarseth and Steinbeck are trying to prove the same point: tragedy can befall any man or any woman, and Of Mice and Men is a tragedy. Disappointment, suffering, and incapability is a reality for all of humanity. Sometimes the most tragic is to see the ones who are not as great become frozen in that struggle. And this will always happen. Steinbeck shows this through many different issues with society; racism, sexism, mistreatment of the mentally disabled, and even just with farm workers and their exploitation. Anyone, even the lowest of low can experience tragedy, and in Of Mice and Men, it is due to their limitations and the worldrs limitations and the absence of love and friendship. Steinbeck himself provides the thought that represents the tragedy of the novel best: Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. Itrs just in their head. Theyre all the time talkin about it, but itrs jus in their head (Steinbeck 74) Works Cited Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin Books, 1994. Print. Scarseth, Thomas.