Higher education Essay Example for Free

Higher education Essay As I see you beaming with pride and eagerly waiting to enter a higher education, I am reminded of the words of the German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who says, â€Å"On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow. Just like the mountains of truth, you have made a tremendous effort to climb the ladder that will take you to a greater height of success. You all deserve to be here today. Some may be clouded with sadness as you leave your alma mater while reminiscing the unforgettable days with your batchmates and teachers. This is the day that you will always cherish and the time has come for you to assert your inner glow, shine and be the light of our school. In the number of years of being with us, we have journeyed together, earned success and have learned from our mistakes. Each tiny steps that we have taken, made us better, stronger and wiser. Each of you has contributed to our success and we are so proud of you. When you participated in the Rizal competition, a competition that has showcased your creative writing, chess, art and other talents, you have earned honors for your alma mater. This may be a game of fun for many competitors like you because of the talent, interest and enthusiasm that you take with you in every competition that you have participated in. Our academic and non-academic activities and competitions have honed your skills and made you discover the innate talents that you have. This school serves as the avenue that has paved the way in enriching your minds, polishing your skills, and making you understand the importance of discipline and education. How could we forget the fire drills that we had that would prepare you to any similar disaster that may or may not happen in your life? This is an important preparation in light of some unavoidable or unexpected disasters that are happening in many parts of our country. In this drill, you have also shown others the value of being of help to your fellowmen regardless of who they are. This is a giant step in understanding the value of saving lives and in being big brothers and big sisters to one another. You have also made a great effort in our water conservation campaign. We must be thankful for the abundance of water that we are enjoying in our community and in our country. However, being blessed with a life giving water resources must not come with its careless and abusive usage. Each of you has learned to become vigilant to dripping faucets and excessive use of water for our daily needs. It is now our task to continue this practice in our homes and in our communities. These are few of the many programs and activities that we have undertaken together and without your help and effort, we will never succeed in our undertakings. With that, allow me to personally say, â€Å"Thank You† to the graduating class and their parents. To all the teachers and staff, I salute you for the many hours that you have spent in helping your students learn and succeed. You have worked beyond school hours and have supported me in implementing our programs. Although there are talks about the possibility of closing this school amidst all our challenges, rest assured that we are working hard and doing everything we can to keep this school open and functioning well so new students can enroll, and old students can continue their studies and eventually graduate similar to the current batch who are right before me today. I would like to conclude my speech not with a farewell to the graduates and their parents but with a reminder that in being a light for your alma mater, you can serve someone other than yourself and serve something bigger than yourself. God bless you and your families.

The Challenges Of Protecting Personal Information Information Technology Essay

The Challenges Of Protecting Personal Information Information Technology Essay The aim of this paper is to review the importance of personal data, also known as sensitive data that are actually used virtually by any organisation in this 21st century. Personal information has become the biggest issue around the world, either processing or protecting it. But, in this article, the focus is on the health care system which is the Electric Health Record system (EHR), it is a system use to record health information electronically. Having the legislation, rules and regulation in place, it is found that this system has failed to provide protection on personal data. As a matter of fact, this system has managed to be exploited by unauthorised people. The EHR system was not fully tested accordingly to meet the end-users requirement, but released to the health service for use. The growth of data loss is increasingly common among the organisations in day to life and challenges in protecting personal data have emerged. It is therefore essential that health care service establ ish a better security policy to protect the personal data. This research paper will explain the security issues need to be enforced in order to protect data from the vulnerabilities. 1. INTRODUCTION One of the most significant current discussions in legal and moral philosophy is the security of data. It has become a central issue for many organisations to achieve a successful information system within defined scope, quality, time and cost constraints in order to protect privacy, confidentiality and security. Researchers like Olvingson et al. (2003) suggest that there have been drastic changes in the provision of health services since the introduction of computers about three decades ago and issues related to the protection of personal health information have resulted in both technical research and political debate.[1] Thus, it can be justified that security of data is still the leading cause of failure in software system development. The main issues addressed in this paper are personal information, data protection and security. It has been divided into four parts. The first one deals with the explanation of personal data, data protection and disclosure of data. The second part is to evaluate the risks and the impact on information system. The third one is to present different approaches to counter these risks. The forth one is to provide a summary of findings that can be use as lessons in the future. The purpose of this paper is to review the latest years of research into these parts and critically evaluate and validate this case study. 1.1 What is personal data? Personal data can be classified into three main categories; these are contact, profile and behavioural information. It contains the detail information of a living person that is unique to each individual. In this scenario, the personal data reveals the information of individuals health such as name, racial origin ,blood group, sex, DNA, contact details, next of kin, illnesses, treatment and General Practitioners detail. Therefore, EHR system functions at its best to record and transmit this information throughout the health service organisations. But, the biggest challenge of this system is to protect the privacy of patients health information. The main question addressed in this paper is how to protect this sensitive data. According to Croll.P.R (2010), he discusses that the effectiveness of Privacy and security measures depend mostly on the policies adopted by the healthcare organisation.[2] It can be argued that research shows that there is inadequate policies enforce by the gover nment and the medical organisation to prevent further harm on personal data. It can just be suggested that future research should determine how to address these issues effectively and generate effective security policies in IS project development 1.2 Data Protection Act is a legislation that has been established since 1984 and replaced in 1998, it is an Act to protect personal data. The principles of this Act are to make sure that data is accurate and correct. Information should be fairly and lawfully processed. Personal data should not be kept longer than necessary and processed for limited purposes. It should be adequate, relevant and up to date. The most important ones are not to reveal personal data in any manner and should be secure. Personal data should be processed in accordance with the data subjects rights. This Data Act also emphasizes on the accessibility of data, that is to say who is allowed to access to the data and under what conditions. Liability is crucial because it is about who is responsible if the data is abused. Haasa S. et al (2010), they argue that even if the providers policy states that data protection regulations and legislation are met, patients cannot control the EHR providers usage of their data. [3] Thus, it can be discussed that EHR system is not a single medical institution anymore and it is run by other enterprises who maintain the electronic records system where they have access to the personal data and able to disclose private information to other third parties. According to this article, the National Health Information Network (NHIN) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) cannot guarantee the security of health records because they are not sure people working within the medical organisation will abide by the rule. 1.3 Disclosure of Data is the revelation of data; it can be either wanted or unwanted disclosure. This means that one can either reveal the personal data to the authorised party or to the third party that could be unauthorised without any conditions. But, this paper focuses on the risks that are associated with the data that is disclosed inappropriately. Researchers have found that the in-house sabotage is the leading cause of sharing information to the third parties. It is the most common risk factor that has been identified by recent studies so far. An example of this potential risk of harvesting personal data for commercial purposes is the CAMM scam in Australia, 2003. It is a company promoting pharmaceutical activities and manages to upload the EHR system where they extract the personal data with some doctors approval. [4] Later, it was found that CAMM did not just use it for the pharmaceutical purposes, but also sold it to many insurance companies and to other organisations that wanted to buy the data. Hence, it can be argued that this can cause significant threats to patients privacy. Concerns have been raised by several bodies about the poor regulatory structures and policies implementing by the government in protecting personal data. The other associated risks are hackers, natural disaster, terrorism and viruses. According to the case study, the fact and figures shows that 99% were the staff that had the opportunity to target the system and 88% of the organisations had lost money between 500 dollars to 10 millions of dollars.[5] The most surprising fact is when staff leaves the organisation, they are the one who become the attackers of the company. Security breaches mostly when there is lack of access control which leads to information technology sabotage. Angus N (2005) argues that if it is for the benefit of the patient, information can be shared within the multidisciplinary team caring for the patient and does not apply to research, teaching or other unqualified members.[6] Thus, it can be justified that information should only be disclosed appropriately and safely to the people required or authorised by the legislation and hence this will improve the security issues. 2. Evaluation of the risks and impact on information systems This part of the discussion is about the evaluation of the risks listed above and the impact on information systems in terms of storage, transport, access management and disclosure are as follows: Storage -The idea of the freedom people working anywhere has in fact increase the ability to carry data on portable hard drives, laptops and USB sticks. Recent report has confirmed that data leakage have become very common among the organisations and has great impact on the relationship to customer due to the loss of laptops and USB. For example the case of the PA consulting who transferred the personal data of 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales to a memory sticks that gone missing. [7] This was a total disaster in terms of money loss and identity frauds. There is increasing concern of shopping on line because of security which is the major perception whether to buy or not to on line. Recent developments in using credit cards have heightened the need for better security policy to protect personal bank details from hackers. Transport -The crucial thing is when electronic data is carrying insecurely in public domain and from one domain to another. That has an inverse impact on infor mation systems such as people will lose confidence in using the system. Economically speaking, the risks to organisations have grown immensely where consumers and businesses suffer from loss of availability, integrity and confidentiality. If any of these is loss either accidentally or deliberately, this will affect the organisations productivity, popularity and much more. According to this case study, the health service system is more networked and that lead to an increase of intrusion and malware. The statistic research shows that health care companies in United States had an average of 13,400 attacks per day at the end of 2009, according to the Secure Works where some of these attacks are hacking credit card and others are automated attacks from malware which infect computers via networks and USB sticks. [8] In UK, late 2009, there were three London Hospitals that were forced to shut down their computer networks due to the infected malware known as Mytob. [9] It can be argued that has an adverse impact on NHS because 4,700 computers were infected and it took about two weeks to eliminate the virus which was cost-effective and data loss.[10] These attacks can also result in wrong diagnosis of patients and even cause death if the patients information have been erased or mislead by the malicious attack. Access Management is about the authentication process which deals with the authorization of user sID and password to have access to the data. Concerns have been raised by several bodies about the poor password management. This means that passwordword is not changed regularly and has the same default fixed password which in turn makes the system vulnerable to most attacks. In fact, this scenario states that the user do not need to have administrator access to do serious damage to the health records. McSherry (2004) suggests that with the growing effectiveness of data retrieval engines and data mining techniques, personal data has become vulnerable to unauthorised people. [11] It can be argued that data kept electronically makes it easier to exploit by data thieves and other intruders. Disclosure this explains to whom information should be disclosed to, that is to say who is liable to receive this information and on what conditions. The employees have a key role to play regarding this because whether they are liable under the Data Protection Act, company rules and regulation or not. But in most cases as mentioned above, it is found that mostly the staff that breaches the contract while dealing with personal information. 3. Controls and countermeasures Presentation of different approaches will be discussed in this part of the paper to counter these risks listed above. Recent developments in the field of security issues have led to a renewed interest in encryption. Encryption is the process of converting information into codes. It is in the form of computer programs software used to secure data. That is to say, a sender enters his / her personal data, it is first get encrypted and then decrypted before it reach to the receiver. It is one of the best solutions to all of these potential threats. Encryption is distinguished to protect communications and secure data effectively and safely, thus it can be justified that encryption should be enforced by the organisations internally and externally. This also applies on mobile devices, such as mobile phones and laptops where data are stored. Good and effective password management policy should be implemented at workplace. As a matter fact, authentication is the key factor of security issues , thus it is important to have strong methods, for example change password regularly and change the default. Staff should not bypass password in any manner. Education and training regarding data protection should be continuously adhered to employees. Public key infrastructure should be implemented as it provides a means to generate, administer and revoke digital certificate. It works similar to personal IDs, public key provides authentication where as the private key provides confidentiality. Therefore, encryption should be critically put in force when data is transmitted from one place to another, for passwords to limit unauthorised access and while storing data in databases and files. Firewall and other anti -virus software are also countermeasures that are needed to deploy by organisation to protect, detect and remove virus infection. However, a major problem with this kind of application is organisation often focus on security issues and forget the safety issues when it comes to the rules and regulations, thus medical system should emphasise on safety measures. Standards need to be followed to enable security protection. It is important that information is disclosed appropriately and safely to the required people on conditions. Some other measures that need to be considered are check has to be made with Internet Service Provider whether personal details are protected and shopping online should take place only through secure server which is https and not http. It is important to delete the browsing details after the transactions are completed and that helps protecting the online privacy. The most important one is for staff to abide by the rules and regulation in the organisation to successfully protect the personal data. However, Guarda P and Zannone N (2009), they suggest that it is difficult for an organisation to assure data subjects about the correct execution of data processing. [12] It can thus be argued that data processing is a very delicate activit y which need better assurance policy. According to the case study, an automated security testing tool was used in OpenEMR application and discovered about 400 vulnerabilities. Implementation bugs are code-level security problems. [13]. It was found that EHRs did not manage to keep up with discretion of patients records. An SQL injection attack was performed in OpenEMR and enabled to log in as the Front Office user without administravives authorization. Using this technique, it is established that any table in the database could be exploited, but the Proprietary Med application was safe. A Cross-site scripting attack is when malicious script is entered into the webpage. It was also successful and managed to exploit six in each application. It can thus be justified that the best way to test web application is to have the cross-site script applied correctly. Cookies- are small text files contain information such as username, start page, user preferences and contents of a shopping cart, they are use to analyse the user and support junk mail.

Cultural Literacy According To E.d. Hirsch :: Education Literacy Educational Essays

According to E.D. Hirsch, to be culturally literate is to possess the basic information to thrive in the modern world. It is the "grasp on the background information that writers and speakers assume their audience already has." In his book, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, Hirsch sets forth 5,000 essential words and phrases of which each person should be knowledgeable. The list ranges from idioms to mythology, from science to fairy tales. Why has this list prompted a notable debate on our country's educational standards? E.D. Hirsch believes that the literacy of American people has been rapidly declining. The long range remedy for restoring and improving American literacy must be to "institute a policy of imparting common information in our schools." In short, according to Hirsch - the answer to our problem lies within the list. Hirsch's book explains the importance of the need of a higher level of national literacy. His main argument is that cultural literacy is required for effective communication and the "cooperation of many people..." Communication is what Hirsch sees is essential for success in today's society. Communication is the key to equality in America. With increased cultural literacy, an egalitarian society is eventually possible. One common body of knowledge for everyone will be the glue that holds society together. Hirsch also points out the senselessness of concepts such as multi-culturalism and multi-lingualism. He acknowledges the importance of the numerous cultures and ethnicities of which United States is comprised. Hirsch mentions the "hyphenated American: the Italo-American, the Polish-American, the Afro- American, the Asian-American and so forth." He points out that he is in favor of each minority's protection, nurture, and respect; however, he strongly feels that people need to decide what "Å’American' means on the other side of the hyphen...what national values and traditions really belong to national cultural literacy." American cultural literacy should be based on our traditions -- morality of tolerance and benevolence, the Golden Rule, communal cooperation, altruism and freedom. It is in this way that Hirsch argues those in opposition of cultural literacy. Many opponents question Hirsch's view by questioning who would decide this common body of knowledge for everyone. People debate what is includedin "the list" on the basis of multiculturism. They ask, is the knowledge equally important to every citizen of the United States no matter what race, gender or religion? Hirsch responds by putting the emphasis on the other side of the hyphen - the American side. When reading Hirsch's book, I strongly agreed with his big picture of cultural literacy and agree that it is important to establish a common body of knowledge

Essay --

Theories of development have been motivated by the need to explain mass poverty. Interest in development issues is of rather recent origin, dating back not much earlier than the nineteen fifties and early sixties. As represented by their more influential proponents, the development schools of thought reflect roughly the following chronological order of appearan Modernisation Theory 1950s-1960s Modernisation emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s; it was constructed from a newly profound position that was taken by America in terms of its international hegemony based on the concern to eradicate social problems faced by poor countries. However in the late 1960s there was an involvement of the US in Vietnam due to modernisation programs that failed. This led to the emergence of a Marxist dependency school that aimed to challenge modernisation school. The battle between dependency and modernisation theory emerged and it later became subside. This left the development of the third world to be less emotional and ideological. However the main focus of modernisation is attributed from the...

The Contributions of Frederick Douglas, William Apess, Sarah Margaret F

The Contributions of Frederick Douglas, William Apess, Sarah Margaret Fuller, and Sojourner Truth      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   As has been noted before, when we look at the authors of The Declaration of Independence, we are quite aware that the 'document' was written in the interest of the people who were there. The wealthy, white, landowners make up the Constitution to fit their needs and exclude everyone else. The people most notably left without rights are African American's, Native American's and Women. These minority groups formed a bond with each other because they were outside the dominant group. These groups of people helped gain their strength and voice through speeches and conventions with each one using the very words of the Constitution as their platform. During this time powerful voices spoke out like: Frederick Douglas, William Apess, Margaret Fuller, and Sojourner Truth, who didn't have the advantage of a formal education, but still found a way to become educated or taught themselves.    A brilliant speaker, "Abolionist, women's rights advocate,journalist and newspaper editor, social reformers and race leader, Frederick Douglas was unquestionably one of the most prominent black leaders of the nineteenth century and one of the most eloquent orators in American public life"(1751). Frederick Douglas was basically self-taught and his voice became so polished that he was in fear of losing the audience of his own race to the cause of freeing slaves because he sounded "too white". Douglas was asked to speak at a Fourth of July celebration and in his speech; What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? ; He expresses that it is: "Your National Independence, and of your political freedom"(1819). He reaches out to his audience by showin... ...ither has been answered fully"(2022). This is the backbone of most of the representative material. It is based on spiritual and Christian thought and that people are created and given their rights by God. Since most of these authors weren't taught in the classical sense the Bible was a useful and sometimes life altering tool. Hopefully, we will learn more about these representational authors so that as a collective group of Americans we can fully understand their impact on the growth and development of our country.    Works Cited The Heath Anthology of American Literature Copyright 1998 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Issues in Feminism Copyright 1998,1995,1990 by Mayfield Publishing Company Owl-eyes Biography and Etexts http://owleyes.org/douglas.htm Bright Moments http://brightmoments.com/blackhistory/nsotrue:html

Elizabethan Playhouses and Performance Conventions

When Elizabeth became Queen of England in 1558, there were no specially designed theatre buildings. Companies of actors (usually small, made of 5 to 8 members) toured the country and performed in a wide variety of temporary acting spaces, mainly in inn yards, but also in churches, Town Halls, Town Squares, great halls of Royal Palaces or other great houses, or anywhere else that a large crowd could be gathered to view a performance. It is true that they continued to tour throughout Elizabeth’s reign (especially during the Plague in London, when theatres were closed or earned but little money). Nevertheless, given the laws passed by the Queen to control wandering beggars and vagrants – which implicitly affected the acting companies as well – many actors were encouraged to settle down with permanent bases in London. The first permanent theatres in England were old inns which had been used as temporary acting areas when the companies had been touring. E. g. The Cross Keys, The Bull, The Bel Savage, The Bell – all originally built as inns. Some of the inns that became theatres had substantial alterations made to their structure to allow them to be used as playhouses. The first purpose built theatre building in England was simply called The Theatre, eventually giving its name to all such building erected in the outskirts of London and functioning until the closing of the theatres in 1642 during the Civil War. The Theatre was built in 1576, at Shoreditch in the northern outskirts of London, by the Earl of Leicester’s Men who were led by James Burbage, a carpenter turned actor. It seems that the design of The Theatre was based on that of bull-baiting and bear-baiting yards (as a matter of fact, bull baiting, bear baiting and fencing shows were very popular by that time, and they were often organized before the plays started. ). The Theatre was followed the next year (1577) by The Curtain, in 1587 by The Rose and in 1595 by The Swan (to mention but the most famous theatres). In 1599, a dispute over the land on which The Theatre stood determined Burbage’s sons to secretly tear down the building and carry away the timber to build a new playhouse on the Bankside which they names The Globe. By this time, the Burbages had become members of Lord Chamberlain’s Company, along with William Shakespeare, and The Globe is famously remembered as the theatre in which many of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed. (The Globe was destroyed in 1613 in a fire caused by the sparks of a cannon fired during the performance of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. Rebuilt, it was closed and demolished in 1644 during the Civil War. The modern reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London was completed in 1997. ) Before going into more details regarding the structure of the Elizabethan theatre, distinction should be made, however, between two categories of playhouses: the public (outdoor) theatres and the private (indoor) theatres. The former were amphitheatre buildings open to the air and therefore cheaper – The Globe, for instance, charged two pence for a seat in the galleries or a single penny to stand in the yard. The latter (e. g. Blackfriars; The Cockpit) were built to a hall design in enclosed and usually rectangular buildings more like the theatres we know today. They had amore exclusive audience since they charged considerably more – the cheapest seat in a private theatre cost sixpence. The adult companies did not start to use the private hall theatres until after Elizabeth’s death, but they were used by the boy companies (made up entirely of child and teenage actors) in Elizabeth’s reign and were used by Shakespeare’s Company – by this time the King’s Men – and other adult companies in the Jacobean period. Structure and Design of Public/ Outdoor Theatres Public theatres were polygonal – hexagonal outside and round inside (â€Å"a wooden O† as Shakespeare puts it in Henry V). An open-air arena – called â€Å"pit† or â€Å"yard† – had, at one end, a wooden stage supported by large pillars, with trap doors for special effects (to allow ghosts, devils and similar characters to be raised up) and was surrounded by three tiers of roofed galleries (thatched, later on tiled roofs) with balconies, overlooking the back of the stage. The rear stage was covered by a roof – which they called â€Å"Heavens† through which, by means of ropes, they ould lower down the actors playing the gods/ angels, etc. , for flying or dramatic entrances – held up by massive pillars and obstructing the view of audience members from various angles. The stage wall behind these pillars was called â€Å"Frons Scenae† (taken from the name given by Imperial Rome to the stage walls of their amphitheatres ) provided with doors to the left and to the right and a curtained central doorway – referred to as the â€Å"discovery space† – which allowed characters to be suddenly revealed or a play within a play to be acted. The rear wall of this inner stage was covered by tapestry, the only usual â€Å"scenery† used on the stage. Immediately above the inner stage, there was the stage gallery which could be used for multiple purposes: – as an acting space: on either sides, there were bow-windows used for the frequent window/ balcony scenes (e. g. Romeo and Juliet). Thus the arrangement of a front stage and two-storeyed back stage permitted three actions to go on simultaneously and a life-like parallelism of events. – another part of the gallery could be used as a music-room. Music was an extra effect added in the 1600’s. The musicians started playing an hour before the beginning of the play and also played at appropriate moments throughout the performance. – when necessary, some of the boxes of the stage gallery were used for audience seating. They were referred to as the â€Å"Lord’s rooms† and considered the best (and hence the most expensive) seats in the ‘house’ despite the poor view of the back of the actors. (Nevertheless, the audience at large would have a good view of the Lords and the Lords were able to hear the actors clearly. There were also additional balconies on the left and right of the â€Å"Lord’s rooms† called the â€Å"Gentlemen’s rooms†, also meant for the rich patrons of the theatres. As previously mentioned, the stage wall structure contained two doors (at least) leading to a small structure, back stage, called the â€Å"Tiring House† used by actors to dress, prepare and wait offstage. Above the stage gallery, there is a third storey connected with the â€Å"Heavens† extending forward from the tiring-house over the rear part of the stage, which was often used to represent the walls of a castle or a city. Last but not least, on top of this structure, there was also what might be called a fourth storey of the tiring-house, referred to as the â€Å"Hut† presumably used as a storage space and housing suspension gear for flying effects, while the third storey stage cover served as a loading room for players preparing to ‘fly’ down to the stage. On top of the â€Å"hut†, a flag (a black one, if it was a tragedy, a white one, if it was a comedy, or a red one, if it was a history) was erected to let the world know a play was to be performed that day. The access to the playhouse was ensured by one main entrance, where playgoers had to put the admission fee – i. e. 1 penny, for those who watched the play from the yard, standing, called the â€Å"Groundlings† (shopkeepers, craftsmen, apprentices), or more, up to 4-5 pence for the gentry and the great lords sitting in the galleries. The galleries could be reached by the two sets of stairs in the structure, on either side of the theatre. The first gallery would cost another penny in the box which was held by a collector (â€Å"gatherer†) at the front of the stairs. The second gallery would cost another penny. At the start of the play, after collecting money from the audience, the admission collectors put the boxes in a room backstage, called the â€Å"box office. † The Players There were invariably many more parts than actors. Elizabethan Theatre, therefore, demanded that an actor be able to play numerous roles and make it obvious to the audience by changes in his acting style and costume that he was a new person each time. When the same character came on disguised (as, for example, many of Shakespeare’s female characters disguise themselves as boys – e. . The Merchant of Venice or Twelfth Night) speeches had to be included making it very clear that this was the same character in a new costume, and not a completely new character. All of the actors in an Elizabethan Theatre company were male (which might explain the scarcity of female roles in Elizabethan drama). There were laws in England against women acting onstage and English travellers abroad were amused and amazed by the strange customs of Continental European countries that allowed women to play female roles. Exceptions : One woman – Mary Frith, better known as Moll Cutpurse – was arrested in the Jacobean period for singing and playing instruments onstage during a performance of a play about her life (Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring Girl) and some suggest that she may actually have been illegally playing herself in the performance, and women sometimes took part in Court Masques (a very stylised and spectacular sort of performance for the Court, usually dominated by singing and dancing), but otherwise English women had no part in the performance of Elizabethan plays. The male actors who played female parts have traditionally been described as â€Å"Boy Actors† – they were actually boys whose voices had not changed. The rehearsal and performance schedule that Elizabethan Players followed was intense and demanding. Unlike modern theatres, where a successful play can run for years at a time, Elizabethan theatres normally performed six different plays in their six day week, and a particularly successful play might only be repeated once a month or so. For example, in a typical season, a theatrical company could perform thirty-eight different plays. The Elizabethan actor did not have much time, therefore, to prepare for each new play, and must have had to learn lines and prepare his blocking largely on his own and in his spare time – probably helped by the tendency of writers to have particular actors in mind for each part, and to write roles which were suited to the particular strengths and habits of individual actors. There were few formal rehearsals for each play and no equivalent of the modern Director (although presumably the writer, theatre managers, and the most important actors – who owned shares in the theatre company – would have given some direction to other actors). Instead of being given full scripts, each actor had a written â€Å"part†, a long scroll with nothing more than his own lines and minimal cue lines (the lines spoken by another actor just before his own) to tell him when to speak – this saved on the laborious task of copying out the full play repeatedly by hand. There was a bookholder or prompter who held a complete script and who helped actors who had forgotten their lines. Costumes, Scenery and Effects Elizabethan costuming seems to have been a strange combination of what was (for the Elizabethans) modern dress, and costumes which – while not being genuinely historically or culturally accurate – had a historical or foreign flavour. Strict laws were in force about what materials and types of clothes could be worn by members of each social class – laws which the actors were allowed to break onstage – so it would be immediately obvious to the Elizabethan audience that actors wearing particular types of clothes were laying people of particular backgrounds and types. The colours were also carefully chosen so as to suggest: red – blood; black – gloom, evil; yellow – sun; white – purity; scarlet – doctor; gray – friar; blue – serving men. Extensive make-up was almost certainly used, particularly for the boys playing female parts and with dark make-up on the face and hands for actors playing â€Å"blackamoors† or â€Å"Turks†. There were also conventions for playing a number of roles – some of which we know from printed play scripts. Mad women, like Ophelia, wore their hair loose and mad people of both sexes had disordered clothing. Night scenes were often signalled by characters wearing nightdresses (even the Ghost of Hamlet’s father appears in his nightgown, when Hamlet is talking with his Mother in her chamber). The Elizabethans did not use fixed scenery or painted backdrops of the sort that became popular in the Victorian period – hence the playwrights had to provide the actors with spoken descriptions of landscape which with Shakespeare represent memorable poetry. That does not mean, however, that the Elizabethans performed on a completely bare stage. A wide variety of furniture and props were brought onstage to set the scene as necessary – ranging from simple beds, tables, chairs and thrones to whole trees, grassy banks, prop dragons, an unpleasant looking cave to represent the mouth of hell, and so forth. Death brought out a particular ingenuity in Elizabethan actors and they apparently used copious quantities of animal blood, fake heads and tables with holes in to stage decapitations. Heads, hands, eyes, tongues and limbs were dramatically cut off onstage, and probably involved some sort of blood-drenched stage trick. A number of other simple special effects were used. Real cannons and pistols (loaded with powder but no bullet) were fired off when ceremonial salutes or battles were required. Thunder was imitated by rolling large metal cannon balls backstage or by drumming, while lightning was imitated by fireworks set off in the â€Å"heavens† above the stage. One thing that Elizabethan theatres almost completely lacked was lighting effects. In the outdoor theatres, like the Globe, plays were performed from two o’clock until about four or four thirty in the afternoon (these were the times fixed by law, but plays may sometimes have run for longer) in order to take advantage of the best daylight (earlier or later performances would have cast distracting shadows onto the stage). Evening performances, without daylight, were impossible. In the hall theatres, on the other hand, the stages were lit by candlelight – which forced them to hold occasional, probably musical, breaks while the candles were trimmed and tended or replaced as they burned down. Elizabethan actors carried flaming torches to indicate that a scene was taking place at night, but this would have made little difference to the actual lighting of the stage, and spectators simply had to use their imagination. The nearest that the Elizabethans came to lighting effects were fireworks, used to imitate lightening or magical effects. Performance Techniques We know very little, unfortunately, about how Elizabethan actors actually played their roles. Performances probably ran continuously without any sort of interval or Act Breaks. Occasionally music may have been played between Acts or certain scenes, but scholars think this was quite unusual except in the hall playhouses, where candles had to be trimmed and replaced between Acts. We do not even know how long Elizabethan plays usually ran. The law (mentioned above) expected plays to last between two and two and a half hours, but some plays – such as Hamlet, which in modern times runs for more than four hours – seem much too long to have been performed in such a short time. What props and scenery there were in the Elizabethan Theatre were probably carried on and off while the scenes continued, while actors were continually moving forward and backward into the midst of the surrounding audience. All entrances and exits were through the doors at the rear of the stage proper: one actor left through one door while a second actor would appear through the second door to swing into the next scene. That means that there would have been no need to wait for scene changes. The actors were kept in constant motion and, given the design of the stage, they had to face in as many different directions as possible during a scene. Another aspect of Elizabethan performance that we know a little about was the use of clowns or fools. Shakespeare complains in Hamlet about the fact that the fool often spoke a great deal that was not included in his script, and in the early Elizabethan period especially it seems to have been normal for the fool to include a great deal of improvised repartee and jokes in his performance, especially responding to hecklers in the audience. At the end of the play the Elizabethan actors often danced, and sometimes the fool and other comic actors would perform a jig – which could be anything from a simple ballad to a quite complicated musical play, normally a farce involving adultery and other bawdy topics. Some time was apparently put aside for the fool to respond to challenges from the audience – with spectators inventing rhymes and challenging the fool to complete them, asking riddles and questions and demanding witty answers, or simply arguing and criticising the fool so that he could respond. With no modern stage lighting to enhance the actors and put the audience into darkness, Globe audience members could see each other exactly as well as they could see the performers and the Groundlings in particular were near enough to the stage to be able to touch the actors if they wanted to and the front row of the Groundlings routinely leaned their arms and heads onto the front of the stage itself. The Groundlings were also forced to stand for two or three hours without much movement, which encouraged short attention spans and a desire to take action rather than remain completely immobile. This means that the Groundlings frequently shouted up at the actors or hissed the villains and cheered the goodies. Elizabethan audiences seem to have been very responsive in this way – as their interactions with the Fool suggests – and were particularly well known for hurling nut shells and fruit when they disliked an actor or a performance. The Elizabethan audience was still more distracted, however, since beer and food were being sold and consumed throughout the performance, prostitutes were actively soliciting for trade, and pickpockets were busy stealing goods as the play progressed. Elizabethan audiences may have â€Å"viewed† plays very differently, hence the origin of the word â€Å"audience† itself. The Elizabethans did not speak of going to see a play, they went to hear one – and it is possible that in the densely crowded theatre – obstructed by the pillars and the extravagant headgear that richer members of the audience were wearing – the Elizabethan audience was more concerned to hear the words spoken than to be able to see the action. This idea is given extra weight by the fact that in the public outdoor theatres, like the Globe, the most expensive seats were not the ones with the best views (in fact the best view is to be had by the Groundlings, standing directly in front of the stage), but those which were most easily seen by other audience members. The most expensive seating was in the Lord’s box or balcony behind the stage – looking at the action from behind – and therwise the higher the seats the more an audience member had to pay. (Some Elizabethan documents suggest that the reason for this range of prices was the richer patron’s desire to be as far from the stink of the Groundlings as possible. ) Specific aspects of Elizabethan performances: bear-baiting: three bears in ascending size are set upon by an English hound in a fight to the death! fencing: less gruesome, this civilized sport also took place before plays. umb-shows/processions: parades or spectacles, these formal groups used all the most ornate costumes they owned, including crowns and sceptres, torches and swords. Dumbshows appeared at the end of each act to summarize the events of the following act. By the turn of the century, dumb-shows were considered old-fahsioned and corny. Processions were more solemn as actors moved mannequin-like across the stage. jigs: at the conclusion of a play, the actors would dance around the stage. Separate from the plays, these were bawdy, knockabout song-and-dance farces. Frequently resembling popular ballads, jigs were often commentaries on politics or religion. masques: masques were plays put on strictly by the royals. These were celebrations, i. e. royal weddings or winning a battle. Designed as banquets of the senses, these celebrations spanned several days during which each member of the party played a part in the allegorical theme of the banquet. Masques were always held in private playhouses.

Ocd Abstract

OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER: WHO IS AFFECTED AND HOW TO TREAT IT? Abstract Sometimes we think we know ourselves better than anybody else. But haven't you asked yourself why you're acting the way you act and you can't even figure the answer out? This tells us that we don't truly know ourselves because there are still questions unanswered. Try to imagine how our behavior changes to the point that we are no longer in control of it.We experience strange behavior once in our life but is this really natural or is it a disorder? Obsessive-compulsive disorder is characterized by persistent and repetitive thoughts (obsession) and actions (compulsions). We tend to ignore symptoms and we didn't know that these can lead to a devastating results if left untreated. OCD is a growing epidemic in society and we should take it seriously once we see the early symptoms.It doesn't matter if you're a child, an adult or even if you're on your 60's, everybody can be a victim of this disorder. This disorde r may interfere with our daily routine and it can have a bad impact on relationships for some people. There's a lot of factors causing OCD such as biological, psychological and sociocultural and it can also be inherited and pass on to the next generation without awareness. However, this can be prevented by having enough knowledge to point out what is wrong, and how to treat it.Cognitive-behavior therapy is one of the emerging solution for this disorder. It combines cognitive therapy and behavior therapy by helping clients regularly act out their new ways of thinking and talking in their everyday life. It's never too late to think and look for possible solutions for OCD. Keywords: obsessive-compulsive disorder, biological factor, psychological factors, sociocultural factors, cognitive-behavior therapy