Monday, September 30, 2019
Reformation Essay
The Reformation is a broad term used to describe the period of time beginning around 1500 A. D. extending through the mid-seventeenth century, with roots dating back to around the fourteenth century. Society was in something of an upheaval at the time and the church was faced persistent heresy. A wave that would become known as the Protestant Reformation started in Germany in the early 1500ââ¬â¢s and moved throughout the German speaking countries to Scandinavia to the French and finally to England and Scotland. Differing from the Renaissance, the Reformation made an impact in most every Europeanââ¬â¢s life and forced people to make the decision between the old way and the new. In the early stages of the Reformation there was a man, the pioneer of that Protestant Reformation that swept over Europe, a man who ventured into a new arena of thought in relation to how the Church, his name was Martin Luther. 1] The following writing will be a short biographical work of Martin Luther showing some of the events of his life and how through them, he changed the Church as well as contributed to the progress of the Reformation concluding with a look at his life in a way to show more of who Luther was as opposed to what he did. Martin Luther was born in Eisleben Germany on November 10, 1493 before moving to Mansfield in 1484 where he attended school before moving on to Magdeburg with the Brethren of the Common Life. From there he entered the University of Erfurt in 1501 where he was introduced to nominalist philosophy which taught the inability of natural reason to establish articles of faith. It was here that he also furthered his linguistic skills in the classical tongues, and graduated with his B. A. in 1502 and his M. A. in 1505. The winds of the Reformation had already begun to whirl as Luther was growing up. He had been studying law, before being caught up in the religious revival that had been heading across Western Europe. 2] That July he was knocked to the ground by lightning and the combination of those events, the death of a friend and issues inside himself he entered the chapter house of the Hermits of St. Augustine[3] in Erfurt monastery of the Augustinian Eremites. At this time he was given his very first Bible, which he studied relentlessly, studying carefully Romans and Galatians. He was also deeply into the works of Augustine as well as William of Occam and carried with himself the reputation of being a man of singular piety, devotion and monastic zeal. [4] To the objection of his father he took the vows in September 1506, was elected to study for the priesthood, and was made a deacon in February of 1507 and ordained a priest on April 4 of that same year. His father attended his first Mass where he rebuked Martin for disobeying his parents. [5] At the monastery, Luther practiced ascetic excesses to try to achieve some sense of inner peace. Johann von Staupitz helped him away from his life of standing fearfully in front of a Deity to responding in joy to the loving forgiveness of God through Jesus Christ. In 1510 he went on a business trip to Rome to the Vatican where he was shaken and disturbed by the commercial, showy splendor of the Vatica n. In 1512, Luther began lecturing as a doctorate of theology at Wittenberg, a position he would hold for the rest of his life. For the following two years he lectured heavily on the Psalms before shifting to Romans, Galatians, Hebrews and Titus in 1516. It was after these studies that Luther became convinced that salvation is a new relationship with God, and that it was not a merit-based system but rather it came through placing trust in the promises of God. Humans would still sin, but would live life as a forgiven sinner as a result of their relationship with Jesus Christ. It was also through these studies that Luther had his Gospel epiphany in 1516 while reading in Galatians 3 that ââ¬Å"the just shall live by faith. â⬠At this time that Luther was released from his haunting sense of guilt and crossed over into the freedom that came from relying on Godââ¬â¢s grace. During this time he was growing, discovering new convictions, and while he had not written them into an officially theology he did have the principles that would be instrumental in and would define the Reformation; man is justified by faith alone, every believer has direct access to God and the Bible is the sole source of authority for faith and life. In 1517 Luther decided he needed to put these ideas into action. It was in that year that he came across a Dominican, Johann Tetzel, selling indulgences to Lutherââ¬â¢s parishioners. Going against Tetzelââ¬â¢s methods, bad theology and the fact that the outflow of cash was for a new St. Peterââ¬â¢s for Leo X, Luther preached against buying pardons and for relying on Godââ¬â¢s grace for salvation. He had grown tired of this theology that was lacking Scriptural truth about it. On October 31, 1517, the day for which many remember Luther, he tacked Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg intending to have the questions bring about academic discussion, not a document written to insight a revolt against the pope of the Church of Rome. The Theses were translated and circulated bringing about attacks from Tetzel and the formidable Eck, labeling him a heretic. Luther was ordered by Leo X to appear at Rome in 1518 though it Frederck ââ¬Å"the Wiseâ⬠changed the hearing to Augsburg and it was through Frederickââ¬â¢s protection that Luther was able to survive. At the time of the hearing, Leo was drafting a papal bull describing indulgences in the exact fashion that Luther had questioned. In 1519 Lutherââ¬â¢s debate went publicly with Eck and he admitted that he rejected other authority of popes and councils when they were not congruent to the Scriptures. To combat the view that he was going against everything the church stood for, he published three works to clarify his views; ââ¬Å"An Address to Christian Nobility of the German Nation,â⬠ââ¬Å"The Babylonian Captivity of the Churchâ⬠and the ââ¬Å"Liberty of a Christian Man. On Dec. 10, 1520, he was presented with a papal bull threatening to excommunicate him. He publicly burned the document along with a copy of the canon law, an open defiance of the popeââ¬â¢s authority in refusal to renounce any of his viewpoints Due to factors beyond just Lutherââ¬â¢s actions, the Wittenberg civil authorities looked on approvingly as their country was in a rebellious mood. Again h e was summoned to appear before the pope, again refusing to budge from his position. A group of German churchmen, princes and nobles approached him one day ordering him to recant to which he replied, ââ¬Å"Unless I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of Scripture or by clear arguments, my conscience is bound in the word of God: I cannot and will not recant anything. I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand. God help me, Amen. â⬠It was Frederick that again came to the rescue of Luther, saving him from almost certain martyrdom yet again, abducting him on his journey from Worms and holding him at the Wartburg Castle for ten months. Some consider Lutherââ¬â¢s time spent there in the castle his most valuable as, among other things, he translated the Greek Bible to German. Upon his return to Wittenberg in March of 1522 he set about organizing the reformation that had nearly crumbled under the enthusiastic, but unskilled leadership of such people as Carlstadt and Zwilling in Wittenberg. They had gotten a crowd together that started rampages, wrecking statuary and artwork, actions Luther quickly denounced and went about producing forms for instruction, worship and church government. The Peasantââ¬â¢s War came about in 1524, but Luther continued undeterred, holding to the position of upholding authority, calling for social justice and urging the consideration for the economic welfare of the lower class. Lutherââ¬â¢s language used in urging the princes to put down the revolt was intemperate and he ended up alienating some of the lower class. [6] During his time in the castle, Luther set out writing a childrenââ¬â¢s catechism as well as a catechism for the common people. It was also during this time that he composed what some consider the battle hymn for the reformation ââ¬Å"Almighty Fortress Is Our God. He went on teaching in his position, beginning to teach that priests could marry and soon met and married a former nun named Katharina von Bora who had followed him along with eight other nuns in fleeing from their convent in 1523 to take refuge in Wittenberg. [7] Together they produced six children of their own and opened their home to countless others as well as boarding students and other guests. [8] Luther continued to write, preach and teach and in 1530 he approved the Augsburg Confession and the Augsburg Apology as written by Philip Melanchthon. In 1573 Luther restated his doctrines in the Schmalkald Articles and spent his remaining years spent in inactive and productive service, such as writing ââ¬Å"On Bondage of Will. â⬠Luther died in his home town of Eisleben after mediating a meeting between two princes and experiences mild chest pains[9] in 1546. [10] The life of Martin Luther is something that one could marvel at, but there is more to this manââ¬â¢s story than a whole lot of scholarly achievements and raising questions that ended up causing Christianity to divide. He was a man of great passion and was extremely focused on God, realizing that it was about God and not about himself. When Christ drove the people out of the church saying they made it a den of theives he is angry because he knows that things are not what they should be, and sees what they could become, Martin Luther is another man with the same sort of view. He saw things the way that they could be. This anger was not exclusive to just Luther and Christ, it happens within many men and comes from different places, but what is common is that they are angry at the denialââ¬ânot to themselves alone, but to their fellowmen as wellââ¬âof all they have seen of head in their solitude that has been proven in their own personal life. Luther, slated by some as the last angry man of the Reformation, was once quoted saying, ââ¬Å"I never work better, than when I am inspired of anger when I am angry, I can write, pray and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened and my mundane vexations and temptations depart. â⬠His life was tumultuous and deep melancholy assaulted him, leaving him weak and desperately ill. Upon tasting the grace of God he was driven with great compassion to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ and publish the Word of God in the native tongue of his countrymen. His passion and resolute faith was so great that it was said that upon hearing him pray people would exclaim: ââ¬Å"How great a spirit, how great a faith, was in his very words! â⬠As a monk he vowed to crucify the flesh through fasting, mortifications, and watchings struggling against deceitful thoughts and the evil inclinations of his heart. Nothing was too great a sacrifice if it would enable him to become a saint of acquired heaven. He was sold out on his quest for attaining holiness. He even claimed himself to be a pious monk stating that, ââ¬Å"If a monk could obtain heaven by his good works, I should, certainly those who have known me can testify. â⬠As he was carrying out this torture on himself he was confronted by John Staupitz, who asked him why he tormented himself the way that he did telling the young Martin, to ââ¬Å"look at the wounds of Christ, to the blood that he has shed for you. â⬠Luther was so wrapped up in literally beating himself up over his sins, he forgot a key element. Staupitz went on to tell him, ââ¬Å"Instead of torturing yourself on account of your sins, throw you self in the Redeemerââ¬â¢s arms. Trust in Himââ¬âin the righteousness of His lifeââ¬âin the atonement of His death. â⬠Not long after his conversations with Staupitz, Luther was done being an imitator, keeping to the rules of the religious order, but rather he was a new creation entirely, walking in the full assurance of faith confident that the God that began the good work in him, would perfect His work. For Luther Christ was no longer an option, Christ was the option, or as he said in his Commentary on Galatians, ââ¬Å"Christ is no lawgiver. He is the Lifegiver. â⬠[11] For Luther it was about knowing God, not having a knowledge of God, he was a man full of passion for his Savior, completely sold out on his Masterââ¬â¢s plan. It was so much so that he thanked God that he knew enough to believe that God knew more than he did and was able to rest in knowing that that would never change. Knowing that God was greater and surrendering to that knowledge was an undercurrent to Lutherââ¬â¢s life, he clung to the word of God for his confidence and promises, not to the tradition of men. [12] The Reformation is a broad term used to describe the period of time beginning around 1500 A. D. extending through the mid-seventeenth century, with roots dating back to around the fourteenth century. Society was in something of an upheaval and the church was faced persistent heresy. In the early stages of the Reformation Martin Luther was the pioneer of that Protestant Reformation that swept over Europe, and who ventured into a new arena of thought in relation to how the Church. [13] The previous writing was a short biographical work of Martin Luther showing some of the events of his life and how through them, he changed the Church as well as contributed to the progress of the Reformation concluding with a look at his life in a way to show more of who Luther was as opposed to what he did.
Sunday, September 29, 2019
Attribution Theory Definition
Attribution Theory Definition Attribution theory is concerned with how people interpret events and relate them to their thinking and behavior. It's a cognitive perception which affects their motivation. This theory was first proposed in a book called, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations by Fritz Heider in 1958. According to Heider, men behave as amateur scientists in social situations. He also said that, we generally explain behavior in two ways; either we attribute the behavior to a person or a situation. Attribution literally means a grant of responsibility. Albeit, the theory was first proposed by Heider (1958), later Edward E.Jones (1972) and Harold Kelley (1967) developed a theoretical structure, which is now seen as an epitome of social psychology. The theory divides the behavior attributes into two parts, external or internal factors. Internal attribution: When an internal attribution is made, the cause of the given behavior is within the person, i. e. the variables whic h make a person responsible like attitude, aptitude, character and personality. External attribution: When an external attribution is made, the cause of the given behavior is assigned to the situation in which the behavior was seen.The person responsible for the behavior may assign the causality to the environment or weather. In 1967, Kelley tried to explain the way people perceive internal and external attribution. He tried this, postulating the principle of co-variation. This model was known as Covariation Model. The basic principle of the covariation model states that the effect is attributed to one of the causes which co-varies over time. It also means that the behavior at various occasions varies. The covariation model considers three major types of information to make an attribution decision and to observe a person's behavior.The three types of information are: Consensus information: This responds to the fact, how people with similar stimuli behave in similar situations. If mo st people behave alike, i. e. their reactions are shared by many, the consensus is high. But, if no one or only a few people share the reactions, the consensus is low. Distinctiveness information: This is about, how a person responds to different situations. There exists a very low distinctiveness if the person reacts similarly in all or most of the situations.However, if a person reacts differently in different situations, it is said that the distinctiveness is high. Consistency information: If the response of a person to different stimulus and in varied situations remains the same, then the consistency is high. But Kelly's covariation model has some limitations. The most prominent being that, it fails to distinguish between the intentional and unintentional behavior. Read more at Buzzle:à http://www. buzzle. com/articles/attribution-theory-of-social-psychology. html Kelley's Covariation Model Kelleyââ¬â¢s (1967) covariation model is the best known attribution theory.He develo ped a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to some characteristic (internal) of the person or the environment (external). The term covariation simply meansà that a person has information from multiple observations, at different times and situations, and can perceive the covariation of an observed effect and its causes. He argues that in trying to discover the causes of behavior people act like scientists. More specifically they take into account three kinds of evidence. Kelley believed that there were three types of causal information which influenced our judgments.Low factors = dispositional (internal) attributions. * Consensus: the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation. E. g. Alison smokes a cigarette when she goes out for a meal with her friend. If her friend smokes, her behavior is high in consensus. If only Alison smokes it is low. * Distinctiveness: the extent to which the person behaves in the same w ay in similar situations. If Alison only smokes when she is out with friends, her behavior is high in distinctiveness. If she smokes at any time or place, distinctiveness is low. Consistency: the extent to which the person behaves like this every time the situation occurs. If Alison only smokes when she is out with friends, consistency is high. If she only smoke on one special occasion, consistency is low. Letââ¬â¢s look at an exampleà to help understand his particular attribution theory. Our subject is called Tom. His behavior is laughter. Tom is laughing at a comedian. 1. Consensus: Everybody in the audience is laughing. Consensus is high. If only Tom is laughing consensus is low. 2. Distinctiveness: Tom only laughs at this comedian. Distinctiveness is high.If Tom laughs at everything distinctiveness is low. 3. Consistency: Tom always laughs at this comedian. Consistency is high. Tom rarely laughs at this comedian consistency is low. Now, if everybody laughs at this comedian, if they donââ¬â¢t laugh at the comedian who follows and if this comedian always raises a laugh then we would make an external attribution, i. e. we assume that Tom is laughing because the comedian is very funny. On the other hand, if Tom is the only person who laughs at this comedian, if Tom laughs at all comedians and if Tom always laughs at the comedian then we would make an internal attribution, i. . we assume that Tom is laughing because he is the kind of person who laughs a lot. So what weââ¬â¢ve got here is people attributing causality on the basis of correlation. That is to say, we see that two things go together and we therefore assume that one causes the other. One problem however is that we may not have enough information to make that kind of judgment. For example, if we donââ¬â¢t know Tom that well we wouldnââ¬â¢t necessarily have the information to know if his behavior is consistent over time. So what do we do then?According to Kelley we fall back on past ex perience and look for either 1) Multiple necessary causes. For example, we see an athlete win a marathon and we reason that she must be very fit, highly motivated, have trained hard etc. and that she must have all of these to win 2) Multiple sufficient causes. For example, we see an athlete fail a drug test and we reason that she may be trying to cheat, or have taken a banned substance by accident or been tricked into taking it by her coach. Any one reason would be sufficient.
Saturday, September 28, 2019
An American Daughter The Construction of Lyssas Character in
An American Daughter The Construction of Lyssa's Character in Wendy Wasserstein was a highly influential playwright and person in general. She was a pioneer of feminism within the theatre as well as non-aggressive feminism outside of it. Her female characters are unlike any seen in theatre previously, and have a life that Wasserstein breathes into them through their dialogue, their descriptions, their actions and their lives. She presents characters that deal with serious issues, and has them respond in ways that are undeniably human, and draw the audience in. This lifelike female archetype is particularly visible in Wassersteinââ¬â¢s An American Daughter. Lyssa, a ââ¬Å"Forty-two-year-old in a cotton shirt and jeansâ⬠¦,â⬠(Wasserstein 7) is a sharp, career-focused woman. She is working to become the Surgeon-General, and she faces much to get there. She is not only smart and capable, but she deals with regret, bitterness, and the lack of a filter; flaws which make her life leap from the pages of Wassersteinââ¬â¢s script. Even within the description of the character lies an important break of stereotype. Lyssa is a career-driven woman, but she is not presented in a pantsuit and tie, nor does she wear heels and pearls every day. She is a woman. She wears jeans and a t-shirt, and she faces family issues just like real women do. By starting, at the most basic level, with a fight against diminutive and unrealistic standards, the precedent for honesty is set before anything else. Wendy Wassersteinââ¬â¢s An American Daughter is a prime example of Wassersteinââ¬â¢s presentation of women : smart, strong, capable, and well rounded. Lyssa, as well as her friend Judith and acquaintance Quincy, is presented not as the theatre-standard quiet, demure housewife, but as an independent woman seeking professional achievement. She works very hard, and obviously has a sharp mind and quick wit. What sets Lyssa apart from other female characters like her is not the blatant image of her, but rather the subtext and underlying character traits. In many other stories, there is a strong, witty female character who ââ¬Ëgoes against the grain,ââ¬â¢ but Wassersteinââ¬â¢s protagonist (unlike so many others in the same strain) lacks the softer, alluring need for a man. This is the most significant difference between Lyssa and other female leads. Even Jane Austenââ¬â¢s Lizzy in Pride and Prejudice has the wit and the strength, but she boils down to a woman who craves a love interest. Lyssa does not. She has love, she has a husband and kids, but this is not her end goal. She loves her family and her job. She works hard to make her way in the world, and does so without leaning on her father the senator, and without using femininity, meekness, or sexual allure. She is not reduced to a sum of her womanly charm and a tube of lipstick, and this is Wassersteinââ¬â¢s genius. Not only is Lyssa a role model for career-seeking girls, she is also a role model for authors and playwrights alike. She is more than an archetype of the ââ¬Ëcapable woman,ââ¬â¢ she seems to be a living, breathing person, someone who could walk out of her Georgetown home and into the lives of any and all of the readers. This is Wassersteinââ¬â¢s biggest influence on the w orld of theatre. She pioneered real, plausible female characters in theatre, and opened doors for equality and feminism within and outside of the theatre. Even when Lyssa catches her husband Walter kissing another woman, she doesnââ¬â¢t melt into the scene we know all too well: woman exits the room with a strong face, finds a place to be alone, sobs, finds her resolve again, and kicks the man out saying something along the lines of ââ¬Å"I have too much potential to waste time on you.â⬠Instead, Lyssa just walks away. She harbors some deep resentment toward her husband, which becomes obvious in the following interactions, but she doesnââ¬â¢t dust herself off and move on with her life. This is why Wassersteinââ¬â¢s characters are so important: they are beautifully, humanly, imperfect. Lyssa handles her husbandââ¬â¢s infidelity in a way that isnââ¬â¢t healthy- and thatââ¬â¢s important. This is one of the first instances of a character that the women in the audience can look at and say, ââ¬Å"Oh,thatââ¬â¢s me. I do that, too.â⬠Much of the validity of Wassersteinââ¬â¢s characters comes from their start in reality. Once again, the truth of her characters stems from the truth in her life. She said what she felt needed to be heard, whether people would like it or hate it ( and most of the time they hated- or at least some did. ) She never presented her ideas as all-encompassing or perfect, instead she celebrated the flaws in all that she commented on: life, women, parents, children, feminism, and society; she commented on them in honesty, rather than trying to brush over issues. Wasserstein devoted most of her adult life to promoting better media presence for women, whether this was through her plays or through her own presentation of herself, her affect was widely experienced. Wasserstein poured (at least) a little bit of herself into each of her characters, and this is what changed the history of American Theatre. Wassersteinââ¬â¢s own life; her difficult childhood; the secrecy in her home; and the intense rivalry between her and her brother ensnared her audience with the fact that at long last- they were watching real women living real lives. One of the major influences on Wassersteinââ¬â¢s writing and, in fact, her life, was her mother Lola Schleifer. Lola was an eccentric woman to say the least. She ran her home and looked after her children, and all the while centered her life around her passion dance. She taught Wendy many important lessons about life, but was also the source of serious strife within the Wasserstein home. Lola demanded perfection from her children and would accept nothing less. This lead to her sending her mentally disabled son Abner to a mental care facility and ceasing all contact. The family never visited him, and soon ceased to acknowledge his existence whatsoever. He did not fit into Lolaââ¬â¢s perfect suburban-mold family, so he wasnââ¬â¢t included. This was the type of behavior that put immense pressure of Wendy as she grew up. Wendy was constantly being compared to her brother Bruce, a well-to-do investment banker. Wendyââ¬â¢s accomplishments, however impressive, were held up to t he mold of her brotherââ¬â¢s victories, and always seemed to fall short. This search for validity was present in all of Wassersteinââ¬â¢s life, and so it trickled into her writing. It is present in Lyssa specifically. Lyssa seeks her own career and advancement opportunities, and is constantly being compared to her father, which is endlessly frustrating to her. This is a clear link to Wassersteinââ¬â¢s own life, and one of the many reasons Lyssa seems to jump right off the page. Wasserstein also manages to capture a very real vulnerability in her characters. This likely stems from her motherââ¬â¢s influence. Her mother was particularly hard on Wendy as she was growing up and searching for what she wanted to do as an adult. Her mother even said at one point, ââ¬Å"ââ¬ËWendy, you make me want to blechhh,ââ¬â¢Ã¢â¬ (Salmon 62). Wendy wanted to win her motherââ¬â¢s favor and approval, but didnââ¬â¢t have a direction for her life, and so was a disappointment to Lola. This type of apathy shows through in the powerful vulnerability of her characters, and gives some insight into the basis of their strife. Aside from just her written works, Wendy Wasserstein was a powerful public figure, and an invaluable voice for women in society. One of the most significant facets of her public persona was the fact that she refused to be the aggressive, hot-tempered stereotype of the feminist. Instead, she lived her life in a way that didnââ¬â¢t allow for misogyny towards herself or her career. In so doing, she led a quiet, well-adjusted opposition to the predominantly-male broadway of the time. The fact that she managed to accomplish so much had everything to do with her public persona. Wasserstein is credited as having one of the first intimate public personas, at a time before Facebook statuses opened a window into peopleââ¬â¢s lives. Wasserstein published a series of newspaper columns that presented a manicured version of her life to the public eye. She wrote casually, as if she was talking to friends, but still kept the more personal or untidy portions of her life just that personal. This is not to say that Wasserstein shied away from discussing more personal subject matter in her works. In fact, it was just the opposite. She wrote in her plays frank discussions of love, intimacy, sex, and infidelity. Once again, however, she had a distinguishing factor: none of these was used gratuitously. Her female characters didnââ¬â¢t sit around gossipping about boys because what else do women do?. Wives had sex with their husbands not because that was a wifely duty, but because they wanted to. Once again, Wasserstein presented real life, and part of that was real discussion and real relationships. An interesting dynamic is created within An American Daughter when Lyssa brings up the idea that she wouldnââ¬â¢t have lost her nomination had she not been a woman. If a man had done the exact same things (skipping jury duty, making an offhand joke about homemakers), it would have been dismissed as a mistake, but because she was a woman, there was a shift in the power dynamic, and so the public jumped at the chance to have a reason to scorn her. This moment is almost certainly a commentary on our society. Wasserstein is using the reaction to Lyssa as a method of commenting on the ever-present distinction of reactions to mens failures versus womens. This is amplified by the fact that Lyssa is running for a position of power which had a long tradition of being male, and is taking the place of a man. Wasserstein is drawing attention to the fact that men have just as many shortcomings as women, and yet only with women in power roles are those shortcomings thrust into the spotlight. This is another area of feminism in which Wasserstein for many years led the charge: true equality. She did not fight for women to be seen as better than men, she didnââ¬â¢t want to take men down, she simply quietly and reasonably persisted towards her goal of equality. She was a mouthpiece for women across America, and lent a voice to women who wanted to see themselves being accurately represented without forcing a major debate. All of this innovation in the world of feminism in the theatre did not come without debate. Because Wasserstein was unafraid to push the envelope when it came to serious topics, her worked tended to chafe nearly as many people as it encouraged. Wasserstein herself commented on the fact that her plays were breaking through a societal barrier and, in doing so, causing some strife. She mentioned the idea that she was the only woman writing plays for women about women, and so they were expected to be all-inclusive providing representation for all women everywhere. Of course, realistically, this is impossible to achieve. The plays offer much more representation for actual women, but they cannot possibly include characters that everyone identifies with, and so some people will feel that there is still inaccurate and unrealistic representation. This disagreement towards Wassersteinââ¬â¢s works is particularly present against her major success The Heidi Chronicles. This is a work which manages to portray (and sometimes outrightly state) feminist views, but it does so in such a way that seems to undermine the very point she tries to make. The characters in this play may present feminism, but they do not do so without critique. Wasserstein pointed out that feminism isnââ¬â¢t flawless by any means, but that, just like the women it is seeking to further, it is worth it despite the shortcomings. (Barnett 14 15). It is important to note that Wassersteinââ¬â¢s legacy is not only in her feminism, but in her realism as a whole. Wasserstein had a way of writing characters and situations that made her audience believe that the character could live right next door to them. Her characters had real conversations with each other, and rather than trying to force in subtext, Wasserstein seemed to just allow subtext to happen as it would. Characters faced their adversities and responded in ways that people would, rather than grotesque caricatures. This is one of the qualities that created her lifelike characters. One difficulty that Wasserstein faced because of her subtextual messages was being taken seriously. Because much of her agenda was hidden beneath layers of other meaning, many people saw her work as simple comedy, a glimpse at silly interactions. This perception is one that deeply frustrated her. Wasserstein fought to have her work recognized for what it was: a scathing review of societal norms. She is quoted as having said in response to her work being seen as lightweight, ââ¬Å"ââ¬ËNo, you donââ¬â¢t understand, this is a political act,ââ¬â¢Ã¢â¬ (Wasserstein quoted in Dolan 444). Much of this aversion to being underestimated was again attributed to her dedication to honesty. Her characters were created in way that would comment on issues that she felt needed discussion, and so by allowing those conversations to go without being communicated, She was being dishonest to them. By demanding that her work be understood for all of its subtext and hidden meaning, she was once again affirming her stance in truth and honesty, and her position as a mouthpiece for these ideas. From many people, this demand for her works to be wholly understood would come off as haughty and even possibly offensive, but Wassersteinââ¬â¢s calm demeanor and unassuming lifestyle kept this feeling at bay. She lived out the ideas that she wrote in a very genuine way. Because she lived out her ideals, she earned the respect she asked for. Her honesty lived in her characters, their dialogue, their interactions, and their back stories; as well as though her speech, life, family, and work. Another major influence in Wassersteinââ¬â¢s life was her daughter, Lucy Jane. Wendy had Lucy at age 48, and because of the lateness of the pregnancy, she faced severe health problems. Wasserstein was ill almost constantly through the entire pregnancy, and Lucy was born three months premature. She struggled for a time, but ended up surviving, and became a light in Wassersteinââ¬â¢s life. The pregnancy, however, left Wasserstein ill, and she suffered illness based on the complications of birth until her death in 2005. The pregnancy (and the father) were kept secret from the public, and in fact many of Wassersteinââ¬â¢s friends and family as well. Only the people closest to her, the ones she interacted with on a daily basis, were aware of the pregnancy, and knew better than to share the news with anyone. Only after Lucy was born and spent time in the NICU was her birth announced. It was a short article, keeping details about the complications to an absolute minimum and keeping up Wassersteinââ¬â¢s persona. Wasserstein then proceeded to raise Lucy by herself, once again shunning societyââ¬â¢s idea of a perfect family in favor of her own version of perfect. The once-solitary woman now travelled with an entourage, including herself and Lucy and usually a nanny and a personal assistant. She spent less time writing and more time doing lectures and answering questions. She gave her effort to her daughter rather than playwriting, feeling that she could now give to her daughter the effort she had given her plays. She worked with many people as she oversaw productions of her shows, as well as the group of people who formed her support system. She referred to the men around her as her ââ¬Ëhusbands,ââ¬â¢ and actually had two of them at the hospital when she was giving birth to Lucy. These people became her family, overcoming the image Wassersteinââ¬â¢s mother had left with her of the (so-called) perfect suburban family, in order to create her own little family unit. Six years later, Wasserstein passed away due to lymphoma. This would come as yet another shock to the audience, as the always-private Wasserstein had kept the news of her diagnosis a secret since she had received it. She had continued to appear in the public eye despite her physical ailments, including facial swelling and near-constant discomfort. To the unaware observer, Wasserstein seemed just as put-together as always, even in her last few months. She held lectures and interacted with fans until she was hospitalised in December of 2005. To those who knew her, however, it was clear that she was physically deteriorating. She had been sick since she gave birth to her daughter, and had gone through a string of misdiagnoses and referrals, before finally being diagnosed with lymphoma. Upon her passing, legions of people were shocked and grieving. The lights of Broadway were dimmed in her honor on January 31, 2006, the night after she passed. Wassersteinââ¬â¢s legacy started with her characters and her voice, and will carry on and resonate with her audience for years to come. Despite the social changes that have occurred since her writings, her message remains as relevant as ever. She was a pioneer in the theatrical world for women and their portrayal. Her comments on feminism, relationships, women, and life still hold meaning in our society. Her calm and ordered response to the lack of realistic women in media stands applicable even today, and her heroines are still admirable role models. Wassersteinââ¬â¢s work commented not only on women in theatre, but in the reality of people being depicted in any case. She presented real, vivid characters dealing with real life events, holding a mirror to and commenting on realism in the theatre.
Friday, September 27, 2019
Creating of a Legally Binding Contract Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words
Creating of a Legally Binding Contract - Essay Example The formation of a legally binding contract requires an offer to be made properly which should be accepted properly. An offer once accepted becomes a promise and when it forms a consideration for the parties, it becomes an agreement. When the parties to an agreement have an intention to create legal relations, the agreement becomes a contract. A legally binding contract gives legal rights to a party to a contract in case of breach of a contract by the other party. Let us take a deeper look at the formation of a contract. The most important thing is the competence of the parties to enter into a contract. Every person is competent to contract unless he is a minor or of an unsound mind. A contract with a minor is not a valid contract. Also, it cannot be validated by ratification by a minor when he reaches the age of majority. Simon and Davina can be easily assumed to be of the ages of majority. A contract with a person of unsound mind is also not a valid contract. There are some people who are occasionally of sound mind and occasionally of an unsound mind. The contracts made with them at the time of their sanity are valid contracts. However, the burden of proof falls on the party which contracted with such a person that he was of a sound mind when he entered into the contract. The first ingredient of a legally binding contract is an offer. When a person signifies to another person, his intention to do something or refrain from doing something in return of a promise that the other person would do or refrain from doing something, the first person is said to have made an offer to the second person. The first person would be called an offeror or proposer and the second person would be called an offeree. An offer should be made properly. It should be communicated to the offeree. There should not be any ambiguity in the terms of the offer i.e. the terms should be definite, clear and easy to understand. In Guthing v Lynn [1831] 2 B & Ad 232, 9 LJOSKB 181, the buyer of a horse promised to pay extra à £5 ââ¬Å"if the horse is lucky for meâ⬠. It was held that this promise was not enforceable as the statement was too vague to explain that in what way the horse was required to be lucky. An offer may be made generally to a variety of people or it may be made spe cifically to a particular person. It may contain a condition for acceptance which must be fulfilled for a valid acceptance. In this case, Simon is in the process of negotiation with Davina. It can be said that Simonââ¬â¢s offer to Davina is wide and open. He has made the offer of hiring Davina as a mentor to support the finalists of his TV program ââ¬Å"Your Hiredâ⬠. It is assumed here that Simon has offered Davina a definite sum of money for her services.
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Compare and contrast Poes Prospero to Alan Stanford Essay
Compare and contrast Poes Prospero to Alan Stanford - Essay Example For prince Prospero the external world could take care of itself while he took care of himself. Once prince Prosperoââ¬â¢s territory became half depopulated instead of attempting to save the remaining population he summons a thousand hale and light hearted friends of his court and retires into the deep seclusion of the crenellated abbeys. The rooms of the palace are decorated in single colors. The room which is the eastern most is decorated in blue along with blue stained glass windows. The next room with purple and in this pattern the rooms westward continued to be designed with the color scheme of green, orange, white and violet. The seventh room is designed in black and red windows along with an ebony clock. The pendulum swung with a dull monotonous clang that struck a sound that was loud and deep and with a peculiar note that enabled the orchestra pause their performance and to hearken to the sound wherein the waltzers grew pale and confused. Once the chimes had stopped laughter once again pervaded the gathering. Midnight opens up the doors for a new guest who is mysterious and ghoulishly dressed and whose face is resembles a corpse with spots of blood. Indeed this guest has been a victim of Red Death. Prospero naturally is angry when the character is void of humor and levity and who crashes the party, ââ¬Å""Who dares"--he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him--"who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him--that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!" (Poe, 1984) This nameless awe did indeed inspire the party but none had the courage to put forth their hand to seize him. ââ¬Å"But first let me tell of the rooms in which [the masquerade] was held.â⬠(Poe, 1984) Unimpeded this guest stealthy moved around and made his way around uninterruptedly but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the
Aircraft Performance Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words
Aircraft Performance - Case Study Example With this said, there are both challenges and opportunities that the industry have faced since the time, some of which are discussed in the case study. The problem is that high demand for innovation and diversity in the industry calls for enhanced designs, performance, materials, development, and production of new high-performance jet aircrafts which must be made available while taking advantage of industry opportunities whiles overcoming industry challenges. For there to be growth in the industry, there must be a clear balance between customer demand and specification, and manufacturing of jet aircrafts. It is only when there is this form of balance that consumers and customers can have a feel of value addition in the jet aircraft industry (Travis, Carleton & Lauritsen, 2002). By exploring the opportunities and challenges that are within the industry therefore, a chance is being created for manufacturers to take advantage of what awaits them in the industry while being enlightened on what to avoid through the challenges. Industry opportunity. Advancement in technology, which has aided in the areas of research and development, designing and creation, production, and evaluation of finished products (Frode & Christos, 2005). Advantages with opportunity . Heightened research in jet engine production due to advancement in technology was the direct result of the three design principles which have been used in the industry since 1965. The three principles are dual-spool layout, variable stators, and the turbofan (Curtis, Rhoades & Waguespack, 2013). Together, these principles have been the basis of achieving high performance. Future utilization of opportunity. The future utilization of the opportunity of technological advancement is expected to focus mainly on durability and portability. That is, jet aircrafts that are produced in the future are expected to last longer and function within a more spacious limit so that a lot more
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Prepare a short lesson that is in PowerPoint( at least 8 slides, but Essay
Prepare a short lesson that is in PowerPoint( at least 8 slides, but no more) Topic is your choice - Essay Example The animation type used for the text is the ââ¬Å"shape animation.â⬠This has been chosen since it gives a shrinking-like impression, which tends to illustrate the action of weight loss. In addition, a next button, which gives the person using this presentation an idea that he or she should navigate to the next slide. For this to work explicitly, navigation by mouse click has been disabled. This slide also has supporting notes in the notes area. These notes are meant to guide the presenter in explaining what the presentation is about. In this case, it helps the presenter say more regarding the title of the presentation. In order to have the audienceââ¬â¢s attention, the use of sound, ââ¬Å"suctionâ⬠, have been implemented to signal the begging of the presentation. Slide #2 The second slide contains information about what the presentation will mainly focus on. Action tool for implying emphasis known as ââ¬Å"titterâ⬠has been used to help emphasize and capture the attention of the audience. In addition, the main text body in this slide has been animated. The animation style employed is the ââ¬Å"float-inâ⬠animation style. This has also been selected to promote emphasis and catch the audienceââ¬â¢s attention. It has also been chosen so as illustrate the text in point form. ... The transition is time based, and in this case, it is 2.00 seconds. This is to give the presenter enough time to advance on or explain the points one at a time. Supporting notes have been provided for this slide too. Action buttons to signify and enable the presenter to initiate navigation to the next slide and the previous slide has also been put in this slide. For this to take effect, navigation by mouse click has been disabled. Slide #3 The second slide contains information about what the presentation will mainly focus on. Animation tool/style known as ââ¬Å"fadeâ⬠has been applied on the heading of this slide. This is to help emphasize and capture the audienceââ¬â¢s attention. In addition, the main text body in this slide has been animated. The animation style employed is the ââ¬Å"float-inâ⬠animation style. This has also been selected to promote emphasis and catch the audienceââ¬â¢s attention. It has also been chosen so as illustrate the text in point form. Th e transitions in this slide are not triggered by mouse clicks but are rather time based depending on when last a previous item displayed. The time interval for the transitions in this slide is set at 2.00 seconds. This allows the audience to follow the presentation and be able to distinguish between one distinct point and the next. This slide, just as slide #1 also has a background aimed at improving the appeal of the presentation and communicating the theme of the presentation. These transitions have been made to display one after the other without the presenter necessarily initiating their display through a mouse click. This is to give the presenter enough time to advance on or explain the points one at a time. Supporting notes have been provided for this slide too.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Corporations are a threat to environment Research Paper
Corporations are a threat to environment - Research Paper Example This research defines environmental pollution as an unfavorable variation of our surrounding through direct or indirect influence, causing changes in radiation levels, energy patterns, physical and chemical composition of our environment. Environmental pollution can occur naturally or in can be artificial (Antonescu & Mateescu, 2001). Due to this fact it can be said that the environmental pollution caused by corporations in U.S is artificial. Air, water and soil pollution caused by coporations can have health implications to the population living around the industries. Deaths and billions of dollars are lost in medical expenses caused by air pollution (Milton & Rahman, 1999). Industries are known to emit gases such as CFCs and metal ions such as Lead, nickel, copper and iron. These substances can find their way to livestock and contaminate the meat that humans are going to consume (Sabir et al, 2003). The goal of this research is to determine the implication of the pollutants that ar e emitted by corporations. It will also try to aim at investigating whether there are enough measure set in a corporation to recycle their waste as a ration to control pollution. This research aims to answers the following research question: If the hypothesis will be accepted, it will be prudent for the policy makers to formulate policies that will control environmental pollutions caused by these corporations. These will make the morbidity or mortality rates caused by pollution caused by corporation to decrease adversely.
Monday, September 23, 2019
English Lit Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words
English Lit - Essay Example This is true to some extent, but again it cannot be generalized. This thesis statement can be more closely introspected if we give a thorough gaze and reviewing glance to the two great American autobiographies of the contemporary times. The two books taken into consideration are ââ¬Å"The Autobiography of Malcolm Xâ⬠by Malcolm X published in the year 1965 and ââ¬Å"I Know Why the Caged Bird Singsâ⬠by Maya Angelou published in the year 1969. ââ¬Å"The Autobiography of Malcolm Xâ⬠cannot be granted as an Autobiography in its truest sense as it was written by Alex Haley during the years 1964 and 1965. According to Haley, the book was written on the basis of the interview conducted by Haley with the great historical figure Malcolm X and the interview was conducted shortly before his death. The book was published in the year 1965 with an epilogue just after the death of Malcolm. Here lies the greatest controversy on the fact and fiction. Times Magazine claims ââ¬Å"The Autobiography of Malcolm Xâ⬠as ââ¬Å"one of the most important nonfiction books of the 20th centuryâ⬠(Gray, 1998). But an autobiography should depend on the testimony and not on documentation. Haley himself admitted in his documentary ââ¬Å"Eyes on the Prizeâ⬠about the difficulty of recording the life and experience of Malcolm X as he was averse to talking about personal issues and was more keen on discussing about the ââ¬Å"Nation of Islamâ⬠(American Experience, n.d.). Again, in a more controversial document, historian Manning Marable claimed that just before writing the book, Haley had collaborated with FBI to produce misleading criticism on Malcolm and his Nation of Islam. This is again a possibility for the distraction of truth and will always remain open for controversies and criticism (Democracy Now!, 2005). ââ¬Å"The Autobiography of Malcolm Xâ⬠encapsulates the upbringing of Malcolm in Michigan and his experience of adulthood to the quest of maturity in the city of Boston and New York.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Social Networking Essay Essay Example for Free
Social Networking Essay Essay How has social networking affected people today? Social sites now affect peopleââ¬â¢s thoughts almost constantly and causes people to think very lowly of themselves. New advances in technology have affected the lives of many in these negative ways. In the article How many facebook friends do you need? by Robin Marantz Henig and words from Samantha Henig there are many examples of these points. Social networking has affected those on these sites minds greatly. These sites such as twitter and facebook have almost taken over many people todayââ¬â¢s minds. In the article Samantha Henig states that after she says something funny her mind immediately goes to the idea of tweeting it. Samantha is only one person out of many so captivated by the immediate urge to share thoughts and events with the rest of the world and put it out somewhere where everyone can see. These social sites have created a more abundant want for others to know what is going on in an individualââ¬â¢s life rather than their want for simply enjoying what they have themselves. In addition to these thoughts and need to share events and thoughts constantly social networking also affects peopleââ¬â¢s minds in that it has people constantly worried about what others are doing. Through these sites participators are able to know what others are doing throughout the day without even directly contacting them. By knowing this information it allows people to compare others lives to theirs without even realizing it, and find themselves checking their phones for these sites more and more often throughout the day. Social networking gives people the fear that they are missing out on something else instead of being happy with what they are doing themselves. This is one issue that social networking and all of its participants has produced. Furthermore this social networking has changed peoplesââ¬â¢ views on themselvesà in a negative way. These sites have created an image for many individuals that only views them in the most flattering way. This causes others to begin to have the thought that they do not meet the standards of others and constantly fight with themselves with the ideas of their own image. Although these flattering photos of others are usually real they exclude the photos which might not be as flattering cause false information to be believed and not expressing people as they truly are. Besides this physical image there is also the emotional aspect this social networking spreads. These sites spread peopleââ¬â¢s information on where they are and with who making some feel out of the loop or left out. This causes many to feel not included and increase the worry in their own social status that is already present. In the people who see these posts their minds begin to wonder and try harder to become more popular in their own minds and more importantly others struggling to fight for the most followers, likes or friends. Social sites affect peopleââ¬â¢s thoughts at almost every second and causes people to negatively change their opinions on themselves. This issue of new social networking affected people in their thoughts and feelings.
Saturday, September 21, 2019
Higher Quality Input Phrase To Driven Reverse Dictionary
Higher Quality Input Phrase To Driven Reverse Dictionary Implementing a Higher Quality Input Phrase To Driven Reverse Dictionary E.Kamalanathanà and C.Sunitha Ram ABSTRACT Implementing a higher quality input phrase to driven reverse wordbook. In contrast to a conventional forward wordbook, that map from word to their definitions, a reverse wordbook takes a user input phrase describing the specified construct, and returns a group of candidate words that satisfy the input phrase. This work has important application not just for the final public, notably those that work closely with words, however conjointly within the general field of abstract search. The current a group of algorithms and therefore the results of a group of experiments showing the retrieval accuracy and therefore the runtime latency performance is implementation. The experimental results show that, approach will offer important enhancements in performance scale while not sacrificing the standard of the result. Experiments scrutiny the standard of approach to it of presently on the market reverse dictionaries show that the approach will offer considerably higher quality over either of the opposite presently on the market implementations. Index Terms : Dictionaries, thesauruses, search process, web-based services. . INTRODUCTION A Report work on creating a reverse dictionary, As against a regular (forward) wordbook that maps words to their definitions, a WD performs the converse mapping, i.e., given a phrase describing the required conception, it provides words whose definitions match the entered definition phrase. Itââ¬â¢s relevant to language understanding. The approach has a number of the characteristics expected from a strong language understanding system. Firstly, learning solely depends on unannoted text information, which is abundant and contain the individual bias of an observer. Secondly, the approach is predicated on all-purpose resources (Brillââ¬â¢s PoS Tagger, WordNet [7]), and also the performance is studied below negative (hence additional realistic) assumptions, e.g., that the tagger is trained on a regular dataset with doubtless totally different properties from the documents to be clustered. Similarly, the approach studies the potential advantages of victimization all potential senses (and hypernyms) from WordNet, in an endeavor to defer (or avoid altogether) the necessity for Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD), and also the connected pitfalls of a WSD tool which can be biased towards a particular domain or language vogue BACKGROUND WORK Natural Language Processing: Natural Language Processing (NLP) [6] is a large field which encompasses a lot of categories that are related to this thesis. Specifically NLP is the process of computationally extracting meaningful information of natural languages. In other words: the ability for a computer to interpret the expressive power of natural language. Subcategories of NLP which are relevant for this thesis are presented below. WordNet: WordNet [7], [2]is a large lexical database containing the words of the English language. It resembles the traits of a thesaurus in that it structures words that have similar meaning together. WordNet is something more, since it also specifies different connections for each of the senses of a given word. These connections place words that are semantically related close to one another in a network. WordNet also displays some quality of a dictionary, since it describes the definition of words and their corresponding part-of-speech. Synonym relation is the main connection between words, which means that words which are conceptually equivalent, and thus interchangeable in most contexts, are grouped together. These groupings are called synsets and consist of a definition and relations to other synsets. A word can be part of more than one synset, since it can bear more than one meaning. WordNet has a total of 117 000 synsets, which are linked together. Not all synsets have a distinct path to another synset. This is the case, since the data structure in WordNet is split into four different groups; nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs (since they follow different rules of grammar). Thus it is not possible to compare words in different groups, unless all groups are linked together with a common entity. There are some exceptions which links synsets cross part-of-speech in WordNet, but these are rare. It is not always possible to find a relation between two words within a group, since each group are made of different ba se types. The relations that connect the synsets within the different groups vary based on the type of the synsets. Application Programming Interface Several Application Programming Interfaces (API) exists for WordNet. These allow easy access to the platform and often additional functionality. As an example of this the Java WordNet Library [8] (JWNL) can be mentioned. This allows for access to the WordNet Library files. PoS Tagging PoS tags[8] are assigned to the corpus using Brillââ¬â¢s PoS tagger. As PoS tagging require the words to be in their original order this is done before any other modifications on the corpora. Part-of-speech (POS) tagging is the field which is concerned with analysing a text and assigning different grammatical roles to each entity. These roles are based on the definition of the particular word and the context in which it is written. Words that are in close proximity of each other often affect and assign meaning to each other. The POS taggers job is to assign grammatical roles such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. based upon these relations. The tagging of POS is important in information retrieval in general text processing. This is the case since natural languages contain a lot of ambiguity, which can make distinguishing words/terms difficult. There are two main schools when tagging POS. These are rule-based and stochastic. Examples of the two are Brillââ¬â¢s tagger and Stanford POS tagger, respectively. Rule-based taggers work by applying the most used POS for a given word. Predefined/lexical rules are then applied to the structure for error analysis. Errors are corrected until a satisfying threshold is reached. Stochastic taggers use a trained corpus to determine the POS of a given word. Stopword Removal Stopwords, i.e. words thought not to convey any meaning, are removed from the text. The approach taken in this work does not compile a static list of stopwords, as usually done. Instead PoS information is browbeaten and all tokens that are not nouns, verbs or adjectives are removed. Stop words are words which occur often in text and speech. They do not tell much about the content they are wrapped in, but helps humans understand and interpret the residue of the content. These terms are so generic that they do not mean anything by themselves. In the context of text processing they are basically just empty words, which only takes up space, increases computational time and affects the similarity measure in a way which is not relevant. This can result in false positives. Table: 1 List of Stop words This class includes only one method; which runs through a list of words and removes all occurrences of words specified in a file. A text file, which specifies the stop words, is loaded into the program. This file is called ââ¬Å"stop-words.txtâ⬠and is located at the home directory of the program. The text file can be edited such that it only contains the desired stop words. A representation of the stop words used in the text file can be found in table 1. After the list of stop words has been loaded, it is compared to the words in the given list. If a match is found the given word in the list is removed. A list, exposed from stop words, is then returned. Stemming Words with the same meaning appear in various morphological forms. To capture their similarity they are normalised into a common root-form, the stem. The morphology function provided with WordNet is used for stemming, because it only yields stems that are contained in the WordNet dictionary. This class contains five methods; one for converting a list of words into a string, two for stemming a list of words and two for handling the access to WordNet through the JWNL API[8]. The first method listToString() takes an ArrayList of strings and concatenate these into a string representation. The second method stringStemmer() takes an ArrayList of strings and iterates through each word, stemming these by calling the private method wordStemmer(). This method checks if the JWNL API has been loaded and starts stemming by looking up the lemma of a word in WordNet. Before this is done, each word starting with an uppercase letter is checked to see if it can be used as a noun. If the word can be used as a noun, it does not qualify for stemming and is returned in its original form. The lemma lookup is done by using a morphological processor, which is provided by WordNet. This morphs the word into its lemma, after which the word is checked for a match in the database of WordNet. This is done by running through all the specified POS databases defined in WordNet. If a match is found, the lemma of the word is returned, otherwise the original word is simply returned. Lastly, the methods allowing access to WordNet initializes the JWNL API and shuts it down, respectively. The initializer() method gets an instance of the dictionary files and loads the morphological processor. If this method is not called, the program is not able to access the WordNet files. The method close() closes the dictionary files and shuts down the JWNL API. This method is not used in the program, since it would not make sense to uninstall the dictionary once it has been installed. It would only increase the total execution time. It has been implemented for good measure, should it be needed. Stemming[5] is the process of reducing an inflected or derived word to its base form. In other words all morphological deviations of a word are reduced to the same form, which makes comparison easier. The stemmed word is not necessarily returned to its morphological root, but a mutual stem. The morphological deviations of a word have different suffixes, but in essence describe the same. These different variants can therefore be merged into a distinct representative form. Thus a comparison of stemmed words turns up a higher relation for equivalent words. In addition storing becomes more effective. Words like observes, observed, observation, observationally should all be reduced to a mutual stem such as observe. PROPOSED SYSTEM Reverse dictionaries approach can provide significantly higher quality. The proposed a set of methods for building and querying a reverse dictionary. Reverse dictionary system is based on the notion that a phrase that conceptually describes a word should resemble the wordââ¬â¢s actual definition, if not matching the exact words, then at least conceptually similar. Consider, for example, the following concept phrase: ââ¬Å"talks a lot, but without much substance.â⬠Based on such a phrase, a reverse dictionary should return words such as ââ¬Å"gabby,â⬠ââ¬Å"chatty,â⬠and ââ¬Å"garrulous.â⬠Forward mapping (standard dictionary): Intuitively, a forward mapping designates all the senses for a particular word phrase. This is expressed in terms of a forward map set (FMS). The FMS of a (word) phrase W, designated by F(W) is the set of (sense) phrases {S1, S2, . . . Sn } such that for each Sj à ââ¬Å¾ F(Wi), (Wi à ¯Ãâà Sj) à ââ¬Å¾ D. For example, suppose that the term ââ¬Å"jovialâ⬠is associated with various meanings, including ââ¬Å"showing high-spirited merrimentâ⬠and ââ¬Å"pertainingâ⬠to the god Jove, or Jupiter.â⬠Here, F (jovial) would contain both of these phrases. Reverse mapping (reverse dictionary): Reverse mapping applies to terms and is expressed as a reverse map set (RMS). The RMS of t, denoted R(t), is a set of phrases { P1, P2, Pi,â⬠¦Ã¢â¬ ¦, Pm}, such that à ¯Ã¢â ¬Ã ¢Pi à ¯Ã¢â ¬Ã à ¯ÃâÃ
½ R(t), t à ¯ÃâÃ
½ F(Pi). Intuitively, the reverse map set of a term t consists of all the (word) phrases in whose definition t appears. The find candidate words phase consists of two key sub steps: 1) Build the RMS. 2) Query the RMS. A. COMPONENTS The first preprocessing step is to PoS tag the corpus. The PoS tagger relies on the text structure and morphological differences to determine the appropriate part-of-speech. For this reason, if it is required, PoS tagging is the first step to be carried out. After this, stopword removal is performed, followed by stemming. This order is chosen to reduce the amount of words to be stemmed. The stemmed words are then looked up in WordNet and their corresponding synonyms and hypernyms are added to the bag-of-words. Once the document vectors are completed in this way, the frequency of each word across the corpus can be counted and every word occurring less often than the pre specified threshold is pruned. Stemming, stopword removal and pruning all aim to improve clustering quality by removing noise, i.e. meaningless data. They all lead to a reduction in the number of dimensions in the term-space. Weighting is concerned with the estimation of the importance of individual terms. All of these have been used extensively and are considered the baseline for comparison in this work. However, the two techniques under investigation both add data to the representation. a PoS tagging adds syntactic information and WordNet is used to add synonyms and hypernyms. B. BUILDING REVERSE MAPPING SETS The input phrases sentence is split into words and then removes the stop words ( a, be, person, some, someone, too, very, who, the, in, of, and, to) if any appears, and find other words, which is having same meaning from the forward dictionary data sources. Given the large size of dictionaries, creating such mappings on the fly is infeasible. Thus, Procreate these Rs for every relevant term in the dictionary. This is a one time, offline event; once these mappings exist, we can use them for ongoing lookup. Thus, the cost of creating the corpus has no effect on runtime performance. For an input dictionary D, we create R mappings for all terms appearing in the sense phrases (definitions) in D. C. RMS QUERY This module responds to user input phrases. Upon receiving such an input phrase, we query the R indexes already present in the database to find candidate words whose definitions have any similarity to the input phrase. Upon receiving an input phrase U, we process U using a stepwise refinement approach. We start off by extracting the core terms from U, and searching for the candidate words (Ws) whose definitions contain these core terms exactly. (Note that we tune these terms slightly to increase the probability of generating Ws) If this first step does not generate a sufficient number of output Ws, defined by a tuneable input parameter à ±, which represents the minimum number of word phrases needed to halt processing and return output. D. CANDIDATE WORD RANKING In this module sorts a set of output Ws in order of decreasing similarity to U, based on the semantic similarity. To build such a ranking, we need to be able to assign a similarity measure for each (S,U) pair, where U is the user input phrase and S is a definition for some W in the candidate word set O. Wn and Palmerââ¬â¢s Conceptual similarity, WUP Similarity between concepts a and b in a hierarchy, Here depth(lso(a,b)) is the global depth of the lowest super ordinate of a and b and len(a,b) is the length of the path between the nodes a and b in the hierarchy SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE We now describe our implementation architecture, with particular attention to design for scalability. The Reverse Dictionary Application (RDA) is a software module that takes a user phrase (U) as input, and returns a set of conceptually related words as output. Figure 1. Architecture of reverse dictionary. The user input phrase, split the word from the input phrase, perform the stemming. Predict every relevant term in the forward dictionary data source. In the generate query. input phrase, minimum and maximum output thresholds as input, then removal of level 1 stop words ( a, be, person, some, someone, too, very, who, the, in, of, and, to) and perform stemming, generate the query.Execute the query find the set of candidate words. Finally sort the result based on the semantic similarity EXPERIMENTAL ENVIRONMENT Our experimental environment consisted of two 2.2 GHz dual-core CPU, 2 GB RAM servers running Windows XP pro and above. On one server, we installed our implementation our algorithms (written in Java). The other server housed is wordnet dictionary data. CONCLUSION We describe the many challenges inherent in building a reverse lexicon, and map drawback to the well-known abstract similarity problem. We tend to propose a collection of strategies for building and querying a reverse lexicon, and describe a collection of experiments that show the standard of our results, similarly because the runtime performance underneath load. Our experimental results show that our approach will give important enhancements in performance scale while not sacrificing answer quality. The higher quality input phrase to driven reverse dictionary. Unlike a traditional forward dictionary, which maps from words to their definitions, a reverse dictionary takes a user input phrase describing the desired concept, it reduce the well-known conceptual similarity problem. The set of methods building a reverse mapping querying a reverse dictionary and it produces the higher quality of results. This approach can provide significant improvements in performance scale without sacrificing solution quality but for larger query it is fairly slow. REFERENCES T. Dao and T. Simpson, ââ¬Å"Measuring Similarity between Sentences,â⬠2009. http://opensvn.csie.org/WordNetDotNet/trunk/ Projects/ T. Hofmann, ââ¬Å"Probabilistic Latent Semantic Indexing,â⬠SIGIR ââ¬â¢99: Proc. 22nd Ann. Intââ¬â¢l ACM SIGIR Conf. Research and Development in Information Retrieval, pp. 50-57, 1999. D. Lin, ââ¬Å"An Information-Theoretic Definition of Similarity,â⬠Proc .Intââ¬â¢l Conf. Machine Learning, 1998. M. Porter, ââ¬Å"The Porter Stemming Algorithm,â⬠http://tartarus.org/martin/PorterStemmer/ , 2009. G. Miller, C. Fellbaum, R. Tengi, P. Wakefield, and H. Langone, ââ¬Å"Wordnet Lexical Database,â⬠http://wordnet.princeton.edu/wordnet/download/, 2009. P. Resnik, ââ¬Å"Semantic Similarity in a Taxonomy: An Information-Based Measure and Its Application to Problems of Ambiguity in Natural Language,â⬠J. Artificial Intelligence Research, vol. 11, pp. 95- 130, 1999. AUTHORS PROFILE E Kamalanathan is pursuing his Master of Engineering (part time ) from Department of Computer Science and Engineering, SCSVMV University Enathur,
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