Negligent Misstatement

Law of tort dominates civil conduct in all aspects of life and numerous of violations of duties are all distinctly set. It provides remedies for certain civil wrongs that have not been arisen from the contractual duties. Under tort law, whether it is an intentional act or accident, the injured victim (plaintiff) may be capable to recover damages from the person that liable for the harmed caused (defendant). Negligence is the most significant and developed category of tort in terms of money and varied of cases involved.It believes that the plaintiff should bear their own adversities unless there is a proof shows that the defendant owes of duty to comply with ordinary care and skill. There are few elements have to be shown if the claimant wish to succeed in compensation which is the existence and breach of a duty of care, losses or damages must be resulted from the reliance on that breach, and lastly is to determine whether the losses were an equitably foreseeable consequence of the de fendant’s actions.Negligent misstatement refers to a representation of fact that been carelessly made, which is relied on the plaintiff to their advantages (O’Riordan, 2007, p. 1). In 1964, the tort of negligent misstatement has been established and it has gained more recognition in this decades. It covers opinions and reality statements made by negligence. However, the tort had lead to certain level of floodgate concerns in the early century and today the courts are still less well embrace its liability.In the present day setup, accountants have been regarded as prominence role. They inspect mistreats and irregularities of the company’s financial aspects and protect the benefits of the stakeholders and investors. When the accountants or auditors form a contractual relationship with their potential clients, there are many debatable legal area emerge in respect of the people who possible rely on the company reports made or advices provided in a non contractual ca pacity.In fact, most of the plaintiffs are unfamiliar to the accountants in the situation. Even though the negligent law enables the parties with no contractual relation to accuse for damages constantly after the negligent behavior caused, the succeed of the accounting firm still need to depend on the objective of the reports made, accounts created, and the establishment of a duty of care between the accountant and the claimant who making compensation in negligence. The appropriate law may be obtained from numerous of significant cases.During the early 1980s, there were trends of the judicial extension of the amount of third parties to whom an auditor or accountant may be held liable and this period was referred as the â€Å"dark ages† of accountant’s liability. There is a duty of care if it is to plaintiff. In JEB Fasteners v Marks Bloom & Co 1983, the plaintiff took over the private company after reading an unqualified report prepared by the accountants Mark Bloom. T he accountants knew the plaintiff was facing financial crisis and searching for financial help on the preparation of statements.Soon JEB discovered that the financial statements included some errors and the value of stock was overstated. Thus, he took an action in negligence against the accountants and Anns foreseeability test was applied in this case. The action failed on the grounds of causation and the accountants did not take the liability for their negligence and the statements were not of the main cause of making loss profit because it was revealed that acquisition of the company was to obtain the expertise of the directors without the concern of the current stock’s value.However, Queen's Bench Division held that the suitable test for developing a duty of care is whether the accountants aware or should have known rational that an individual probably made a keys decision depend on the audited financial reports and duty of care was owed. Under the Misrepresentation Act 19 67 s. 2 (1), when a person entered a contract and suffered loss in business because of the misrepresentation that made by another party, he has the right to claim for damages and the claimant that create the misrepresentation fraudulently are liable.There was no inducement between the parties because JEB entered the contract for independent reasons. The defendants were unaware of the misrepresentation and it was considered as a negligent act instead of fraudulence. Besides, the complainant judgement was not influenced by the negligent statement and he did not rely on the information to take over the company. Throughout the decades of the 1990s, there had been an international trend arose toward a more limited scope of negligence for accountants liability to clients.This important reversal has been found by landmark suggestions from some landmark cases such as Caparo v Dickman 1990. This case concerns about the limits of the potential liabilities for the accountants through auditing the annual accounts. The respondents, Caparo Industries Plc had took over the Fidelity Plc by acquiring 29. 9% of the issued shares and making a successful bid for the remainder shares in the market on 1984.The annual audit of Fidelity was regulated by statute and the Companies Act 1985 has constructed that what the statutory accounts should embrace minutely. Later, Caparo sued against the appellants, auditors of Fidelity Plc for few reasons. The respondent alleged that the company’s accounts were inexact and been audited negligently, as a result they had suffered a great loss of over ?400,000. Through the reliance on the accounts, the respondents urged to purchase and bid for further shares.Caparo claimed that the appellants had owed them a duty of care as potential bidders for the company because they should have foreseen the 1984 outcomes that caused Fidelity vulnerable for an existing shareholder desired to acquire extra shares and establish a take-over bid. Based on the decisions of the Queen’s Bench, there was no necessary for the a ppellants to owe a duty of care to Caparo as an investor because of the absence of direct or close relationship between the parties.Although the appellants might owe statutory duties to stockholders, but there was no common law duty to the individual among them. The case was brought to the Court of Appeal afterwards and it was held it was fair, just, and reasonable that the auditors owed a duty of care to the individual shareholders instead of the investors, so they would be able to recover in tort by relying on the negligent statements, whether by issuing or reserving the shares or by acquiring additional shares with the neighbourhood principle.Nevertheless, when the House of Lord led the judgement after inspected some relevant cases, they ruled that there was no duty owed by auditors to the respondents or individual shareholders because the court would not infer a relationship of proximity between the parties when to act so would result in unlimited liability on the auditor’s part. A relationship of proximity will only exist when the auditor aware that the statement will have an interaction with people who rely on it for the purpose of business or transaction’s decision making.Since the individual shareholders were in no better place compared to the majority of publicity and the accountant's statutory duties to complete the annual account were wholly owed to the body of stockholders, an accountant was not liable to anyone who tended to acquire further market shares of Fidelity. Moreover, the main purpose for all accounts audited and prepared is to spur the company shareholders to create long term strategy or plans using the information rather than purchase shares to gain extra profits.In my opinion, on the basis of the criteria for imposing liability, the complicated special relationship between the bidders that involved in the take-over, investors, and lenders cannot fully rely on the audited statements but other internal or external factors need to take into the consideration too. There was no statutory duty for an accountant to recommend that they planned to safeguard the interests of the potential investors. Caparo should not contemplate and estimated the amount of bid based on the single statement.It was his duties to make the inquiries. The imposition of a duty of care on the appellants would not succeed when the investors rely on the statement for some unspecified usage. The indispensably proximity relationship ought to be emerge to restrict what would otherwise turn into an unconditional duty of care owed by accountants for the account’s precision to satisfy the people who might foreseaably depend on them, yet foreseeablility is incapable to be the fundamental element to impose the duty.According to Companies Act 1985, the imposition of a duty was only referring to the stockholders as a class; these duties would not expand to an individ ual save as a part of the class in respect of some class activities as the act only develop relationship between accountants and the stockholders. Thus, the accountants are not liable for the damages to anyone who making a failure investment in reliance on the unqualified suggestions. The court has confined the imposition of duty care on accountants to the non clients constantly for the negligent misstatement after the Caparo case.Morgan Crucible Co plc v Hill Samuel Bank Ltd 1991 is in one of the prominent case with the post-Caparo decisions applied in. With the intention that bidders should rely on the accounts, directors and the financial advisers of the public company had formed an express representation regarding the accuracy of forecasted profits and statements. Soon the bidder alleged that he made loss in reliance on those forecasts. The original statements were drafted on the in line with a duty of care according to the reasonable foreseeability. In the beginning, the leaves that the plaintiff applied to amend the statement were rejected and he appealed.Following Caparo, the English Court of Appeal ruled that the auditors did not owe a duty of care to the claimer prior to the first bid and the duty of care raised for second bid was not decided by the court because if the forecasts were unprecise then the auditors could foreseen the loss, they realized the claimer’s identity and intended him to rely on the negligent misstatement, yet most of the data of the accounts was exclusive to the claimer. Under UCTA 1977 s2(2), exclusion of liabilities that caused by negligence other than death or injuries must satisfy the requirement of reasonableness of term and notice.I deemed that the defendants were responsible for the consequential damages because the express representation was made with an intention before they proposed to the bidders. They noticed the bidder’s reliance on the reports so negligent mistakes on the statements were not allowed t o be made. There was no reasonable term and notice could be provided in this case, therefore liability was not excluded. CONCLUSION In conclusion, although the growth of law regarding to negligent misstatement is not dramatic, yet the needs to confine the limit of imposition on duty of care has been responded.Sometimes, a professional accountants or auditors may not notice the degree of their potential liability. It is important to let an accountants take their responsibility on those negligent caused in virtue of the number of people adversely influenced by them (Cooke, 2003, p. 70). Misrepresentation Act 1967 is formulated to against fraudulent or false statements prepared by the professionals and they can restrict the liability to certain financial amount due to the Companies Act 2006.Basically, the imposition on duty of care should be determined based on the case’s circumstances, examine the purpose of proposals, the special skills owned by the professionals, aware that t he proposals given might be relied upon, even the voluntariness on assuming the level of their duties. The knowledge of the accountants upon the identity of plaintiff is not necessary, but it needs to be verified through causation that as a result of the accountant’s negligent advices, the plaintiff suffered economic loss. However, there is a high reluctance to offer liabilities where the losses are purely economic or psychiatric injury.

Historical Background of Rural Finance of Bangladesh

Historical background of rural finance The non-institutional or informal rural finance Informal rural finance markets enable flow of funds and transfer of rural financial assets through relatively localised transactions in money, and real goods and services among friends, relatives, kin-members, landlords, neighbours, shopkeepers, farmers, artisans, itinerant traders, marketing intermediaries, village mahajans (moneylenders), and other local income groups.Informal financial markets do exist in urban areas, but are more prominent in rural areas where institutional sources of finance are either absent or insufficient to cater to the needs of funds of local professionals of different categories. The sources of informal rural finance in most developing countries include (a) professional moneylenders; (b) agricultural moneylenders; (c) commission agents; (d) relatives and friends, and different associations of rural professionals/self-help groups; (e) well-to-do rural people; and (f) shop -keepers, and marketing intermediaries and proprietors.Contrary to formal rural finance, the informal segment of rural financial markets is not subject to regulation. The institutional or formal rural finance The sources of funds in the formal part of rural finance markets are mainly: (a) co-operatives that meet the needs of short, medium and long-term credit; (b) commercial, cooperative and specialised banks; (c) micro-finance institutions (MFIs) and NGOs conducting micro-finance operations; (d) agri-product marketing associations; and (e) land mortgage banks, and various government agencies including those established for agricultural development.The operations of financial institutions in formal rural financial markets are typically heavily regulated, and the nature and extent of formalities, as well as the interest rate structure, usually make access to credit from this market restricted to limited segments of the rural population. . Before (1971) Formal financing through instit utional sources evolved in Bengal during the British period. The Hindustan Bank was established in Calcutta in 1700. The Bengal Bank, established in 1784, is considered to be the first British-patronised modern bank in India to start trading in credit and money.The 14 prominent banks operating in Bengal during the British period were located in Dhaka, Chittagong, Rangpur, Chandpur, Mymensingh, Pabna, Dinajpur, Comilla, and Narayanganj. In addition to these bank offices, 17 loan offices were established which operated throughout the Bangladesh region between 1850 and 1894. These were at Faridpur (1865), Bogra (1872), Barisal (1873), Mymensingh (1873), Nasirabad (1875), Jessore (1876), Munshiganj (1876), Dhaka (1878), Sylhet (1881), Pabna (1882), Kishoreganj (1883), Noakhali (1885), Khulna (1887), Madaripur (1887), Tangail (1887), Nilphamari (1894), and Rangpur (1894).These loan offices extended their lending activity to the rural areas and gave short, medium and long-term credits. Pr ovincial co-operative banks were established in 1912 under the Co-operative Society Act that was passed and enacted in the same year. The Bengal Co-operative Societies Act 1940 was enacted to allow the formation of co-operative societies. Following the Partition in 1947, Pakistan inherited a banking and credit structure from the British regime consisting of 631 bank offices belonging to both local and foreign banks.Of these offices, only 159 were in rural areas. The State Bank of Pakistan, the central bank of the country, came into being in 1948 and attempted to strengthen the country's credit system through setting up new branches of commercial banks and other types of credit institutions in rural areas. In addition to the progress achieved in commercial banking, other credit institutions had also been established to satisfy the need for medium and long-term credits for rural trade, agriculture, industry, and housing in the 24 years between 1947 and 1971.Among credit institutions, the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan had its branches in the rural areas of both the provinces. The East Pakistan Provincial Government's loan for agriculture in East Pakistan was Rs 28 million in 1956 and Rs 25 million in 1961-62. takavi loans for West Pakistan and Agricultural loans for East Pakistan constituted the operations of the government as a direct lender with no intermediate link between it and the agriculturists. Co-operative societies and organisations played a significant role in providing agricultural credit.Total credit disbursed by East Pakistan credit societies for agriculture was Rs 27. 5 million in 1948-49 and Rs 4 million in 1959-60. Non-credit co-operative societies provided Rs 1. 6 million in 1948-49 and Rs 0. 5 million in 1959-60. There were 8 land mortgage banks in East Pakistan at the end of 1959-60. These banks advanced Rs 0. 63 million to farmers for redemption of old debts and permanent improvement of land. There were 83 central co-operative ban ks in East Pakistan in 1948-49. Together, they provided Rs 17. million in 1948-49, Rs 10. 64 million in1955-65 and Rs 28. 8 million in 1959-60 to the agricultural sector. The Central Multipurpose Societies that existed in East Pakistan at that time often resorted to credit business in order to fulfil the requirements of areas which were not served by central co-operative banks. There were 62 societies in operation in 1959-60. Their total outstanding credit was Rs 6. 02 million. After (1971) After independence in 1971, Bangladesh inherited a weak banking system, which had 1,130 branches of 12 banks.Between 1971 and 1976, Bangladesh Krishi Bank (formerly the Agricultural Development Bank) and the co-operatives were the two institutions that were meeting the need of agricultural credit. To increase the flow of credit for agriculture, the government inducted the NCBs in the field of agricultural credit in 1976 under a new programme called Special Agricultural Credit Programme (SACP) whi ch was designed to cater to all seasonal crop loans. Rural branches of NCBs are now engaged in agricultural credit.As against a total disbursement of Tk 860 million by the banking system in 1976-77, the agricultural loans rose to Tk 3. 75 billion in 1980-81, Tk 11. 5 billion in 1984-85 and Tk 76. 3 billion in 1999-2000. The 844 branches of bangladesh krishi bank (BKB) and 301 branches of rajshahi krishi unnayan bank (RKUB) are engaged in providing agricultural credit. At present, BKB has set its target to distribute a total credit of Tk 14. 5 billion for agriculture in 1999-2000. Previously, the bank disbursed total agricultural credit of Tk 4. 897 billion in 1997-98, Tk 11. 69 billion in 1998-99, and Tk 9. 175 billion in 1999-2000. RKUB distributed agricultural credit amounting to Tk 1. 517 billion in 1997-98, Tk 2. 50 billion in 1998-99, and Tk 2. 636 billion in 1999-2000. Other major institutions providing rural finance in Bangladesh are the Bangladesh Samabaya Bank Ltd (BSBL), t he apex institution of all central co-operative societies, co-operative land mortgage banks, central sugarcane growers associations and thana co-operative societies. Any of the above societies can be a member of the Samabaya Bank Ltd, which had 511 members on 30 June 1999.Total loans and advances of the BSBL as of 30 June 2000 was Tk 27. 43 million, of which Tk 25. 94 million was distributed to the agricultural sector. The rate of interest charged by the institutions of the country's banking systems engaged in agricultural credit varied from 9. 75 to 15. 50% on 30 April 2000. Despite the significant increase in the amount of total agricultural credit in the country during the last two and a half decades, NCBs, BKB and the RKUB together cater to only 50% of the total agricultural credit at present. The rest is being provided by the informal money market.A Lead Bank Scheme is in operation for co-ordinated distribution of agricultural credit throughout the country. Under this scheme, e ach of the branches of NCBs, and BKB was allocated one or more of the Unions for servicing agricultural credit so that the NCBs, together with BKB and RKUB, could cover the entire country. For each financial year, the central bank of the country (bangladesh bank) formulates and promulgates the agricultural credit policy according to which banks and other institutions operate their agricultural credit-giving activities.The agricultural credit market in the country is highly vulnerable as most part of the credit is non-performing and eaten up by big farmers, the rural rich elite, and touts. On the other hand, a large portion of institutional agricultural credit goes to the informal market and for re-lending to needy farmers and the rural poor at exorbitant interest rates. A huge amount is also diverted for consumption and other purposes. Moreover, the recovery rate of agricultural credit in the country is now only around 42%, which is a heavy barrier to its expansion.The NGOs operatin g in the country with microcredit programmes also constitute a major group of formal institutions providing rural finance. They work with the rural poor who are largely bypassed by the banking system and other credit-giving agencies. A few NGOs are also working with the urban poor. One statistical report on 369 NGOs, the grameen bank, Palli Karmasahayak Foundation (PKSF), and the Ministry of Youth and Sports reveals that these institutions distributed Tk 535. 9 million to their 4,926,427 borrower-members in 1998. .

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This paper has to be about the Leadership and organizational behavior Essay

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The Advertisement by Cordaid Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

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Obesity is a disease Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

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Growth of a Business Essay Example for Free

Growth of a Business Essay When a business grows in size it will need more staff to carry out:- *Existing jobs e.g. in a chocolate factory it may need more people to operate the production lines it it moves from 4 to 5 lines. *New jobs e.g. if a company expands to overseas it will need to recruit staff who are capable of speaking foreign languages. When existing jobs are being expanded, human resource specialists simply need to copy existing practice on a larger scale. They can do this by interviewing more people and advertising more widely etc. More detailed thought is needed if new jobs are to be created. This is even more important if the jobs being created are different to the jobs that already exist within the company. If Norwich Airport they would need to employ a lot more security guards. This would be due to the increased numbers of passengers going through the airport and the terminals. 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When some body moves on it is normally necessary to replace them. Before this is done the company will need to decide if it would be best to get a employee similar to the previous one or if it would be best to to get someone with new skills because the job has moved on and more skills are required to carry the job out properly. In some cases this has effected Norwich Airport. In some extreme cases they have had to dismiss employees who have lied about foreign languages they can speak. When Norwich Airport first opened, they only offered flights to a few select countries. But since then they have expanded and a far wider range of flights are now offered. With this they have a lot more people using them rather than using the larger London airports or the near by Luton airport. With the extra money they are still thinking of expanding even more in the near future. In some cases the job that has become available does not always need to be filled. There are amny factors that Norwich Airport takes into account before deciding whether or not a replacement is required. They will always consider: * Is there still a need for that job? * Do the benefits derived from this job justify the total cost of filling it? E.g. advertising, salary, training etc. * Is it essential that the vacancy is filled immediately? * Rather than employing a new member of staff would it be best to reorganise the workload within the company/department to cover the position. * Will the job need to be full or part time? * Will there still be the need for this job in 12 or 18 months time? Is the post likely to be affected by current or future organisational changes or different work methods. Will the job therefore be temporary or permanent? And for this reason will there need to be a fixed term contract. INTERNAL PROMOTION There is always the opportunity for internal promotion. This is a good form of motivation as it gives employees something to aim for within the organisation. This should make the employee try to impress in his current job rather than looking else where outside of the company. But if an employee is to be promoted, then someone else would have to be employed to cover their previous position. It is extremely important that the right candidate is selected. The recruitment process can be extremely costly. To set up an effective recruitment process it takes a great deal of time. Once a job has become vacant it is very important that the company should then analyse the job. This is when they will decide what will be entailed in the available job. How to advertise, sift through the applications, checking which applications best meet the criteria, interviewing candidates and then the most important, selecting the best candidate. When a job becomes available at Norwich airport they decide whether to recruit internally or externally. From our meeting I discovered that 50% of the time they will recruit internally only, and the other 50% they will recruit internally and externally. They often decide to recruit internally only because they can save a lot of money. They save a lot on advertising costs and it normally takes them less time to train the employee if they already have some experience working within the airport. Often they have noticed that when an employee knows that there is the chance of promotion it enhances their rate and quality of work because it acts as a motivator. However they have also found disadvantages when recruiting within the company. They have to replace the person who has been promoted, this means that they have ended up advertising for two jobs instead of just the one. In the past they have had arguments and disputes or another employee has been upset that someone else has been promoted instead of them. However, from our meeting I understood that their better employees in the past were ones who had been promoted as a pose to the ones who had been employed externally. This has always been the case when they have been first employed because they have a better understanding of the business. NEW POST Sometimes rather than a current post becoming available a new post all together may become vacant. But before the new post is confirmed it must be approved in the companies budget. This may not be the case and a supplementary budget will have to be applied for. If this is not the case then the recruitment process will be unable to go ahead. There must be available work space and enough available equipment for the new person. If all of the above are ok, then Norwich Airport decide on a realistic start date. When this is decided upon, the airport would work backwards from this date to plan each stage of recruitment. Below is a realistic time plan for Norwich Airport if they were to advertise externally. A typical time plan would be for about 3 months. 21 January complete staff vacancy request form and hand into human resources department. 22 January write job description and interview report form, allowing time for the approval of the line manager. Pepare advert and job particulars. HUMAN RESOURCES MUST BE NOTIFIED THAT THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS HAS BEEN STARTED! 2 February send the above papers to human resources. 9 February if appropriate the job will be evaluated. Human resources will book space and send advert to media. 16 February the advert will appear. Interview dates and panel members must be decided upon. 18 February applicants respond. 4 March closing date for response from potential applicants. 7 March final candidates are shortlisted. 8 March candidates are contacted to arrange interviews. 15/16 March interviews take place. 17 March the post is offered to the successful candidate. 17 April after one month notice period the candidate would start.

Impact Of Pop Culture On Our Society Music Essay

Impact Of Pop Culture On Our Society Music Essay Many people attribute pop culture as ideas, art, and perspectives isolated to the 1960s. Pop culture started as an era during the 20th century. However, the ideas expressed in pop culture art deeply impact our society in 2010. Undeniably, pop culture influenced art, such as architecture, design, music, and theatre influence this generations entertainment, day-to-day living, and even possibly, our political climate. Three people definitively displaying this pop culture impact include architect Michael Graves, comic book author and creator Stan Lee and his artist Steve Ditko, and musician Michael Jackson. These men have not only impacted society thirty to forty years ago but their presence is still influential today. Michael Graves, an American architect, whose interest in drawing and painting began within his early childhood and has remained with him throughout his career in architecture. After college and studying abroad, Graves founded his own practice in Princeton, New Jersey in 1964. He began teaching at Princeton University in 1972. As a member of the New York Five, he developed a new style of designing called eclecticism, straying from the roots of Modernism which allowed him to emphasize his use of color. It has even been stated that he has become an opponent of modern works who uses humor as an integral part of his architecture. He has received many prestigious awards to include the 1999 National Medal of Arts and the 2001 Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects. Paul Goldberger, architect critic for the New Yorker wrote Graves as the most truly original voice American architecture has produced in some time. Some of his projects include the Clos Pegase Winery in Calistoga, C alifornia, the Newark Museum expansion in Newark New Jersey, the Humana Building in Louisville, Kentucky, the Dolphin and Swan Hotels in Walt Disney World Florida, the Hotel New York and Euro Disney, both of Disneyland Paris, and many others. His name can be found on many things from apartment buildings to household appliances found in local Target Stores. During his career, he has not only established the Michael Graves Design Group, which has also won many awards, Graves has published many books about architecture and developed projects with many exclusive clientele. His career in design that is even within retail, clearly demonstrating his ability to take high style designs and make them easily accessible to the common consumer by way of his Target Line This line would include products such as lighting, bath and kitchen aids, products for home, office and personal use to just name a few. Graves has the privilege of being one of the most recognizable names in his field and the pre stigious honor of creating more than 300 buildings and projects. We are still counting on more beautifully designed spaces from his organization, Michael Graves Associates. Along with his exhibitions that have toured the country and world numerous times. Michael Graves is a phenomenon in the architecture world and his work has inspired a new interest in architecture, along with a new generation. From one Michael to another, Michael Joseph Jackson, a performer, composer, actor, and producer in the age of pop became a global product and pop culture was a global iconic superstar (Barnes A1). Michael Jackson was the seventh of nine children. He began his career at the age of five as the lead singer of the Jackson 5 in 1964. Michael was influenced by others who paved the way of his arrival. From Little Richard, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown, Michael paid homage and made it his mission to acknowledge their contributions by adding a little of them to his craft and liberating himself from the stereotypical images by a white controlled society. Black culture as a movement was never in the forefront until Michael came along and exposed America to it. Michael has helped shape pop culture over his forty-five year career. He made being Black in America acceptable during a time when prime time television refused to show Blacks. Michael was one of the first three black artists to break th e social barrier on MTV. Despite this major accomplishment, MTV had to be threatened with non-service of other videos before they would play Jackson. His unifying effect on world youth, and musical savvy are well documented. Fans across racial lines embraced his trademarks by sporting the Jacksonian jackets, white tees, pipestem jeans, and white socks. Michael won a total of thirteen Grammy Awards and has more Guinness World Records than any other artist. The American Music Award presented him with no less than the Artist of the Century Award. Tommy Mottola, a former head of Sony Music, called Mr. Jackson the cornerstone to the entire music business. He bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and pop music and made it into a global culture, said Mr. Mottola, who worked with Mr. Jackson until the singer cut his ties with Sony in 2001. He has influenced dozens of artists in his achievements and popularity. From Beyonce` to Justin Timberlake, Michael Jackson inspired a whole world of music and has worked with some of the greatest producers from Quincy Jones to Timbaland. Jackson has considered his great achievement and well deserved award to be the Presidential Humanitarian award from Ronald Reagan in 1984 for his support of charities helping people overcome alcohol and drug abuse. Not only was he influential in the music world, Michael had numerous humanitarian goals and dreamed of making the world a better place. In 1985, Michael alongside Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, and help from Ken Kragen organized the We Are the World project for USA Africa, which aided famine relief efforts in Africa. This project along with Kragens Hands Across America forced the government, particularly the president, to release 800-million dollars in feeding funds for women, infants, and children, as stated by Kragen (Devine). Lastly it i s worth noting one other area within pop culture outside the world of music that Michael was known to have a fondness which has also had its impact on us today in 2010, Marvel comics. His favorite superhero is Morph from the X-Men. From the King of Pop to the King of Comic Books, also called Godfather of the Superhero, Stan Lee helped create many of our comic super heroes that are recognized as icons. Since the age of seventeen, Stan Lee has been in the comic book industry. He began as an assistant editor for the Timely Comics Group. He was later promoted in 1942 to editor. Behind Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Joe Simon, Stan wrote most of the scripts for some of our well known comic heroes today, such as Captain America, Sub Mariner, and The Human Torch. The Timely Group went through some changes in the fifties which would include the name. It was renamed Atlas; however, the sales were still low. At this time in America, comics were not as popular as they use to be.. In 1961, the group had well over eight superheroes. This group of heroes was renamed Marvel Comics. Lee made a few changes working along side Jack Kirby and created some of the popular superheroes that we know today with titles such as, The Fantast ic Four, Spider Man, Doctor Strange, Thor, The Hulk, The X-Men, The Silver Surfer, Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos, Daredevil, and The Iron Man. In the sixties, he became editor of the group. Not only was Stan Lees empire growing but comics started their growth in popularity. So much so to the point has the comic world grown, that there are now annual events held every year to honor this world that Stan Lee has helped to create. These events are popular and widely known as Comic-Con, WonderCon and Alternative Press Expo. Comic-Con is covered internationally across the globe from Japan to France; from its home in California to New York. Thousands upon thousands descend upon this event every year to celebrate the world that has bought us such words as WHAM! BAM! And Whoosh! which are in the world of Stan Lee. Things went up when Spider Man was released in 2002, quickly followed by the Incredible Hulk and X-Men to the silver screen grossing over eight billion dollars in consumer sal es worldwide. Lee has also managed to gain accolades and awards for his vision and artists over the years. Hes even managed a reality show called Who Wants to Be a Superhero. His heroes and villains call to children of all ages. Giving all values of truth, honesty, justice and American Pride, Stan Lee has proven that his work is timeless and his fans are equally priceless as well. Thus the door into the fantastic world of comic books and Stan Lee is open and shall remain so for many years to come. . Pop culture is a movement like those before it. Although originated during the mid fifties-sixties, it still has a great impact on our lives today as we know undeniably. From music, to television, media to fashion, movies to everyday lives, pop culture cannot be denied and unacknowledged. It is everywhere. The pop culture movement is now more trend savvy than any other era. It is in every facet of our society of our day-to-day living. Over the last fifty years, we have been seeking a greater meaning, but it is a spoken voice through media, architecture, design, music, and even childrens cartoons. It has integrated in with other medians within our everyday existence and will remain forever popular.

Lucid Dreams: The First Virtual Reality :: essays research papers

Lucid Dreams: The First Virtual Reality Psychological Sean Pasinsky LibEd 316-2 5 Feb. 1997 For ages people have thought of dreams as curses or blessings that we could not prevent nor manipulate. This "place" called our dreams has constantly puzzled us, because it is here where all things are possible and seem to occur. In our dreams we perform superhuman and wonderful feats that would normally be impossible in the "awake world". We find the men or women of our dreams, depending on our sexual orientation. While we dream, these wonderful things become our temporary reality. Yet sometimes while dreaming we may experience the most horrifying events imaginable, called nightmares. Everyone has their own version of horror, my most terrifying nightmare has been where my family and friends have been taken control of by evil monsters that cannot be stopped. Rather than kill me they make me watch old 1970's television shows over and over. For years, men have thought that there should be a way of preventing or controlling these nightly events. Humans must, like any animal, sleep. We do not fully understand why we must sleep. We only know that if we are deprived of sleep long enough that we will most certainly die. The same is true for dreams and dreaming(1). If we sleep long enough we will reach an advanced stage of sleep where our body begins to experience rapid eye movement (REM). It is during this REM period that we experience most of our dreams. Many scientists try to speculate the reasons for dreaming through biological our psychological means. This proves to be very frustrating for someone trying to find empirical meaning and truth about his or her dreams. There are countless books written about dreams with just as many different interpretations and meanings for specific dream references. For psychics, astrologists, or psychologists who attempt to interpret dreams, there are numerous factors that must be considered when endeavoring to find meaning in a dream. Because of these numerous factors that contribute to the condition of dreaming, many different paths have been created for exploration. From Freud's sexual symbolism to the current random recollection theories diversity in dream interpretation abounds. However, there is a way to dream and not be at the mercy of your subconscious mind. For the past ten years a bright psychologist at Stanford University, by the name of Steven Laberge, has been studying dreams and the physiology of the human body during the dream state. His research may sound commonplace if it weren't for the added fact that he is training people to control their dreams.

Summary and Analysis of The Pardoners Tale Essay example -- Canterbur

Summary and Analysis of The Pardoner's Tale (The Canterbury Tales) Prologue to the Pardoner's Tale: The Host thinks that the cause of Virginia's death in the previous tale was her beauty. To counter the sadness of the tale, the Host suggests that the Pardoner tell a lighter tale. The Pardoner delays, for he wants to finish his meal, but says that he shall tell a moral tale. He says that he will tell a tale with this moral: the love of money is the root of all evil. He claims that during his sermons he shows useless trifles that he passes off as saints' relics. He proudly tells about how he defrauds people who believed they have sinned. He states explicitly that his goal is not to save people from sin, but to gain money from them. The Pardoner says that he will not imitate the apostles in their poverty, but will have food, comfort, and a wench in every town. Analysis Among the various pilgrims featured in the Canterbury Tales, the Pardoner is one of the most fully realized characters. The only character to whom Chaucer gives greater detail is the Wife of Bath. The Pardoner is a fraudulent huckster who shows no qualms about passing off false items as the relics of saints, but he also demonstrates a great sense of self-loathing. The Pardoner shifts from moments of direct honesty to shameless deceit, openly admitting the tricks of his trade to the travelers but nevertheless attempting to use these various methods on these travelers who are aware of his schemes. The Pardoner is in many senses a warped character, unable to hold to any consistent code of moral behavior. Even in his physicality he is deformed. The General Prologue, suggesting that the Pardoner resembles a 'gelding or a mare,' hints that the Pardoner may be a ... ... only expression of any spirituality contained in the Pardoner's Tale. The Pardoner has little concern with actual religious matters and makes no real reference to Christianity. His concern is money, and the Christian religion is only the means to achieve this end. The Tale itself is a relatively simplistic moral fable that hinges on the distinctions between literal and figurative language. The initial personification of death that the young child uses as a metaphor and euphemism leads to the actual physical manifestation of Death as a tangible object: the piles of gold that the three rioters find. The plot of the tale derives from the rioters' literal interpretation of euphemism  ­ since death has taken their friend, they must find death. This personification of death finally becomes metaphor once again when the piles of gold represent the death that they find.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is Only the First Step Essay

The Americans with Disabilities Act is Only the First Step The United States of America is founded upon the groundwork that "all men are created equal." America is also viewed as the "land of opportunity," as large numbers of immigrants enter the country in order to make a better life for themselves. These catch phrases used above are an honorable attempt to portray America as a land where everything is fair and everyone possesses a chance to succeed. These slogans, which we so easily state, do not tell the full story, however. Racism and prejudice abound in "the land of the free" and can be witnessed on an almost daily basis. The government endeavors to remedy the inequalities through programs such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which is a noble attempt to present all people with a more equal playing field. This program, and others like it, are effective, but it is not the final solution that people often think it is. There is much to be done to gain equality, especially regarding the physically disabled in the work force. Th e ADA is a foundation upon which a greater sense of equality should be created. The Americans With Disabilities Act was passed in 1990. The ADA strives to guarantee disabled individuals protection from discrimination. Marjorie Baldwin defines a main principle of the ADA when she states, "One of the main objectives of the ADA is to improve the employment prospects of persons with disabilities by eliminating employer discrimination" (Baldwin 39). Under the ADA, a disabled person is one who is limited in one or more life activities by a physical or mental impairment. Through five titles of the act, disabled people are defended from being denied access to a job if they can meet the demands... ...m the government, and the disabled can then succeed and erase the stigmas of society, then true equality can be obtained. This government support is not simply protection from injustice, but a chance to compete equally with the rest of society. Works Cited Baldwin, Marjorie L. "Can the ADA Achieve Its Employment Goals?" Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 25. 4 (1981): 39-62. Â   Charlton, James I. "Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment." Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1998. Â   Harlan, Sharon L. "The Social Construction of Disability in Organization." Work and Occupations 25.4 (1998): 420-425. Â   Kregel, John. "Why It Pays To Hire Workers with Developmental Disability." Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities 14.3 (1998): 132-135. Nation’s Health. 30.8 (Sept. 2000): 8-13.

‘Coming Home’ by Marjorie Waters Essay

‘Coming Home’ by Marjorie Waters is a personal essay which describes the author’s feelings upon returning home after a long time and how she recovers from her deep grief caused by losing a loved one to death. The author narrates how she walks around the house, pulling back the curtains, dusting the dirt off, making tea etc., doing chores that make her feel at home again. Simultaneously, she is opening the doors of her soul to freshen it with the feeling of ‘coming back to home’, to finally realise that the bad phase doesn’t last forever. The author begins by writing ‘After the cruelest of winters, the house still stood’. Literally, this line reflects the entire essence of this essay. She makes an analogy between coming home and the end of her grief. She writes about how surprised she is to see her house in a good condition in spite of the havoc wreaked upon it by the wilderness of the nature. Though there were a few breakages here and there, it still stood firmly. Similarly, there too had been a wild ‘winter’ in her life, the death of a beloved one that had broken her from the inside. Homecoming, after a long time, was the end of her grief. She goes in the rooms, pulls back the curtain so that the daylight drives away the long lingering darkness that there was, as the dust particles shimmer in the light and settle back again. During the night, she makes for herself a cup of tea, and reminisces about the sudden and tragic death of her beloved one, which had almost completely destroyed her zest for life. She thinks about what the passers-by, obviously the neighbours, would say when they look at the house, the windows of which now are open and the light in the rooms now illuminates the house. Her return to her place would be known. She reminisces about the dark time period in her life which had left her lurking in the past, which had cut her loose from everything that made her feel at home. She was caught in her ‘own cold storm’. When people came to offer her condolences, they would only talk about the burden of loss but actually, all she felt was ‘weightlessness’. She felt that the world had pushed her away, the distance she would never be able to cover. But the winter had passed and so had her grief. The author writes, ‘I had feared that, in my absence, the space that I had left behind would close over from misuse’. She implies that she had been afraid that this tragedy might cause such melancholy that she would never be able to come out of it, just like  she feared that the gruesome winters would destroy the house. But the house had survived and she too had managed to pull out the strength in her and face the reality. She revives with a new enigma of hope that life will get better, that the grief will not always let the sadness prevail. According to me, the title of the lesson is very much appropriate. She equates the harsh season of the winters to the tragedy that occurred in her life. By ‘coming home’, she hasn’t just come back to a place where she once lived, she has come back to herself, to realise that the ‘winter’ of her life is gone. The grief could no longer sustain, and she had come out if it. She had finally come home, and come back to herself.

Advertising- the seven sins of memory Essay

INTRODUCTION As if effective marketing communication were not hard enough to achieve, even if we succeed in getting our message attended to and processed, and a positive intention formed, the very nature of memory may step in and upset everything. Memory distortion and plain old forgetting are unfortunate facts of life. The important question, however, is: can we do anything about it? As with most things, if we are to have any hope of dealing with memory problems and their impact upon advertising and other marketing communications, we must first understand what is going on. In this paper we will be looking at what Daniel Schacter (2001) has called ‘the seven sins of memory’: transcience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias and persistence. Most of what Schacter is dealing with involves declarative memory and not procedural memory, and as a result is highly dependent upon activity in the hippocampus. Although other brain structures are involved in mediati ng declarative memory, the hippocampus is critical, especially for tasks emphasising the representational as opposed to temporal properties of declarative memory. The hippocampus is always active in encoding new information for declarative memory. Nondeclarative emotional memory is also involved here, especially in the cases of bias and persistence, which means activity in the amygdala as well. There is compelling evidence that the amygdala is critical to emotional learning and memory (cf. Griffiths 1997). Imperfections in memory have obvious implications for the successful processing of advertising. Even if a positive intention is formed as a result of exposure to an advert, if a memory malfunction interferes with that intention, the advertising will be ineffective. The problems associated with these ‘seven sins of memory’, and what advertisers can do about it, are discussed below. THE SIN OF TRANSIENCE Forgetting that naturally occurs over time may be thought of as transcience. While the memory of what one did yesterday may be all but perfect, over time those memories tend to become more a generic description of what one expects to happen under those circumstances rather than what actually did happen. †¢Advertising implication: The sin of transience implies that what people ‘recall’ from advertising is much more likely to reflect a generic description of what is expected about a brand rather than the specific benefits that are part of the message. This has clear implications for interpreting recall measures of advertising messages. But, more importantly, it also suggests that the specific content of marketing communication should be consistent with, or carefully integrated with, prior understandings of the brand. A recent advert for Reynolds Wrap illustrates this can be done with a headline ‘Sticky Foods Won’t Stic’ spelled out in cheese on a pan of lasagne, with a portion cut out of the corner cutting off the last letter of ‘stick’, revealing the aluminium foil, clean, beneath. Transcience increases with age. While older adults those over 50 years of age have the same ability to remember in the short term as younger people, over time, memory of specific detail deteriorates more rapidly. As a result, older adults tend to rely upon a general sense of ‘knowing’ rather than specific recall. The problem of memory transience can be mediated by more elaborative encoding, essentially by stimulating the lower left frontal cortex. One popular way of trying to encourage more elaborate encoding is by using visual imagery mnemonics to facilitate memory. In fact, this idea goes back to the early Greeks. Unfortunately for marketing communication, not only does using visual mnemonics require a great deal of concentration and effort (and there is no easy way to encourage such effort), but for most people there is really very little evidence of general memory improvement using such techniques. †¢Advertising implication: However, one way to encourage more elaborative encoding to help reduce transcience is to relate information the target audience is interested in remembering with something they already know. In advertising, this could be encouraged with questions in the copy to stimulate elaboration: for example, in a recent advert for the Dodge Caravan with the headline ‘What Idiot Coined the Phrase ‘Stay at Home Mom’?’ THE SIN OF ABSENT-MINDEDNESS When one fails to pay proper attention to something and as a result does not encode it properly, or when the information is actually in memory, but overlooked when needed to be retrieved, one experiences the sin of absent-mindedness. Absent-mindedness manifests itself both in failing to  remember past experiences as well as in failing to remember to do something in the future. Both, of course, can prove troublesome for marketing communication. Also, the fact that absentmindedness is more likely for routine experiences that do not in and of themselves require elaborative encoding (e.g. exposure to advertising) adds to the problem. Unfortunately, routine behaviour (which certainly includes such things as reading magazines and watching television) is associated with low levels of prefrontal cortex activity in the left inferior area, which makes it difficult to form vivid memories. Such automatic or superficial levels of encoding can also lead to something known as ‘change blindn ess’ (Simons & Levin 1998), where people fail to detect changes over time, because of an inability to recall details. This has obvious implications for the introduction of new benefits over time in advertising campaigns, or for repositioning. Memories for past experiences may be classified as either recollections or familiarity. Recalling specific details from memory (e.g. remembering specific benefit claims from an advert) is defined as recollection. Familiarity is when one has a sense of simply being aware of something without recalling specific details (e.g. remembering ‘seeing’ an advert, but not particular content). This difference is important, because when there is divided attention during exposure, there is a significant effect upon recollection, but little or no effect upon familiarity (cf. studies by Craik et al. 1996). †¢Advertising implication: Because one is more likely to pay partial attention rather than full attention to advertising, familiarity with advertising is more likely than recollection of specifics from the advertisement. This underscores the importance of maintaining a consistent ‘look and feel’ over time (Percy et al. 2001), encouraging familiarity, and utilising imagery that will elicit a positive benefit (associated with the brand) even at low or even sub-cognitive levels of attention. Additionally, too much exposure, especially massed exposure, could lead to lower levels of specific ‘recollection’ (as we understand from as long ago as Ebbinghaus 1885). Spaced exposures generally result in better memory, a finding demonstrated in Strong’s simulations (1974) of various media schedules based upon Zielske’s work, and more recently in fMRI studies conducted by Wagner et al. (1998). Remembering to do something in the future (e.g. buying an advertised brand the next time you are shopping) is described by psychologists as  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœprospective memory’. Einstein and McDaniel (1990, 1997 with Shaw) have offered a useful way of looking at this idea of prospecti ve memory, distinguishing between what they call ‘event-based’ prospective memory, where we want to remember to do something at a specific event, and ‘time-based’ prospective memory, when one wishes to remember to do something at a specific time in the future. An example of event-based prospective memory would be wanting to buy a new brand the next time you are at the store. An example of time-based prospective memory would be making sure you are home at 3p.m. to meet the delivery man. Why people experience prospective memory failure is that they are usually so preoccupied with other things in their lives that when the event occurs, or the time arrives when it is necessary to remember to do something, the correct associations in memory are not activated. †¢Advertising implication: Prospective memory failure may be minimised in advertising by using distinctive cues that are unlikely to be associated with other long-term memories (especially for competitive brands). It is important to establish links in memory with the appropriate category need in such a way that when a purchase or usage occasion occurs, it will trigger a memory of the intention to act. This is especially true for recognition-driven brand awareness, which means for most package goods products. In the store point-of-purchase material as well as packaging must be both sufficiently informative to trigger the stored memory of an intention to buy, and be distinctive enough to minimise confusion with other brand memories. Shoppers are almost always in a hurry and preoccupied with other things when they are in a store, and this may get in the way of attending to the appropriate prospective memory cue. This is just the sort of thing that goes on when a salesman creates a distraction, hoping you will forget all about your initial good intentions not to be influenced by his pitch, as we know from the literature on compliant behaviour (cf. Cialdini 2001). THE SIN OF BLOCKING We are all familiar with the sin of blocking, that all-too-familiar experience of recognising someone but not being able to remember their name. According to Schacter (2001), blocking is not the same thing as absent-mindedness or transience. In the case of blocking, the memory has been encoded and stored, unlike absent-mindedness. In fact, an appropriate  retrieval cue could be in place, but the association is just not made. Unlike transience, with blocking, the information is still in memory, but remains just out of reach when required. Because blocking generally occurs when trying to remember names, it potentially can be a problem for brand names. Blocking seems to originate in the left temporal pole, where there is a breakdown in the link made between the characteristics associated with something and the name by which it is known. The reason people often have trouble remembering someone’s name is that a person’s name tends to be isolated in memory from any conceptual knowledge about that person and, as a result, difficult to retrieve. Most models of name retrieval hold that activation of phonological representations in memory occur only after activation of conceptual and visual representations. This is why it is easier to recall something about a person than to recall their name. It is also what can lead to remembering something about a product without being able to recall the brand name. Interestingly, names that are most likely to be blocked are familiar ones which have not recently been encountered (Burke et al. 1991. †¢Advertising implication: Brand names that are not well integrated or related to obvious associations with category need will be highly susceptible to blocking. If there are no logical and immediate links in memory between a brand name and the category need, there is the ri sk of occasional blocking. Arbitrary or more abstract brand names will be blocked more often than descriptive brand names, even when those names are equally familiar to people (cf. Brdant & Valentine 1998). Brand names such as Vitalegs (a herbal gel that relieves tired legs) and Soft Scrub (a cleanser that enables you to clean without harsh scratching) illustrate good descriptive brand names that are less likely to be susceptible to blocking. To minimise blocking, it is necessary to suppress the retrieval of recently encountered information that is related to a recall cue so that the mind is not cluttered with irrelevancies that could interfere with the desired memory. †¢Advertising implication: When a brand possesses identical or similar benefits as the leading brand in its category, it will be that much harder to build an association for those benefits with the brand because of learned interference from advertising for the leading brand. This again suggests the need to have copy (and packaging as well as other marketing communication) unique to a brand in order to avoid multiple connections in  memory that could minimise or override the desired brand-related memory. Certain retrieval inhibitions that lead to blocking can be ‘released’ if we encounter a sufficiently powerful cue (e.g. nondeclarative emotional memories) that helps us re-experience something in the same way in which it was initially experienced. Appropriate triggers in advertising or other marketing communication that elicit the correct emotional memories may help overcome retrieval inhibitions, and release positive memories for a brand. A wonderful advert for Nestl’s Toll House chocolate chips showing a mother with a pan of chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven with a little girl looking on in anticipation perfectly illustrates this point. THE SIN OF MISATTRIBUTION If one correctly remembers something learned, but attributes it to the wrong source, this is misattribution. Often referred to as ‘unconscioustransference’, it causes real problems with eyewitness identification. The problem stems from a strong sense of general familiarity, coupled with an absence of specific recollection. While the consequences of misattribution in advertising are obviously not as serious as they are with eyewitness identification, it can nevertheless cause marketers real problems. †¢Advertising implication: Avoiding misattribution requires more than simply retrieving appropriate benefits from memory. The benefit must be linked together in memory in such a way that you make the correct association of the brand with its benefit claim. This linking process is known as ‘memory binding’. All of the important brandbenefit associations in advertising must be bound together by the receiver into a unifying whole at the time of encoding. When advertising for different brands is visually or verbally similar, this memory binding is unlikely to occur, leading to memory conjunction error. Memory conjunction errors occur because people misattribute strong familiarity with similar (even if not identical) things from more than one source as coming from a single source; brand advertising in our case. Interestingly, a strong visualverbal congruence can help minimise misattribution (cf. Schacter et al. 1999). A recent series of adverts for Good Humor-Breyers uses the exact format and headline (‘Less fat, fewer calories, no guilt’) for three brands: Popsicle, Breyers and Klondike. This would seem to almost encourage misattribution. THE SIN OF SUGGESTIBILITY Suggestibility in memory occurs because one tends to include information that has been learned from an outside source as something personally experienced. This information may come from any external source, including advertising or other marketing communication. While suggestibility is similar to the sin of misattribution, misattribution does not require suggestions from outside sources. But when the two combine, it is quite possible for us to develop memories of something which in fact never occurred. †¢Advertising implication: Interestingly, while suggestibility may be a ‘sin’ of memory, in the world of marketing communication this sin may often become a blessing. For example, suggestive questions may produce memory distortions by creating source memory problems. As a result, advertising that utilises questions that remind people of a favourable brand association could occasion a ‘memory’ for that positive experience, even if it never occurred, e.g.: ‘Remember how easy it is to remove those nasty stains when you use our brand?’ Schacter has suggested that if you embellish a fake memory with vivid mental images it should make it look and feel like a true memory. This is based upon work done by Hyman and Pentland (1996) in successfully creating false childhood memories via suggestion, simply by asking subjects about things that never occurred. One of the important conclusions they drew from their work is that these false memories produce vivid visual images. †¢Advertising implication: The application to advertising is obvious. If a suggested favourable experience with a brand is reinforced with a strong visual image of such an experience, it should help seed a memory of a positive experience. In an extension of th ese ideas, we know that one of the best ways to elicit early childhood memories is to ask someone to ‘visualise’ themselves as children. While there is no evidence that anyone can remember anything much earlier than about two years of age, because the areas of the brain needed for episodic memory are not fully mature until that age, with suggestive visualisation techniques one can create false ‘memories’ for events going back almost to birth (cf. Spanos et al. 1999). The key here, as in all suggestibility, is expectancy. If one is instructed to expect something, and it seems plausible, it is possible to create rather strong false memories. †¢Advertising implication: It is very difficult to  suggest a false memory for something that runs counter to a recent or strong existing memory. If you don’t like a brand, advertising is not likely to create a false memory that you do; nor should you try. But if a brand is one of a set of brands used by the receiver, it is certainly possible to suggest more positive experiences with that brand. And if it is a brand they have not used, if the advertising c an relate it to a positive experience from childhood, it is quite possible to suggest positive memories for the benefit, and then link it to the brand. THE SIN OF BIAS The sin of bias reflects how current understandings, beliefs and feelings have the ability to distort how one interprets new experiences and the memory of them. Biases that are associated with memory of past experiences will greatly influence how one perceives and understands new information or situations. Schacter talks about five major types of bias: consistency, change, hindsight, egocentric and stereotypical biases. Gazzaniga (1998) has identified something in the left brain that he calls an ‘interpreter’ that continuously draws upon people’s experiences and understanding of things in order to provide some stability to their psychological world. This would seem to be the neurological source of biases, and utilises such things as inferences, rationalisations and generalisations in relating the past with the present, enabling people to justify their present attitudes with past experiences and feelings. The left brain interpreter, however, is mediated by systems in the right brain that are more attuned to actual representations of what is going on in the world around us. Consistency and change bias Consistency bias reflects a tendency to behave (or believe) today in a fashion consistent with how one remembers similar previous experiences. When this happens, current experiences and feelings are filtered through and made to match memories of those past experiences and feelings. Because memories are not ‘exact’, people tend to infer their past beliefs, attitudes and feelings from what they are experiencing today. †¢Advertising implication: This suggests that for people who hold current positive attitudes toward a brand, advertising could imply they are of long standing. For brand switchers who include a particular brand in their purchase set, advertising  could imply a long standing preference for that brand: ‘You know you have always liked this brand, why not buy more?’ Something similar occurs with change bias, where one remembers something being worse than it actually was, making what they feel now an improvement by comparison. Both consistency and change bias can occur because they help reduce cognitive dissonance, even when someone is not really aware of the source of the inconsistency they are trying to manage (Lieberman et al. 2000). Hindsight bias Hindsight bias is that familiar feeling that one has always known something would happen after becoming aware of the outcome. One is reconstructing the past to make it consistent with the present. The key here seems to be an activation of general knowledge. The new information is integrated with other general knowledge in semantic memory, and is not distinguished as such in making judgements. There is evidence that this selective recall is a function of the general knowledge that influences perception and comprehension, and a vulnerability to misattribution. †¢Advertising implication: Hindsight bias would seem to indicate that when exposed to advertising or other marketing communication one will ‘recall’ benefit claims that are not actually made, but which would have been expected to be there because of the claims that actually were made. Work by Carli (1999) tends to support this idea. Recent adverts for Infusium 23 set up a ‘beforeafter’ case, but lea ve out the ‘before’ picture, with the headline ‘You really think I would let them publish the before picture?’ This clever execution encourages hindsight bias as you imagine the ‘before’ hair problem. Egocentric bias The ‘self ‘ plays an important role in one’s ongoing mental life, and is at the root of egocentric bias. When encoding new information by relating it to the self, memory for that information will be better than other types of encoding. This is because people are more likely to value their own understanding of things, among other reasons because the self-concept plays a key role in regulating mental activity. As Taylor (1989) and her colleagues have pointed out, individuals do not see themselves objectively. †¢Advertising implication: The implication is obvious: include personal references in advertising and other marketing communication. Moreover, given  our tendency to see ourselves in a positive light, it follows that memories related to ourselves will be seen in a self-enhancing light. This suggests that copy asking people to remember a situation in a positive light should encourage an egocentric memory bias, e.g.: ‘remember when you ‘. In the same way, egocentric bias can result from exaggerating the difficulty of past experiences: ‘remember how hard it was to ‘. This idea is well illustrated in a campaign for National Rail’s Senior Railcard, where a dated-looking picture of a young child is featured, with headlines like ‘Remember what it was like to go somewhere for the first time’ and ‘Remember how it felt just to let yourself go’. THE SIN OF PERSISTENCE Research has shown that emotionally charged experiences are better remembered than less emotional occasions. The sin of persistence involves remembering things you wish you would forget, and it is strongly associated with one’s emotional experiences. †¢Advertising implication: Emotionally-charged information automatically attracts attention; and even in the briefest exposure, the emotional significance of it will be retrieved from nondeclarative emotional memory, and evaluated as to how that information will be encoded. Understanding the emotional associations generated by specific advertising is critical. Because people are more likely to remember the central focus of emotionally arousing information rather than peripheral details, it is essential to tie the brand in marketing communication to the appropriate emotion. Otherwise, it will become peripheral to the information conveyed (a problem with a lot of highly entertaining advertising). There is evidence that persiste nce thrives in negative emotional situations such as disappointment, sadness and regret. One’s memory of traumatic experiences is persistent, and while these unwanted memories may occur in any of the senses, visual memories are by far the most common. Research reported by Ochsner (2000) supports this idea. He found that when people recognise a positive visual image they tend to just say it is familiar to them. But when they recognise negative visual images, people relate detailed, specific memories of what they thought and felt when they were originally exposed to the picture. †¢Advertising implication: All of this underscores the importance of the visual images in advertising and other forms of marketing communication. Because persistence thrives in a negative emotional climate,  if advertising illustrates disappointment or problems dealing with a situation, which is resolved by using the brand, this should tap into any persistent memories of product dissatisfaction (always assuming such dissatisfaction). It also suggests that for appropriate product categories (especially those reflecting high-involvement informational decisions such as medical or other insurance, financial planning, and so forth) visual ‘reminders’ of past problems which could be avoided with a b rand should be an effective strategy. Such a strategy should also be equally effective in situations where there is strong psychological risk involved, e.g. reminding young people of a social ‘disaster’ which would never occur if they used our brand. The root of much of this kind of activity is centred within the amygdala, the source of nondeclarative emotional memory. It is the amygdala that regulates memory storage, and can release hormones that can ‘force’ us to remember an experience vividly (LeDoux 1996). And as we have already noted, this response by the amygdala is much more likely to occur for negative than positive experience. †¢Advertising implication: For appropriate product categories, it could make sense to create situations in advertising that suggest possible threats to the receiver’s wellbeing. This ‘threat’ may then well intrude upon active memory when thinking about the category, with our brand linked to avoiding the trouble. This is well illustrated in a recent advert for Imitrex, an ethical drug for migraine, that uses the headline ‘I can’t let a migraine call the shots that’s why I use Imitrex’. SUMMARY Schacter has provided us with an extremely useful framework for looking at memory problems: his seven sins of memory. Each of these ‘imperfections’ (in his words) has the potential for interfering with the successful processing of advertising and other marketing communication. Recent work in neurobiology, utilising the recent technology of fMRIs (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and PET scans (positron emission tomography), has shown us that our earlier understanding of memories as ‘snapshots’ stored away in the mind ready to be recalled is not how the brain works. Memories for objects and experiences are decomposed into a number of different parts and those parts are stored in various areas of the brain, waiting to be reassembled and ‘remembered’. This underscores why memories are rarely  perfect, and why they can be potentially unreliable. As this discussion makes clear, effective communication faces a number of formidable hurdles in m emory. However, forewarned with this knowledge, we are in a better position to avoid or at least minimise some of these potential problems. To help advertising communication overcome the seven sins of memory, advertisers should: †¢ensure the message is carefully integrated with how a brand is understood (transcience) †¢encourage elaboration of points the target is interested in remembering (transcience) †¢use personal references, especially to positive memories (bias) †¢imply current positive brand attitudes are of long standing (bias) †¢tie brands to appropriate emotions (blocking, persistence) †¢use distinctive cues not likely to be associated with other longterm memories (absent-mindedness) †¢create a unique brandbenefit claim link (misattribution) †¢establish links in memory to appropriate category need (absentmindedness) †¢make sure those links are well integrated with obvious associations to the category need (blocking) †¢ensure a consistent ‘look and feel’ over time to encourage familiarity (absent-mindedness) †¢use strong visual images to create or reinforce positive memories associated with the brand (suggestibility) †¢utilise reminders of past problems that could be avoided or solved by the brand (persistence). If these points are considered in the creation of advertising executions, one is well on the way to avoiding, or at least minimising, problems inherent in how memory works. REFERENCES Brdant, S. & Valentine, T. (1998) Descriptiveness and proper name retrieval. Memory, 6, pp. 199206. Burke, A., Mackay, D.G., Worthley, J.S. & E. Wade (1991) On the tip of the tongue: what causes word failure in young and older adults? Journal of Memory and Language, 30, pp. 237246. Carli, I.L.L. (1999) Cognitive reconstruction, hindsight, and reactions to victims and perpetrators. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, pp. 966979. Cialdini, R. (2001) Influence: Science and Practice (4th edn). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Craik, F.I.M., Govoni, R., Naveh-Benjamin, M. & Anderson, N.D. (1996) The effects of divided attention on encoding and retrieval processes in human memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 125, pp. 159180. Ebbinghaus, H. (1885/1964) Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. New York: Dover. Einstein, G.O. & McDaniel, M.A. (1990) Normal  aging and prospective memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 16, p p. 717726. Einstein, G.O., McDaniel, M.A. & Shaw, P. (1997) Aging and prospective memory: the influence of increased task demands at encoding and retrieval. Psychology and Aging, 12, pp. 479488. Gazzaniga, M.S. (1998) The split brain revisited. Scientific American, 279, pp. 5055. Griffiths, R.E. (1997) What Emotions Really Are. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Hyman, I.E. Jr. & Pentland, J. (1996) The role of mental imagery in the creation of false childhood memories. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, pp. 101117. LeDoux, J.E. (1996) The Emotional Brain. New York: Simon and Schuster. Lieberman, M.D., Ochsner, K.N., Gilbert, D.T. & Schacter, D.L. (2000) Do amnesiacs exhibit cognitive dissonance reduction? The role of explicit memory and attention in attitude change. Psychological Science. Ochsner, K.N. (2000) Are affective events richly recalled or simply familiar? The experience and process of recognizing feelings past. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 124, pp. 242261. Percy, L., Rossiter, J.R. & Elliott R. (2001) Strategic Advertising Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schacter, D.L. (2001) The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Schacter, D.L., Israel, L. & Racine, C. (1999) Suppressing false recognition: the distinctiveness heuristic. Journal of Memory and Language, 40, pp. 124. Simons, D.J. & Levin, D.T. (1998) Failure to detect changes to people during realworld interactions. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 4, pp. 501506. Spanos, N.P., Burgess, C.A., Burgess, M.F., Samuels, C. & Blois, W.O. (1999) Creating false memories of infancy with hypnotic and non-hypnotic procedures. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 13, pp. 201218. Strong, E.C. (1974) The use of field experi mental observations in estimating advertising recall. Journal of Marketing Research, 11, pp. 369378. Taylor, S.E. (1989) Positive Illusions. New York: Basic Books. Wagner, A.D., Schacter, D.L., Rolfe, M., Koutstaal, W., Maril, A., Dale, A.M., Rosen, B.R. & Buckner, R.L. (1998) Building memories: remembering and forgetting of verbal experiences as predicted by brain activity. Science, 281, pp. 11881191.

Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster

The Space Shuttle Columbia was the second space shuttle disaster and the first shuttle lost on land happened on February 1, 2003. In this mission, six American astronauts and Israel's first spaceman died when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated 200,000ft above Texas. They are David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCool and Ilan Ramon. Rick husband is the Columbia's commander was a US air force colonel recruited to the space program in 1994. He made his first flight in 1999; last week's was his second.William McCool is the Columbia pilot was on his first flight. A naval commander and test pilot, he was selected for the space program in April 1996, and trained at the Johnson space centre. Michael Anderson is one of only a handful of African-American astronauts, Anderson had logged 211 hours in space before the Columbia disaster. A USAF lieutenant-colonel, he joined Nasa in 1994. Kalpana Chawla is an experienced astronaut who made her f irst flight on STS-87 in 1997. David Brown was a military flight surgeon before joining the astronaut corps.Laurel Clark joined Nasa in the same year as Brown, and was trained as a space flight surgeon. Lastly is the Ilan Ramon, an Israeli air force colonel, Ramon was his country's first astronaut. He took part in the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the 1981 bombing raid that destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor. With the Columbia accident, not only has the nation lost a four-billion-dollar shuttle, seven outstanding astronauts and priceless experimental results, it has also lost confidence in manned space flight and space exploration. February 1, 2003 was a sunny day.It was the perfect day for the Columbia shuttle return to earth. Everyone at NASA was excited for their return because the shuttle would bring back a lot of useful information from the 16 days mission. No one suspected tragedy will happen. At around 9am, the shuttle lost contact with NASA. The mission controllers thought it was a temporary problem because of the shuttle reentry into the atmosphere and also the temperature sensors on the inboard and outboard elevons (A control surface on an airplane that combines the functions of an elevator and an aileron. on the left wing had stopped functioning minutes before. NASA start to recognize something unusual happened when several 911 calls were made by the residents in Texas, Arkansas and the Louisiana area. The space shuttle Columbia and her seven crewmembers were lost. Immediately after losing of the shuttle and the seven crewmembers, NASA stopped all shuttle operations at Kennedy Space Center. They collected all the remains piece of the Columbia shuttle and grid on the floor of the Reusable Launch Vehicle Hangar.The Columbia Reconstruction Project Team attempted to reconstruct the bottom of the orbiter as part of the investigation into the accident. The engineers found that a 20-inch piece of hardened insulation foam breaking off the main fuel tank and hitti ng the shuttle’s left wing during the launch on January 16th. They asked the top shuttle managers for outside agency assistance, but the request was denied. This is because the shuttle managers concluded that there was no safety concern due to the foam’s impact and decided to let the mission continue. Other possible causes were pilot mistake and space debris.After investigations continued in the next few weeks, some molten aluminum debris from the shuttle’s wing structure, as well as molten steel debris, had been found. When the engineers eliminated the other possibilities, they began to focus on the foam from the external tank only. When the shuttle reenters the atmosphere, the temperature on its surface can reach nearly 1649oC. So the Thermal Protection System (Various materials applied to the outer structure protect the orbiter from excessive heat) on the shuttle is critical. There are four different materials in the space shuttles Thermal Protection System ( TPS).There are high-temperature reusable surface insulation (HRSI) , low-temperature reusable surface insulation (LRSI), felt reusable surface insulation(FRSI), and reinforced carbon-carbon composite (RCC). The HRSI cover the high surface temperature reaches between 649 and 1260oC. The LRSI cover the low surface temperature reaches between 371 and 649oC. For another 2 materials are used in small amounts. Due to the temperature during reentry exceeds 1260oC at the nose cap, chin panel, forward external tank, and wing leading edge panels and T-seals, the RCC was break down.For reuse purpose and to prevent oxidation, the outer layer of the RCC is converted into silicon carbide in a furnace filled with argon with a temperature cycle up to 1649oC. The main reason of the shuttle to break down is because the foam from the bipod of the external tank was shed, and struck the shuttle’s left wing during the launch. It had damaged the wing’s leading edge RCC structures which allow ing reentry plasma to penetrate and disintegrate the underlying aluminum, damaging the wing’s structure.The foam of the bipod ramp is BX-250, polyurethane foam applied with CCF-11 which is used to cover outside of the tank to prevent ice and frost on the surface. The foam is to reduce the weight so it made by light material. The engineers couldn’t believe that such a light material could damage the wing of the shuttle. Thus, some research had done by the Southwest Research institute. They used a compressed air gun to fire a foam block of similar size and mass to that which struck Columbia and at same estimated speed.To represent the leading edge of Columbia's left wing, RCC panels from Enterprise and from NASA stock, along with fiberglass mock-up panels, were mounted to a simulating structural metal frame. In the final round of testing, a block fired at the side of an RCC panel created a hole 41 by 42. 5 centimeters (16 by 17 in) in the protective RCC panel. The tests clearly show that the foam could cause visible crack on the tested RCC panels. These cracks could lead the shuttle breakup during reentry. The final report of the Columbia Accident Investigation was released on August 26th, 2003.It concluded that this tragedy was caused by technical and organizational failures. The foam problem of the bipod area has existed for years, and NASA engineers have looked at a variety of ways to correct it. The report indicated that the space shuttle should not have been launched with this problem extant. The report further proposed that, although the shuttle had always returned to earth safely after the foam hit the wing during previous shuttle flights, the managers at NASA should not have rejected the engineers' requests to make sure Columbia's wing was not damaged this time.Finally, it suggested that NASA should have had a backup plan for fixing the shuttle in space and insuring the crew's safety if they found out the wing was badly damaged. On 26th Jul y 2005, a shuttle discovery was launched. NASA had formed an independent Return to Flight (RTF) panel to monitor its preparations. There are 7 out of the 26 RTF panel members issued a minority report prior to the launch. They questioning if Columbia’s lessons had been learned and also expressing concerns about NASA’s efforts.During launch, a large piece of foam separated from the external fuel tank, but fortunately did not strike the shuttle, which landed safely 14 days later. The shuttle fleet was once again grounded, pending resolution of the problem with the external fuel tank insulating foam. Reference: Columbia space shuttle disaster 2003. World news. http://www. guardian. co. uk/gall/0,,888045,00. html Space shuttles thermal protection system (TPS). US Centennial of Flight Commission. http://www. centennialofflight. ov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/TPS/Tech41G2. htm Final report of Columbia Disaster. Columbia Accident Investigation Board http://caib. nasa. gov/ N ASA’s Space Shuttle Program: The Columbia Tragedy, the Discovery Mission, and the Future of the Shuttle. Marcia S. Smith Resources, Science, and Industry Division. Updated by January 4, 2006. fas. org/sgp/crs/space/RS21408. pdf Lessons Learned from the Columbia Disaster. Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS). www. aiche. org/uploadedFiles/CCPS/†¦ /Presentation_Rev_newv4. ppt