A case study of Walmart Stores Inc. with SWOT,internal and external elements which add to the company success.

A contextual analysis of Walmart Stores Inc. with SWOT,internal and outside components which add to the organization achievement. IntroductionWalmart Stores Inc. is equal with low costs and name brand quality items. The organization premise of progress and establishments can't be credited to the current CEO Lee Scott however popular Sam Walton. Walmart recipe for progress just put is their relationship with customers,employees, and innovation that helps with shaping associations with their suppliers;places Walmart Stores Inc. as the top rebate retailer.History,Development, and GrowthSam Walton drove Walmart to turn into the top markdown retailer. The super partnership has disposed of top contenders, for example, Kmart and Sears to rule over the markdown retailing market. Following World War Two, markdown retailing advanced because of cheapness during the war. Walton opened the first Walmart in Rogers,Arkansas in 1962. The way of thinking Walton procured to begin Walmart started with his prior involvement with JC Penny. The way of thinking depends on conveying items dependent on quality and worth joined with ama zing client service.walmart beijingWalmart at first set out by extending in unassuming communities and picked up a notoriety at low costs as well as a family amicable organization. The offices were wide and shifted to include:family attire, toys,lawn and garden,health and beauty,household goods,crafts, fabrics,jewelry and most as of late pharmacies,electronics,tire and lube and the most recent gas stations.Sam Walton methodology was to pick up strength by profound discounting,listening and framing associations with workers and clients and guaranteeing the shopper quality product.Product is shown in a particular manner by stacking and causing to notice the eye. Development is done at a forceful level. The organization did moves deliberately by town to town and afterward on a state by state premise basically in the Southeast and Southwest initially. This system proceeded until 1991, one year before Sam Walton passing; Walmart had gained 1,573 stores situated in 35 states. Walmart had become the biggest retailer and biggest...

Didion Electric Charge and Santa Ana Winds free essay sample

Didion Text Analysis Essay In the exposition, â€Å"Los Angeles Notebook†, Joan Didion diagrams the wild impacts of the Santa Ana winds. She passes on her perspectives on the Santa Ana twists as a wild power of nature by depicting its consequences for the inhabitants and condition. The tone is exceptionally exact and clear. The general premise of the entry is the means by which the Santa Ana Winds influences the locals. What's more, it’s through her utilization of symbolism, word usage, linguistic structure, and determination of detail that she communicates her perspective on the Santa Ana Winds. From the earliest starting point of the section, Didion attempts to catch the consideration of the perusers through her utilization of uncomfortable, negative lingual authority all through the narratives. Anyway in the second 50% of the entries, Didion communicates her perspectives with logical detail. A case of the logical detail depict is the point at which she portrays the impact on nature going before the wonder. The statement is â€Å"the air conveys an uncommonly high proportion of positive to negative particles. We will compose a custom article test on Didion: Electric Charge and Santa Ana Winds or then again any comparative point explicitly for you Don't WasteYour Time Recruit WRITER Just 13.90/page She besides utilizes another statement to back up the logical case; the statement is â€Å"in any case the constructive particles are there, and what an overabundance of constructive particles does, in most straightforward terms, is make individuals miserable. † These statements show that Didion can communicate that the â€Å"Santa Ana Winds† profoundly affect the earth deductively. Also, In the â€Å"los Angeles Notebook†, Didion represents the negative symbolism by building up the breezes with humanistic characteristics. One case of the symbolism is when Didion reviews a society story that she was advised when she initially moved to Los Angeles. The story was that the local Indians would hop into the sea in of â€Å"the Santa Ana. † The specific statement was, â€Å"†¦was living on a confined sea shore, that the Indians would dedicate themselves completely to the ocean when the terrible breeze blew†¦Ã¢â‚¬  This to me shows the mental impact that accompanied breeze. Simply the sheer idea of individuals ending it all reason for wind, was the what tops off an already good thing; that the Santa Ana Winds are a malevolent power. This to me was a great case of symbolism since I could plainly picture the specific scene. In her exposition, â€Å"Los Angeles Notebook† Joan Didion needs the peruser to remove that the â€Å"Santa Ana Winds† are an unnatural power that influence people’s practices and condition (creatures, climate and so forth). It likewise underlines that the inescapable will come in the end, and how individuals will respond to it. Also, it is through the word usage and symbolism, that we see that the Santa A breezes are a fiasco that changes the whole personal satisfaction.

Where to Live in New York COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog

Where to Live in New York COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog When it comes to making the big move to the Big Apple, finding a place to live can be confusing for an incoming student. Online searching can easily bring you great prices on places but you may also be an hour away from class. Or there may be somewhere close to school but the space is limited and it’s far away from the vibrant downtown life you may be looking for. Here is a guide on where to live in New York as an incoming SIPA Student and finding the neighborhood that is perfect for YOU! Morningside Heights Morningside Heights is the neighborhood in which Columbia University resides in. It spans from west of Morningside Park to Riverside Drive and from 110th to 125th. Some of the landmarks in Morningside Heights include Morningside Park, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Mt. Sinai Hospital, and Riverside Church. Pros: This neighborhood is great for anyone who is trying to live close to school. With everything from grocery stores to bars to classes being within a 15 minute walking distance, you’re close to the academic action, school happy hours, and classmate study sessions. Cons: You may feel that you’re trapped within the Columbia bubble when living so close to school. Downtown can easily take 40-50 minutes to get to. It’s also quite an expensive area. You won’t get much size for your buck in this neighborhood, the grocery stores can be fairly expensive and an average meal at a local restaurant will cost you upward of $15. Harlem Harlem, while contested where it actually begins and ends, is generally considered the large neighborhood east of Morningside Park. A historically black neighborhood undergoing gentrification, Harlem is not what it used to be but has always been a culturally rich area to live. Its major landmarks include the Apollo Theater, Sylvia’s Soul Food, El Museo Del Barrio, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Pros: The neighborhood has a wide range to accommodate wallets of every size. There’s top tier restaurants like Red Rooster and Minton’s Playhouse and homey, cheap and delicious eateries like Lolo’s Seafood Shack and Lolita’s Mexican Restaurant. For apartments, sizes are much bigger for much cheaper than surrounding neighborhoods. The further east and north you go in Harlem, the cheaper the prices are. There’s also a lot to do in Harlem, from theaters to museums to bars. It can accommodate anyone’s extracurricular interests. Cons: The only way to get to Columbia from Harlem is to ride the bus or to walk up the hundred stairs of Morningside Heights. Which on a day that’s too hot or too cold, can be quite miserable. Also, food in Harlem isn’t the easiest for restricted diets. Many have found it difficult to be a vegetarian or vegan in the area with many franchise fast-food restaurants and not too many options on health-based cuisine. Hamilton Heights/Manhattanville I’m bringing these two neighborhoods together into the same synopsis because they offer very similar vibes and blend together. Manhattanville and Hamilton Heights are the neighborhoods between 125th Street and 155th Street, bordering Harlem to the East and Riverside to the West. Key landmarks include City College of New York, the sub-neighborhood of Sugar Hill, Claremont Theater, and St. Mary’s Protestant Episcopal Church. Pros: Hamilton Heights and Manhattanville is within spitting distance of Columbia University. Just take a few stops down the 1 track and you’re at the campus. Prices for housing are relatively cheap in this neighborhood also. Your average 3 bedroom, 1 bath will run around $3000-$3300/month with many rent-stabilized options available. Cons: The neighborhood is very lively on the streets which can lead to a lot of noise. Also, living anywhere near the train station on W. 125th street, one of the few stations in Manhattan that is above ground, can be very loud. It may not be the ideal neighborhood for people looking for some peace and quiet. There also isn’t much to do in the neighborhood compared to its surrounding neighborhoods. Some may find it boring. Upper West Side Upper West Side is the Neighborhood between 59th and 110th and west of Central Park. Key landmarks include Lincoln Circle, the Ghostbusters Building, Julliard, and the American Museum of Natural History. Pros: This neighborhood is known for its excellent food scene, proximity to Central Park, and nighttime quietness. If you’re looking for any type of food, you can probably find it in the Upper West Side. Central Park is all but a few steps away and at night, it’s usually a very quiet area in the city. Cons: Upper West side brings a new definition of expensive, especially if you’re living below 100th street. There’s also not much of a nightlife in the area. To find your fun, you’ll most likely have to travel to Harlem or Midtown/Downtown. The area also lacks much of the New York culture one may be looking for. If you’re looking for art, museums, and exhibits, you’re on the wrong side of Upper Manhattan. Midtown Midtown is truly the heart of New York, with neighborhoods like Times Square, Hell’s Kitchen, and Turtle Bay. Midtown is the entire area of Manhattan between 34th and 59th street and where you’ll find some of your fellow Seeples. Pros: In Midtown, there is quite literally everything to do. It’s a vibrant part of the city with endless options of fun. The nightlife in Hell’s Kitchen is incredibly LGBTQ friendly. There’s also many popular food and shopping options in Times Square. The location of midtown is also perfect for anyone who wants to make a quick ride to Brooklyn or uptown. Cons: The area is tourist central so expect it to be incredibly packed and people stopping every few feet to take pictures. Because of the amount of tourism, the area is incredibly loud. Lastly, rent in the area is sky high as it’s near so much. You won’t find any housing for cheap in this area.

American Economy After The Revolution - 2655 Words

American economy after the birth of the republic was by no means simple. In fact, after winning independence from Britain in the Revolutionary War, both the vast size of our country longitudinally and the ever-changing policies of our government caused a wide variance across the nation in how citizens were able to make a living. This was mainly due to a group of factors consisting of: geography, slavery, land acquisition, the Industrial Revolution and the Transportation Revolution. Because of these factors, we can separate the American economy into three different regions: the North, the South, and the West. Before discussing the regional diversification in the American economy in the years after independence, understanding of the amount of change within the country is necessary. In the post-revolutionary era, America changed rapidly, and in huge ways. The Northwest Territory opened for settlement in 1787, creating a huge influx of population due to the fact that under the Proclamation of 1763, settlement had been banned. In response to the vast amount of territory now available for the country, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, opening the sale of land by government. The Ordinance also authorized the creation of three to five new states. In addition, we obtained the Louisiana Territory from France, giving us full access to the Mississippi and massive amounts of land for settlement and agriculture. This rid the nation of the looming foreign power that had been soShow MoreRelatedWhat Factors During The Colonial Period Essay1636 Words   |  7 Pagescolonial period led to American colonists declaring independence from the British Empire? Be sure to discuss the economic, political, and cultural aspects of the American Revolution. 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The first revolution, which happened between 1776 and 1789, was somewhat similar to Britain s Industrial Revolution and more political. The second phase of the American Industrial Revolution which happened from 1860 to 1900, was not only political but also was the great developmentRead MoreLiberty Overall Contracts During The Market Revolution978 Words   |  4 Pagesoverall contracts during the Market Revolution since opportunities for economic freedom and political liberty has been restricted for various groups because the new economic way of thinking amplified disparities that had already existed before the Market Revolution. The Market Revolution adversely affected the liberty of Native Americans residing within the United States because they were seen as an obstacle to the country’s economic progress. As the Market Revolution ideas of commerce and expansionRead MoreTo What Extent Did the American Revolution Fundamentally Change American Society?851 Words   |  4 PagesSeptember 24, 2012 DBQ: To what extent did the American Revolution fundamentally change American society? In your answer, be sure to address the political, social and economic effects of the Revolution in the period from 1775 to 1800. After the American Revolution, Americans, who were free of British control, started to reevaluate politics, the economy and society. After breaking away from what they thought was a corrupt and evil government, Americans changed how they wanted to govern their societyRead MoreThe Market Revolution Affected The Liberty Of Native Americans948 Words   |  4 PagesThe Market Revolution drastically increased industry in the United States. Its emphasis on economic development caused people to limit the rights of others for the sake of expansion and progress. Liberty overall contracts during the Market Revolution since opportunities for economic freedom and personal liberty have been restricted for various groups because the new economic way of thinking amplified disparities that had already existed before the Market Revolution. The Market Revolution adversely

Minimum Wage Should Be Raised - 910 Words

â€Å"No person can maximize the American Dream on the minimum wage† (Benjamin Todd Jealous). In 1938, minimum wage was created by the federal government in order to protect workers by ensuring a minimum of twenty-five cents per hour worked. Though President Roosevelt had the right idea in protecting the workforce, something needs to be done to ensure that Americans are getting a reasonable amount of money for the amount of hours they have worked. As Benjamin Todd Jealous stated, minimum wage is not enough for the average American to live on. Although many would argue against increasing minimum wage due to the possibility of heightening prices and intensifying competition, I believe minimum wage should be raised in order to stimulate the economy and create more job opportunities. Though many people, including myself, believe that the minimum wage should be increased, 1 in 5 Americans support the decision to leave federal minimum wage at $7.25. Those who support the current minimum wage argue that, instead of creating more opportunity for jobs, raising minimum wage will cause layoffs to skyrocket, thus increasing unemployment. For example, when weighing the pros and cons of raising minimum wage, Chad Halvorson, CEO and founder of When I Work, states, â€Å"If an employer has a tight compensation budget and the minimum wage is raised, it means they can no longer compensate the same number of employees at a higher rate and must make layoffs to remain within budget† (Chad Halvorson).Show MoreRelatedMinimum Wage Should Be Raised?958 Words   |  4 PagesMinimum Wage Louis Montgomery III English Composition 101 Mrs. Blackwell April 23, 2015 Minimum Wage Do minimum wage jobs help pay the bills? Do minimum wage jobs support the family? Should minimum wage be raised? Will raising the minimum wage reduce poverty? The idea of minimum wage jobs is to help people get work experience without having any skills. 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Though arguably the economy is not as sluggish and terrible as it once was, $7.65 per hour will not help those who have children, no college degree and debts to pay. It is not only Missouri that has minimum wage laws, but every other state in America has minimum wage laws in place. Both California and SeattleRead MoreMinimum Wage Should Be Raised1145 Words   |  5 PagesThe current minimum wage is $7.25, which equals two gallons of milk, one fast food meal or two gallons of gas. Can you imagine yourself working 12-hours a day and only having enough money to p ay for rent and put food on the table for your family? With working all those long hours, you can barely afford to pay your utility bills and after that you don’t have enough money or time for luxuries like clothing or vacation. You have no savings as matter of fact, you are in a huge debt and you are livingRead MoreShould Minimum Wage Be Raised?870 Words   |  4 PagesShould Minimum Wage Be Raised? Minimum wage has always been a controversial issue. Many politicians use the argument of minimum wage for their own political propaganda. Some may argue minimum wage should be raised, while others believe it will have detrimental effects on our economy if it is raised. Surprising to most people, minimum wage earners make up only a small percent of American workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, minimum wage workers make up about 2.8% of all workersRead MoreMinimum Wage Should Be Raised935 Words   |  4 PagesMinimum wage is an ongoing debate in the United States. There are some people who think that it should be raised to a higher rate and others who think that it should not. There are many different pros and cons with raising minimum wage. Minimum wage is at a balanced rate that should not be raised due to lack of skill, low education, and economic problems. Jobs that require minimum wage are created for young adults who are in college or high school. 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Minimum wage refers to the smallest amount of money a worker can legally be paid in the U.S. It was first signed into law in 1938 by President Franklin Roosevelt in order to keep workers out of poverty and as it stands, the current federal minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25 per hour. (United States Department of Labor). Today, while some are even questioning the significance of having a minimum wage at all, others

Biology 2160 Test Questions Free Essays

Question 1 5 out of 5 points The nutrients fall into ______ classes Answer Selected Answer: 3. 6 Correct Answer: 3. 6 †¢Question 2 5 out of 5 points The most energy-rich of the nutrients is: Answer Selected Answer: 2. We will write a custom essay sample on Biology 2160: Test Questions or any similar topic only for you Order Now fat Correct Answer: 2. fat †¢Question 3 5 out of 5 points All of the following nutrients are organic EXCEPT: Answer Selected Answer: 1. minerals Correct Answer: 1. minerals †¢Question 4 0 out of 5 points Effects of physical activity on the body include all of the following EXCEPT: Answer Selected Answer: 5. all of the following are effects of physical activity Correct Answer: 1. decreased bone density Question 5 5 out of 5 points Carbohydrate and protein each contain __ calories in a gram. Answer Selected Answer: 2. 4 Correct Answer: 2. 4 †¢Question 6 5 out of 5 points The abundance of types of foods today has made it: Answer Selected Answer: 1. more difficult to plan a nutritious diet Correct Answer: 1. more difficult to plan a nutritious diet †¢Question 7 5 out of 5 points Your family always has rice available at every meal, just as it has been for every generation. This is an example of ____ of food selection. AnswerSelected Answer: 1. cultural tradition Corre ct Answer: 1. cultural tradition †¢Question 8 5 out of 5 points A study conducted in several countries where a high intake of fish and a low intake of animal fat were correlated with a low rate of breast cancer death is an example of a(n): Answer Selected Answer: 1. epidemiological study Correct Answer: 1. epidemiological study †¢Question 9 0 out of 5 points Scientists have developed a new type of margarine containing plant ingredients they think will lower blood cholesterol levels in people who use the margarine. They want to test this by having some people use the new margarine for a while and then compare their cholesterol levels with those of a group of people who use regular margarine. This is an example of what type of research design? Answer Selected Answer: 4. laboratory study Correct Answer: 3. intervention study †¢Question 10 5 out of 5 points The main purpose of the national research projects, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) and the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII), is to: Answer Selected Answer: 2. determine what the nutrient and dietary intakes of the population in our country are Correct Answer: 2. determine what the nutrient and dietary intakes of the population in our country are How to cite Biology 2160: Test Questions, Papers

Case Study of British Airways

Question: Describe about the impact of factors of service process on the satisfaction level of customers in the aviation industry of British Airways? Answer: Introduction The service industry is considered to be the major contributor towards the world economy. As there is a significant rise in the competition in this segment, the market players are facing huge challenges related to the service quality, which actually satisfies the customers. According to the opinion of Luo Homburg (2007; p.135), the organization that have a high quality services for the customers in the market, actually, enjoys high success rate in the industry compared to their competitors. Thus, the current research focuses on understanding the customer service factors of aviation industry, specifically considering the British Airways. The rationale behind this current study is to understand the impact of service factors on the satisfaction level of the customers. Understanding the service factors actually helps in determining the success of the organization. In the last few decades, British Airways has successfully been contributing more than 10billion towards the economy of UK. Thus this report would discuss what are the factors that the British Airways have been utilizing to deliver their best to the customers? Research Aim The current study aims at understanding the impact of the factors of service process on the satisfaction level of the customers in the aviation industry. The study considers the case study of British Airways. Rationale Of Study An association that works in the airline industry essentially organizes all customer service process factors at the hoisted level with the points of accomplishing successful consumer satisfaction. It is reality that the level of consumer satisfaction straightforwardly investigates the development of the business over the time allotment. In this way the preparatory endeavors of this examination work are assess all the customer service process factors considering the detailed analysis of British Airways (Gremler, Gwinner Brown, 2001, p 50). It is discernible that British Airways has created its a high brand image in the aviation industry, which bless with raised level of administrations towards the client on a reliable premise. Subsequently, surveying the customer service process factors of the predicted association would support to measure the relative effects of them on the level of consumer satisfaction. Hypothesis Of Study The hypothesis of the study helps to understand the relationship between the service factors and the customer satisfaction level. Thus the following hypothesis will be tested: Null Hypothesis (H0): There is no positive impact of customer service factors on the satisfaction level of the customers in British Airways. Alternative Hypothesis (H1): There is a positive impact of customer service factors on the satisfaction level of the customers in British Airways. Variables Of The Study In order to understand the customer service factors of aviation industry, it is very important to understand the three service segments of Airlines like British Airways, one is the pre-board services, then secondly, it is the on-board services and thirdly, it is the post-arrival services. All these three factors add potentiality to the services of aviation industry. These three factors actually help to fulfill the gap available in the services of aviation industry and also attain high satisfaction level of the customers (Oyewole, 2002). Further, under these three segments there are wide variety of services like, for instance, the pre-board services include the ticket booking services, the process of check-in, services at airport, pre-flight services and also departure services are some of the factors that influences the pre-board services. Similarly, there are wide varieties of services under the category of on-board services and also post-arrival services (Chen, Wang, Cheng Kuntjara, 2008). 1. Pre-Board Services:a. Booking Tickets: This is the most important service of airline industries. This process is not just limited towards the purchasing of tickets; however, it is also related to delivering the relevant information to the potential users before buying the tickets. Further, at the time of booking tickets there exists certain aspect that plays important roles. Also the accuracy of data and also speed of the booking process plays an important role. These are some of the service factors that influence the satisfaction level of the customers.b. Pre-Flight Services: While discussing the pre-flight services, the main things that a customer looks in to are the ease of access to the pre-flight services, further the parking facilities available in the airport and also the transportation modes and convenience to reach airport (Bejou Palmer, 1998). c. Process of Check-In:This is the section where the customer faces various issues. The customers in this service expects ease, accuracy and speed of the process of check-in. further, they also check for multiple check-in options that are available to them or not. These factors decide their satisfaction level.d. Airport Services: This is also another important service of pre-board services. Here, in these services, the customers mainly look for various aspects like help from the flight service in-charges, the behavior and attitude of the employees in flight, the services available in the flights and also availability of necessary materials etc.e. Departure Process: At the time of departure the customers mainly looks into the punctuality factor that is the arrival and departure of the flight. If the customer finds any delay, they expect the organization to inform the customers about the delay in advance. 2. On-Board Services:The on-board services generally include the entertainment amenities, the quality of beverages and food provided, shopping facilities etc.3. Post-Arrival Services: This is an alternate cri tical perspective which to a great extent influences the level of fulfillment of the client. In this connection the viewpoint which clients are fundamentally searching for is the baggage delivery aspect. They are evaluating this specific perspective on the premise of accuracy and speed. In the meantime they are additionally searching for other travel related offices like lodging, travel related protection and so on. At long last, they are likewise searching for any rebates gave by the carriers in the event that they acknowledge all such administrations (Seyed Alireza Mosavi, 2012). The following service factors have been summarized in the following table: Customer service process factors Discussion Ticket Purchase Availability of Information is easily Speed, Accuracy and easy of ticket booking Pre-flight services Before flight services are easily available The parking facilities and airport is located at convenient location Check-in Accuracy, ease and speed o check-in process More than one-check in options are available Airport services Availability of comfortable waiting lounges Highly standard and helpful personnel The flight personnel are courteous The airline is comfortable and clean The necessary materials are readily available in the airline Departure The arrival and departure time of flight is always on time At the time of delay, proper announcement with the necessary information is provided On board services Entertainment facilities are available in flight The food and beverages provided by the airlines is of high quality There are various on-board varieties in Airlines like shopping Arrival See departure Post-arrival Right and quick baggage delivery There are various service partners like the car rental, travel agencies, hotel service delivery with the airlines Discount coupons are offered to the customers availing for other services Every dimensions discussed above have significance towards maintaining the quality, cutting costs and also manage the demand fluctuations and also the needs of the customers. The aviation industry is already started implementing various strategies that would help to meet these service factors for satisfying the customers. Even though the aviation industry had to face economic crisis, but the UK aviation industry had experienced 7.9% growth in the year 2011. Data Set The researcher aims at evaluating the impact of service process factors on the satisfaction level of the customers in aviation industry emphasizing on the case of British Airways. Here, the researcher utilizes the five point Likert scale for data collection from the British Airways customers. The likert scale, 1 shows the very low association and the 5 shows the very high association. The data set contains 19 variables that are broadly subcategorized under three different segments of service, pre-board, on-board and post-arrival services (Kim, 2011). The sample size considered for this present study is 40. Microsoft Excel is being used to analyze the 40 data sets and both statistical and descriptive study is being executed. The data set looks as mentioned below: Options (1 = low; 5 = high) 1 2 3 4 5 Ticket Purchase Availability of Information is easily Speed, Accuracy and easy of ticket booking Pre-flight services Before flight services are easily available The parking facilities and airport is located at convenient location Process of Check-in Accuracy, ease and speed o check-in process more than one-check in options are available Services in Airport Availability of comfortable waiting lounges Highly standard and helpful personnel The flight personnel are courteous The airline is comfortable and clean The necessary materials are readily available in the airline Process of Departure The arrival and departure time of flight is always on time At the time of delay, proper announcement with the necessary information is provided Service of On board Entertainment facilities are available in flight The food and beverages provided by the airlines is of high quality There are various on-board varieties in Airlines like shopping Post-arrival Right and quick baggage delivery There are various service partners like the car rental, travel agencies, hotel service delivery with the airlines Discount coupons are offered to the customers availing for other services Descriptive Statistics Options (1 = low; 5 = high) N Mean Std. Deviation Min Max Ticket Purchase Availability of Information is easily 40 2.55 1.13 1 5 Speed, Accuracy and easy of ticket booking 40 3.13 0.56 2 5 Pre-flight services Before flight services are easily available 40 1.83 0.68 1 3 The parking facilities and airport is located at convenient location 40 4.10 0.67 3 5 Process of Check-in Accuracy, ease and speed o check-in process 40 2.13 0.33 2 3 more than one-check in options are available 40 1.75 0.44 1 2 Services in Airport Availability of comfortable waiting lounges 40 4.28 0.68 3 5 Highly standard and helpful personnel 40 3.08 0.80 2 5 The flight personnel are courteous 40 4.08 0.73 3 5 The airline is comfortable and clean 40 3.00 0.55 2 4 The necessary materials are readily available in the airline 40 3.48 0.75 2 4 Process of Departure The arrival and departure time of flight is always on time 40 3.05 0.75 1 5 At the time of delay, proper announcement with the necessary information is provided 40 2.95 1.13 1 4 Service of On board Entertainment facilities are available in flight 40 2.78 1.00 1 4 The food and beverages provided by the airlines is of high quality 40 2.60 0.84 1 5 There are various on-board varieties in Airlines like shopping 40 4.90 0.30 4 5 Post-arrival Right and quick baggage delivery 40 2.43 1.03 1 4 There are various service partners like the car rental, travel agencies, hotel service delivery with the airlines 40 1.98 0.70 1 4 Discount coupons are offered to the customers availing for other services 40 3.40 0.87 1 4 Histogram Of Mean Bin Frequency 1.75 1 2.5375 4 3.325 7 4.1125 4 More 2 Descriptive Statistic Analysis Here the descriptive statistics utilized as a part of the study are max value, min value, standard deviation which measures the dispersion and the mean that measure the central of tendency. It is confirm that descriptive statistics are utilized to survey the whole data set and in addition to set up the data set in a way that it supports the analyst to execute statistical and descriptive. Here the measure of central of tendency that is the mean demonstrates the average of the each of the variable utilized here. From the above table it is detectable that the variable "more than one-check in options availability scores the least average score of 1.75, though the variable " There are various on-board varieties in Airlines like shopping " scores highest average score of 4.90. From this descriptive study, it is additionally perceptible that with the exception of " There are various on-board varieties in Airlines like shopping ", there exists certain variables like " Availability of comfortable waiting lounges ", " The parking facilities and airport is located at convenient location" and " The flight personnel are courteous " are likewise critical variables in this study. The measure of scattering, extraordinarily the standard deviation as indicated in the above elucidating insights table additionally help these conclusion. Statistical Test Regression analysis: Regression Statistics Multiple R 0.63 R Square 0.39 Adjusted R Square 0.34 Standard Error 0.54 Observations 40 ANOVA df SS MS F Significance F Regression 3 6.94 2.31 7.81 0.00 Residual 36 10.66 0.30 Total 39 17.6 Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value Lower 95% Upper 95% Lower 95.0% Upper 95.0% Intercept 2.83 1.48 1.92 0.06 -0.17 5.82 -0.17 5.82 Pre board services 0.33 0.38 0.87 0.39 -0.44 1.09 -0.44 1.09 On board services -0.73 0.19 -3.86 0.00 -1.11 -0.34 -1.11 -0.34 Post arrival services 0.68 0.16 4.37 0.00 0.36 1.00 0.36 1.00 Findings Here, the regression analysis is utilized as measurable test to affirm the hypothesis of the study. As per the regression analysis, Multiple Regression Model" is utilized where, satisfaction level of the consumers is utilized as independent variable and all the other three service segments the post-arrival service, pre-board services and on-board services, are utilized as dependent variables (Josephat Ismail, 2012). Presently from the above regression analysis it is discernible that the estimation of R Square is 0.39. Since it the score is positive it can be said that services related to Pre-board, On-board services and Post-arrival services are absolutely connected with satisfaction level of customers. Here, the equation of regression is as mentioned below: Y=A + B x 1 + C x 2 + D x 3 Where, Y = Level of consumer satisfaction A = 2.83 B = 0.33 C = - 0.73 D = 0.68 Hence, the equation of regression is Consumer satisfaction level= 2.83 + 0.33 * (Pre board services) - 0.73 * (on board services) + 0.68 * (Post arrival services) Further, since the F-value significance is 0.00038 which is less that 0.05, thus the null hypothesis is to be dismissed. That is it can be said that "Customer service process factors have positive effect on the satisfaction level of the customers in the aviation business, particularly in the event of British Airways." Conclusion And Recommendation Consequently to conclude it can be said that in the airlines business especially focusing on the case of British Airways, the satisfaction level of consumer generally relies on the factors of customer service process. In any case, from the above research the accompanying alternatives can be recommended: 1. The most favored activity to be taken by the association is change in-flight benefits that the clients expect higher than the current stage. As the tastes of the clients are on change, the association needs to conduct the customer feedback survey that would help to adapt with the latest services obviously by the passengers of the flight. 2. As per the interior data given by the supervisors, the association needs to rebuild its structure through consolidating new services like implementing prompt boarding time that would help to deliver best flight services and also electronic queuing process. References Baker, D. (2013). Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in the Airline Industry: A Comparison between Legacy Airlines and Low-Cost Airlines. AJTR, 2(1). doi:10.11634/216837861302317 Bejou, D., Palmer, A. (1998). Service failure and loyalty: an exploratory empirical study of airline customers. Journal Of Services Marketing, 12(1), 7-22. doi:10.1108/08876049810202339 Bolton, R., Grewal, D., Levy, M. (2007). Six strategies for competing through service: An agenda for future research. Journal Of Retailing, 83(1), 1-4. doi:10.1016/j.jretai.2006.11.001 Chen, L., Wang, M., Cheng, J., Kuntjara, H. (2008). Consumer involvement and brand loyalty in services: evidence from the commercial airline industry in Taiwan. IJSS, 4(4), 437. doi:10.1504/ijss.2008.020058 Gremler, D., Gwinner, K., Brown, S. (2001). Generating positive word of mouth communication through customer employee relationships. International Journal Of Service Industry Management, 12(1), 44-59. doi:10.1108/09564230110382763 Josephat, P., Ismail, A. (2012). A Logistic Regression Model of Customer Satisfaction of Airline. Ijhrs, 2(4). doi:10.5296/ijhrs.v2i4.2868 Kim, K. (2011). Likert Scale. Korean J Fam Med, 32(1), 1. doi:10.4082/kjfm.2011.32.1.1 Luo, X., Homburg, C. (2007). Neglected Outcomes of Customer Satisfaction. Journal Of Marketing, 71(2), 133-149. doi:10.1509/jmkg.71.2.133 Oyewole, P. (2002). Affective States of the Consumer and Satisfaction with Services in the Airline Industry. Services Marketing Quarterly, 23(4), 45-63. doi:10.1300/j396v23n04_04 Seyed Alireza Mosavi,. (2012). The functional relationship between quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty in the airline industry in Iran. AFRICAN JOURNAL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, 6(8). doi:10.5897/ajbm11.1750.

Theories of Learning free essay sample

This paper defines and compares the theories of learning from the behaviorist perspective and the cognitive point of view. The author discusses the contribution of psychologists in theses respective fields and concludes that a more detailed theory including situational characteristics is necessary. Behaviorism is a theory of animal and human learning that focuses on objectively observable behaviors; behavior theorists define learning as nothing more than the acquisition of new behavior through a process of conditioning. Classic conditioning occurs when a natural reflex responds to a stimulus; a certain stimulus will produce a biological response. The most popular example is Pavlovs observation that dogs salivate when they eat or even see food.

The Decline of the Olmec Civilization

The Decline of the Olmec Civilization The Olmec culture was Mesoamericas first great civilization. It thrived along Mexicos Gulf coast from approximately 1200 - 400 B.C. and is considered the mother culture of societies that came later, such as the Maya and Aztec. Many of the intellectual accomplishments of the Olmec, such as a writing system and calendar, were eventually adapted and improved by these other cultures. Around 400 B.C. the great Olmec city of La Venta went into decline, taking the Olmec Classic era with it. Because this civilization declined two thousand years before the arrival of the first Europeans into the region, no one is absolutely certain which factors led to its downfall. What Is Known About the Ancient Olmec The Olmec civilization  was named after the Aztec word for their descendants, who inhabited Olman, or the land of rubber. It is primarily known through  the study of their architecture and stone carvings. Although the Olmec had a writing system of sorts, no Olmec books have survived to modern day. Archaeologists have discovered two great Olmec cities: San Lorenzo and La Venta, in the present-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco respectively. The Olmec were talented stonemasons, who built structures and aqueducts. They were also gifted sculptors, carving stunning colossal heads without the use of metal tools. They had their own religion, with a priest class and at least eight identifiable gods. They were great traders and had connections with contemporary cultures all over Mesoamerica. The End of the Olmec Civilization Two great Olmec cities are known: San Lorenzo and La Venta. These are not the original names the Olmec knew them by: those names have been lost to time. San Lorenzo flourished on a large island in a river from about 1200 to 900 B.C., at which time it went into decline and was replaced in influence by La Venta. Around 400 B.C. La Venta went into decline and was eventually abandoned altogether. With the fall of La Venta came the end of classic Olmec culture. Although the descendants of the Olmecs still lived in the region, the culture itself vanished. The extensive trade networks the Olmecs had used fell apart. Jades, sculptures, and pottery in the Olmec style and with distinctly Olmec motifs were no longer created. What Happened to the Ancient Olmec? Archaeologists are still collecting clues that will unravel the mystery of what caused this mighty civilization to go into decline. It likely was a combination of natural ecological changes and human actions. The Olmecs relied on a handful of crops for their basic sustenance, including maize, squash, and sweet potatoes. Although they had a healthy diet with this limited number of foods, the fact that they relied so heavily on them made them vulnerable to climate changes. For example, a volcanic eruption could coat a region in ash or change the course of a river: such a calamity would have been disastrous to the Olmec people. Less dramatic climate changes, such as a drought, could severely affect their favored crops. Human actions likely played a role as well: warfare between the La Venta Olmecs and any one of a number of local tribes could have contributed to the societys downfall. Internal strife is also a possibility. Other human actions, such as over farming or destroying forests for agriculture could well have played a role as well. Epi-Olmec Culture When the Olmec culture went into decline, it didnt disappear entirely. Rather, it evolved into what historians refer to as Epi-Olmec culture. The Epi-Olmec culture is a link of sorts between the classic Olmec and the Veracruz Culture, which would begin to thrive to the north of the Olmec lands about 500 years later. The most important Epi-Olmec city was Tres Zapotes, Veracruz. Although Tres Zapotes never reached the grandeur of San Lorenzo or La Venta, it nevertheless was the most important city of its time. The people of Tres Zaptoes did not make monumental art on the scale of the olossal heads or the great Olmec thrones, but they nevertheless were great sculptors who left behind many important works of art. They also made great strides forward in writing, astronomy, and calendrics. Sources Coe, Michael D and Rex Koontz. Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs. 6th Edition. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2008 Diehl, Richard A. The Olmecs: Americas First Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004.

Mutiple intelligence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Mutiple intelligence - Essay Example According to Howard Gardner there are seven types of intelligences: musical intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, spatial intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and intrapersonal intelligence. The naturalist type of intelligence was added after Gardner developed the seven types of intelligence (Levitin, 507-520) (Daniel L. Levitin is a prominent American cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, record producer, musician, and writer). The theory of multiple intelligences has brought a pragmatic approach that would allow cultivation of student’s strengths towards learning and how we define intelligence. Numerous educators, parents, researchers, and students deemed the idea of multiple intelligences as important however, multiple intelligences theory has also risen criticisms among scholars in the field of psychology. My goal in this paper is to investigate the issues surrounding multiple intelligences by examining the point of view of Howard Gardner and those critics of the multiple intelligences theory. To achieve this goal, this paper will discuss four main sections, two of which have sub-sections. The first section will discuss the history of multiple intelligences, together with the evolution of the definition of intelligence. The second section will discuss each type of multiple intelligences, and issues surrounding the multiple intelligence theory will be discussed in the third section. Lastly, the fourth section will discuss the impact of multiple intelligence theory on the education of America. The history of multiple intelligences started through the attempts to reform the common notion of the term â€Å"intelligence†. More often, people measured intelligence through the ability to solve problems, to find the answers to specific questions, and to learn new material quickly and

Randstad as a Professional Employment Agency Essay

Randstad as a Professional Employment Agency - Essay Example The researcher states that Randstad is the second biggest staffing organization in the world. Randstad plays a fundamental role in developing the workplace and leveraging the maximum value of human capital to benefit clients, candidates, investors, and employees. The main problem of Randstad is handling its multigenerational workforce, so that retention rates can be boosted. Its minor problems are intergenerational conflicts due to differences in work and personal values and developing performance management strategies that fit different generations. The primary issues of the firm are employee retention strategies for different generations and concerns in maximizing the benefits of its coaching approach to team building and retention. These issues can be approached through considering the factors of enhancing work climate and job fulfillment to increase employee retention rates. HR should examine individual and generational needs through interviews and surveys. The major problem of t he company is enhancing its retention rate. Its minor problems are intergenerational conflicts due to differences in work and personal values and developing performance management strategies that fit different generations. The first alternative is to focus on enhancing the work climate. Work climate can enhance recruitment and retention success of workers. The work climate can affect provider outcomes, such as job satisfaction and turnover rates. Positive views of the psychological work climate can enhance job satisfaction, organizational commitment, motivation, and productivity. Particular actions that can enhance the work climate include training employees to develop their coaching and intergenerational communication and culture skills. This way, employees are trained to handle generation-based differences in attitudes and work/communication practices.

Artificial Intelligence in Web Design

Artificial Intelligence in Web Design Richard RoÃ… ¡ko Abstract—This paper deals with a new trend in web design and that is to introduce some degree of artificial intelligence into the task of designing a website. One of the first companies that came up with implementation of this idea id thegrid.io, which we will be mostly discussing in this paper. We will take a deeper look as to what does in fact artificial intelligence means in this connotation and how is it implemented throughout thegrid.io system for automated web design. Keywords— GSS, webdesign, grid, SEO, performance I. Introduction When it comes to using artificial intelligence in any sphere of, technical or other, we always have to be careful with this notion, as it can get quite misleading as to what is really the power behind that or other action supported, derived from, or even controlled by artificial intelligence. The web is an increasingly popular platform and as such, a great amount of attention is being payed to it and its content. Web is, of course, populated by websites and these are so diversified in the matter of their content, that it would be really hard to classify them in any sensible way. Each one of these websites, however consists of two main parts, that are responsible for the operation of the portal as a whole. These are backend and frontend. When the web first started to be commercially available, the presentation side of the websites, i.e. the frontend was not of much, if any concern whatsoever. The idea behind the styling of the web was built around other popular media, newspaper. The syntax for writing the main components of pages (HTML) still resembles the organizational structure of the newspaper articles with headings divided into different levels, paragraphs and many other article-related styling. Back in these days, there was almost no styling aside from breaking the websites into different sections. Internet back then was used for almost entirely different purposes than it is now and hence, there was no actual need of doing anything more with the presentational side of the web. All of this changed, however, when non scientific people started to become familiar with internet and first commercial solutions started to appear. New language, that was supposed to make the web look much better arose and its name was CSS. CSS stands for cascading style sheets and basically, it allowed the designers to style the content of the website much more accurately. CSS is still widely used nowadays, even though designers and programmers today tend to use many other style pre-processors, but the core always stays the same. Web always continues to evolve and while its users, most of the time, do not care about the action behind the scenes, which is essentially the core of the whole site, they do care about the appearance on the other hand. That is the reason, that great amount of time and resources is put into the frontend and UI of the websites nowadays. The design of the website, its look and feel, the interaction with the user, feedback it gives, these all are very important factors to consider in the process of web development. Hence, the web designer profession is becoming increasingly sought and picked by many people and companies alike. What is going to happen when we introduce artificial intelligence to this process? It could have an enormous impact on the job market, if we consider that it could be one of the first steps in the process of automatizing web design and that is always risky, even to consider. This is also one of the topics we will discuss in this paper. II. TheGrid.IO The company behind thegrid.io are comapring it to the movie Her to some degree. It was a movie about a perfectly voice-recognizing computer personal assistant, that was also able to simulate emotions and basically behaved as a human being. On their website we can see, that they state, that now She can do webdesign for you as well, referring to her ability to analyze the content of the site and adapt the design to it. They describe the basic principle behind the algorithm as an engine, that is measuring and analysing the content of your website constantly and changing it and designing it everytime it detects a change in the purpose of the site. The idea behind all of it, is to provide a personal computer-driven and automated webdesigner for every webdeveloper. Fig.1 thegrid.io landing page / index [1] As a proof of concept, in the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) part of the website you can find out, that thegrid.io website was actually built using thegrid.io system itself. This fact immediately caught attention of many web developers and web designers and upon researching the public HTML and CSS of the website, we find a few interesting facts. The website is generally pretty heavy. That doesn’t mean it is just really long, which it is in this case, but nevertheless, if a user scrolls down the whole page, he downloads roughly around 100 MB, which is quite a lot considering the lightweight trends in today’s world of web development. Interestingly enough, the load time of the website actually measures pretty good. If we take a closer look at the HTML, we can see, that the styles and javascripts are inlined, which is quite unorthodox, but seems to work here and it might be one of the reasons the site is loaded optimally even though its load is pretty strong. As Austin Wolf wrote for medium.com, the website is somewhat self-indulgent and it is really long. Fig. 2 thegrid.io performance test [2] From the given statistics we can deduce, that the webpage as a whole actually performs quite well against all expectations, which renders the system really ambitious. Thegrid.io website has a few notable sections, like FAQ, team and info for possible investors. It even contains an e-commerce part with a possibility to opt for a subscription, that is currently set at 25 â‚ ¬ / month. It is very important to note, that the algorhitms and AI behind this automated webdesigning project is still under heavy development, so all the results and test we can do for now might differ from the actual performance by the ready and commercialy available application. But this pre-research can still give us an interesting view of what it might look like once it is available to public. At this stage of development we can only guess how does the analysis of the content on the website actually work, but it good to know, that the whole company has a very transparent and open-minded point of view when it comes to licensing and sharing resources online. The team behind thegrid.io have the ambition to share source code of each and everyone of the websites that will be created on github in public repositories for others to be inspired and reproduced. We have no information as to what licensing is going to look like yet. Another interesting fact about the whole ecosystem of thegrid.io is, that they not only offer you to make your website autodesigned, they can also handle the domain registration and the hosting for your website. And what is even more interesting, they plan to make this available for the same fixed monthly fee. This suggests, that their ambition is to make user’s businesses go online in a matter of hours for a decent price and maintain it for them without requiring them to have any prior knowledge of the web or any other technologies that accompany it and to instead, let them focus on the content. This whole service is then complemented by many other small features, like scraping the web for mentions of your brand and automatically generating a press release section for your page, or for your brand. This, of course, from the technical point of view, could be quite heavy on the resources, but from what we can observe as of the current state of the application, the tema behind thegrid.io proves to be quite apt at responding to heavy scripts challenges that may arise throughout the course of developing a website. Fig. 3 GSS templates [3] GSS is what we could call grid’s replacement of CSS, or templating engines as a whole. In the history, there were a few tries on taking out the programming out of the webdesign process by introducing some or another form of GUI for this creative process. None of these were actually extremely popular and thegrid.io promises to change that. What they base their strategy at is the fact, that they reverse engineer the process of all these systems. Whereas these former were built on allowing the users of the system design the layout, or pick some template, or predefined parts of a website and then let them fill it out with their content, thegrid.io reverses this and just lets the user type in the content into a blank website canvas and lets their system analyze the content and based on that creates the most suitable desing, that works well with content of the webpage. III. Issues With a project this ambitious and possibly this proportional, there is a lot of skepticism that is arising from many directions towards it. In this chapter we will discuss some of the categories of remarks thrown at the development team. We can also try to approximate their possible solution to these problem and the way they might address these issues in the future release version of thegrid.io system and its automatic web design algorithms. A. SEO SEO stands for search engine optimization. Let us first take a quick look at what that actually means. SEO is actually the process of increasing the exposure your site gets when searched for a similar topic using a search engine (such as https://duckduckgo.com/, or https://www.google.com). This process focuses on the visibility of the unpaid results and is related to as generating organic or natural traffic. If SEO is done correctly on a website it can lead to an immense increase of traffic, that is generated without further action needed from the side of the developer, or the programmer. In the past, SEO was solely thing of text search, but as we push into the future, there is a rising trend of optical character recognition and optical image recognition, which allows the users to search for their desired topics by images, or even sounds. These trends are also affecting the SEO as a whole. As stated before, if SEO is done correctly, it can lead to making the page appear generically much more often in the results of the search engines. To optimize a site for search engines and index the page proper way many techniques are employed. SEO experts start by editing the actual content of the website, then they can also edit the raw HTML of the webpage in order to increase the actual relevance to the content of the page. There also is a number of, so called, external techniques for increasing the SEO rank of a website. This include promoting the website, construction of backlinks, or inbound links, that lead back to the SEO optimized page and paying for written PR articles. Implementation of SEO as it is really difficult and requires constant effort, involvement and implementation of the new trends in this field as it is. In order for it to be precise and to work well, it needs to be thought of constantly, while creating new content and updating the old one as well. In today’s overcrowded web environment, it is very important to make your site stand out in any possible way and SEO is becoming increasingly popular in addressing this problem. The team behind thegrid.io relies on filters to take care of many web designing aspects. They act as the entry point to any and every grid.io powered application. Fig. 4 one of many others grid.io marketing strategies As we pointed out before, SEO is all about conforming your HTML to your content and that is where filters come in place through the grid.io algorithm. Filters serve in filtering your raw HTML. Since SEO is basically translating the HTML wrapped around the specific parts of your content to let search engine scrapers index and â€Å"get to know† your content better basically. The way we can speculate these probably work is, that they scrape the content of your articles, items, or any other elements and then parse it into meta tags probably via the URL. As we saw from the example page they built, it is probably using some kind of SPA (Single Page Application) framework, but it most likely is not one of the popular ones, quite possibly it is their own internal one, since doing SEO on a SPA could prove troubling, as for reloading just the parts of your html including the content which is relevant to the specific asynchronous change in the scope of your application. These are just theories and speculations based on what is publicly available as of the moment of writing this article. B. Performance Performance is one of the most important factors to consider as it influences the feeling of quality. Impact of the page speed on the traffic, conversion and satisfaction is huge. According to Aragon [5] in her article on crazyegg.blog about SEO, company Amazon found out, that for every 100ms their page loaded quicker they got about 1% of increased revenue overall, which is a truly tremendous impact. Other big companies are reporting the same findings, which only goes to show, that performance could be a huge deal breaker when it comes to thegrid.io as well. One of the elementary aspects when it comes to minimizing the page load is to minimize the number of HTTP requests. If we refer to picture [2], which states that there is exactly 123 HTTP requests on thegrid.io page when it first loads. This number is pretty high and suggests, that there is a place for optimization of these standards in order to make the page load faster. Other techniques might include caching the resources on the site (storing them permanently if they are present on more than a few sub-sites of the website in order to reduce server load). In this field, thegrid.io got and F, referring to [2] once again, which is suboptimal to say, at least. When it comes to compression of images, the best choice here is to go with JPEG or PNG formatted images. But as thegrid.io states, the content uploaded to the website is entirely in the hands of the user, the grid just analyses it and styles the content around it accordingly. So the performance when working with images is entirely in the hands of the user. As far as we are concerned there is no information yet as to some auto convertor of images or anything similiar, but it would definitely make sense for thegrid.io to implement such a functionality as this can have a great impact on the overall load speed. With all that being said, the overall experience of the grid.io created website is pretty good and slightly above average in our opinion. If they really relied on their own algorithm when creating their presentational site, it is safe to assume, that the team already have a very stable and delivering product, which displays quite a potential when it comes to delivering apps with an optimal user satisfaction. C. Design The actual design of the websites created with thegrid.io is one of the fields that we can not measure objectively even if we would have more templates, or filters, as they prefer to call it at the grid, because design is pretty objective. From the teaser screenshots we can however see, that the design have all the modern practices, such as flat design and minimalism in their scope and portfolio and they tend to generally cling into this direction. Another big issue could be the responsiveness of manufactured designs. In the world of today’s web, if a site is not responsive and potential client base is expected to view and interact with a website on a device other than a computer, it is almost 100% expected for the site to be responsive (meaning, the site is stretching and adapting to different screen sizes dynamically). One of the main points of the responsive web design is to actually adhere to the content and style it according to it, not according to HTML elements, or anything else on that matter. With this in mind, thegrid.io is promising its users a responsive experience on all devices ranging from smartphones, through netbooks up to 4K capable retina big displays and smart TV’s. Other issue that comes to mind that has to do with design is the fact, that users often tend to want to personally add their touches to the design. And that is something that is impossible to be done automatically or with any kind of algorithm, since it depends on the feelings, emotions and personal tastes of the user. It might seem though, as thegrid.io is not targeting such people and are basically more into helping people kick start online presence of their brand and as such, this functionality, or the ability to meddle into the code of the applications might not be needed for most of their customers. Still, in the final version of the product they might introduce such a functionality and it would be really interesting to see how this plays out in the end. Other issues that might arise are the ones concerning originality of such designs. Of course, every website is different when it comes to content, but there could be many, e.g. e-shops dealing with cosmetics imported from France. How could an automated engine handle such a challenge? We do not know that yet, as the service is still in a stealth mode when it comes to unveiling the principles of its internal mechanics, but it is definitely something to consider and take into account. IV. Similar projects As of right now, thegrid.io seems to be the only one that introduced some degree of machine learning (or artificial learning as the call it) to web design and it seems to be really promising and interesting. V. Conclusion Thegrid.io is one of a kind applications that in summary should be able to give us the ability to create websites on the fly, without any prior knowledge, with an easy-to-no learning curve whatsoever and that styles itself around the content scanned. That is a very bold idea, but if executed properly and after implementing precautions could help people digitalize their brands very easily. References TheGrid.io landing page snippet [online]. Available: https://www.thegrid.io/ Thegrid.io performance test, conducted by Austin Wulf, on 28.12.2014 [online]. Available: https://medium.com/@austinwulf/the-grid-io-builds-incredibly-slow-websites-24ca1980c8f2 GSS templates used in thegrid.io [online]. Available: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/artificial-intelligence-platform-the-grid-looks-like-the-future-of-web-design-1.2117158 Thegrid.io marketing strategies [online]. Available: https://www.thegrid.io/ K. Aragon (2013, Nov 12). 10 ways to speed up your website – and improve conversion by 7%, [online]. Available: http://blog.crazyegg.com/2013/12/11/speed-up-your-website/

The Life of Sculptor Constantin Brancusi

Our simplest words are often the deepest in meaning: birth, kiss, flight, dream. The sculptor Constantin Brancusi spent his life searching for forms as simple and pure as those words—forms that seem to have existed forever, outside of time. Born a peasant in a remote village in Romania, he spent most of his adult life in Paris, where he lived in a single small room adjoining a skylit studio. Upon his death in 1957, Brancusi willed the contents of his studio to the French government, which eventually re-created the studio itself in a museum (1. 1). Near the center of the photograph are two versions of an idea Brancusi called Endless Column. Pulsing upward with great energy, the columns seem as though they could go on forever. Perhaps they do go on forever, and we can see only part of them. Directly in front of the white column, a sleek, horizontal marble form looking something like a slender submarine seems to hover over a disk-shaped base. Brancusi called it simply Fish. It does not depict any particular fish but, rather, shows us the idea of something that moves swiftly and freely through the water, the essence of a fish. To the left of the dark column, arching up in front of a patch of wall painted red, is a version of one of Brancusi's most famous works, Bird in Space. Here again the artist portrays not a particular bird but, rather, the idea of flight, the feeling of soaring upward. Brancusi said that the work represents â€Å"the soul liberated from matter. †1 A photograph by Brancusi shows another, more mysterious view of Bird in Space (1. 2). Light from a source we cannot see cuts across the work and falls in a sharp diamond shape on the wall behind. The sculpture casts a shadow so strong it seems to have a dark twin. Before it lies a broken, discarded work. The photograph might make you think of the birth of a bird from its shell, or of a perfected work of art arising from numerous failed attempts, or indeed of a soul newly liberated from its material prison. Brancusi took many photographs of his work, and through them we can see how his sculptures lived in his imagination even after they were finished. He photographed them in varying conditions of light, in multiple locations and combinations, from close up and far away. With each photograph they seem to reveal a different mood, the way people we know reveal different sides of themselves over time. Living with art, Brancusi's photographs show us, is making art live by letting it engage our attention, our imagination, our intelligence. Few of us, of course, can live with art the way Brancusi did. Yet we can choose to seek out encounters with art, to make it a matter for thought and enjoyment, and to let it live in our imagination. You probably live already with more art than you think you do. Very likely the walls of your home are decorated with posters, photographs, or even paintings you chose because you find them beautiful or meaningful. Walking around your community you probably pass by buildings that were designed for visual appeal as well as to serve practical ends. If you ever pause for a moment just to look at one of them, to take pleasure, for example, in its silhouette against the sky, you have made the architect's work live for a moment by appreciating an effect that he or she prepared for you. We call such an experience an aesthetic experience. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the feelings aroused in us by sensory experiences—experiences we have through sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Aesthetics concerns itself with our responses to the natural world and to the world we make, especially the world of art. What art is, how and why it affects us—these are some of the issues that aesthetics addresses. This book hopes to deepen your pleasure in the aesthetic experience by broadening your understanding of one of the most basic and universal of human activities, making art. Its subject is visual art, which is art that addresses the sense of sight, as opposed to music or poetry, which are arts that appeal to the ear. It focuses on the Western tradition, by which we mean art as it has been understood and practiced in Europe and in cultures with their roots in European thought, such as the United States. But it also reaches back to consider works created well before Western ideas about art were in place and across to other cultures that have very different traditions of art. THE IMPULSE FOR ART No society that we know of, for as far back in human history as we have been able to penetrate, has lived without some form of art. The impulse to make and respond to art appears to be as deeply ingrained in us as the ability to learn language, part of what sets us apart as humans. Where does the urge to make art come from? What purposes does it serve? For answers, we might begin by looking at some of the oldest works yet discovered, images and artifacts dating from the Stone Ages, near the beginning of the human experience. On the afternoon of December 18, 1994, two men and a woman, all experienced cave explorers, were climbing among the rocky cliffs in the Ardeche region of southeastern France. From a small cavity in the rock, they felt a draft of air, which they knew often signaled a large cavern within. After clearing away some rocks and debris, they were able to squeeze through a narrow channel into what appeared to be an enormous underground room, its floor littered with animal bones. Pressing farther into the cave, the explorers played their lights on the walls and made an astonishing discovery: The walls were covered with drawings and paintings (1. 3)—more than three hundred images as they eventually found—depicting rhinoceroses, horses, bears, reindeer, lions, bison, mammoths, and others, as well as numerous outlines of human hands. It was evident that the paintings were extremely old and that the cave had remained untouched, unseen by humans, since prehistoric times. The explorers agreed to name the site after the one in their number who had led them to it, Jean-Marie Chauvet, so it is called the Chauvet cave. What they did not realize until months later, after radiocarbon testing had accurately dated the paintings, was that they had just pushed back the history of art by several thousand years. The Chauvet images were made about 30,000 B. C. E. and are the oldest paintings we know. The paintings date from a time known as the Upper Paleolithic Period, which simply means the latter part of the Old Stone Age. Archaeologists have formed some tentative conclusions about how the paintings were done. Pigments of red and yellow ochre, a natural earth substance, along with black charcoal, could have been mixed with animal fat and painted onto the walls with a reed brush. In powdered form, the same materials probably were mouth-blown onto the surface through hollow reeds. Many of the images are engraved, or scratched, into the rock. More intriguing is the question of why the cave paintings were made, why their creators paid such meticulous attention to detail, why they did their work so far underground. The paintings clearly were not meant to embellish a dwelling space. The cave artists must have lived—slept, cooked their meals, mated, and raised their children—much nearer to the mouths of these caves, close to daylight and fresh air. Until the Chauvet cave was discovered, many experts believed that ancient cave paintings were done for magical assistance in the hunt, to ensure success in bringing down game animals. But several of the animals depicted at Chauvet, including lions and rhinos and bears, were not in the customary diet of early peoples. Perhaps the artists wished to establish some kind of connection with these wild beasts, but we cannot know for sure. Fascinating as these mysteries are, they pass over perhaps the most amazing thing of all, which is that there should be images in the first place. The ability to make images is uniquely human. We do it so naturally and so constantly that we take it for granted. We make them with our hands, and we make them with our minds. Lying out on the grass, for example, you may amuse yourself by finding images in the shifting clouds, now a lion, now an old woman. Are the images really there? We know that a cloud is just a cloud, yet the image is certainly there, because we see it. Our experience of the images we make is the same. We know that a drawing is just markings on a surface, a newspaper photograph merely dots, yet we recognize them as images that reflect our world, and we identify with them. The experience was the same for Paleolithic image-makers as it is for us. All images may not be art, but our ability to make them is one place where art begins. The contemporary British sculptor Anthony Caro has said that â€Å"all art is basically Paleolithic or Neolithic: either the urge to smear soot and grease on cave walls or pile stone on stone. †2 By â€Å"soot and grease† Caro means the cave paintings. With â€Å"the urge to pile stone on stone† he has in mind one of the most impressive and haunting works to survive from the Stone Ages, the structure in the south of England known as Stonehenge (1. 4). Today much ruined through time and vandalism, Stonehenge at its height consisted of several concentric circles of megaliths, very large stones, surrounded in turn by a circular ditch. It was built in several phases over many centuries, beginning around 3100 B. C. E. The tallest circle, visible in the photograph here, originally consisted of thirty gigantic upstones capped with a continuous ring of horizontal stones. Weighing some 50 tons each, the stones were quarried many miles away, hauled to the site, and laboriously shaped by blows from stone hammers until they fit together. Many theories have been advanced about why Stonehenge was built and what purpose it served. Recent archaeological research has confirmed that the monument marks a graveyard, perhaps that of a ruling dynasty. The cremated remains of up to 240 people appear to have been buried there over a span of some five hundred years, from the earliest development of the site until the time when the great stones were erected. Other findings suggest that the monument did not stand alone but was part of a larger complex, perhaps a religious complex used for funerary rituals. What is certain is that Stonehenge held meaning for the Neolithic community that built it. For us, it stands as a compelling example of how old and how basic is our urge to create meaningful order and form, to structure our world so that it reflects our ideas. This is another place where art begins. In our society, we tend to think of art as something created by specialists, people we call artists, just as medicine is practiced by doctors and bridges are designed by engineers. In other societies, virtually everyone contributes to art in some way. Yet no matter how a society organizes itself, it calls on its art-makers to fulfill similar roles. Stonehenge was erected in the Neolithic era, or New Stone Age. The Neolithic era is named for the new kinds of stone tools that were invented, but it also saw such important advances as the domestication of animals and crops and the development of the technology of pottery, as people discovered that fire could harden certain kinds of clay. With pottery, storage jars, food bowls, and all sorts of other practical objects came into being. Yet much of the world's oldest pottery seems to go far beyond purely practical needs (1. 5). This elegant stemmed cup was formed around 2000 B. C. E. in what is now eastern China. Eggshell-thin and exceedingly fragile, it could not have held much of anything and would have tipped over easily. In other words, it isn't practical. Instead, great care and skill have gone into making it pleasing to the eye. Here is a third place we might turn to for the origins of art—the urge to explore the aesthetic possibilities of new technologies. What are the limits of clay, the early potters must have wondered. What can be done with it? Scholars believe such vessels were created for ceremonial use. They were probably made in limited quantity for members of a social elite. To construct meaningful images and forms, to create order and structure, to explore aesthetic possibilities—these characteristics seem to be part of our nature as human beings. From them, art has grown, nurtured by each culture in its own way. WHAT DO ARTISTS DO? First, artists create places for some human purpose. Stonehenge, for example, was probably created as a place where a community could gather for rituals. Closer to our own time, Maya Lin created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a place for contemplation and remembrance (1. 6). One of our most painful national memories, the Vietnam War saw thousands of young men and women lose their lives in a distant conflict that was increasingly questioned and protested at home. By the war's end, the nation was so bitterly divided that returning veterans received virtually no recognition for their services. In this atmosphere of continuing controversy, Lin's task was to create a memorial that honored the human sacrifice of the war while neither glorifying nor condemning the war itself. At the heart of the memorial is a long, tapering, V-shaped wall of black granite, inscribed with the names of the missing, the captured, and the dead—some 58,000 names in all. Set into the earth exposed by slicing a great wedge from a gently sloping hill, it suggests perhaps a modern entrance to an ancient burial mound, though in fact there is no entrance. Instead, the highly polished surface acts as a mirror, reflecting the surrounding trees, the nearby Washington Monument, and the visitors themselves as they pass by. Entering along a walkway from either end, visitors are barely aware at first of the low wall at their feet. The monument begins just as the war itself did, almost unnoticed, a few support troops sent to a small and distant country, a few deaths in the nightly news. As visitors continue their descent along the downward-sloping path, the wall grows taller and taller until it towers overhead, names upon names upon names. Often, people reach out to touch the letters, and as they do, they touch their own reflections reaching back. At the walkway's lowest point, with the wall at its highest, a corner is turned. The path begins to climb upward, and the wall begins to fall away. Drawn by a view of either the Washington Monument (as in the photograph here) or the Lincoln Memorial (along the other axis), visitors leave the war behind. In a quiet, unobtrusive way, the place that Maya Lin created encourages a kind of ritual, a journey downward into a valley of death, then upward toward hope, healing, and reconciliation. Like Stonehenge, it has served to bring a community together. A second task artists perform is to create extraordinary versions of ordinary objects. Just as the Neolithic vessel we looked at earlier is more than an ordinary drinking cup, so the textile here is more than an ordinary garment (1. 7). Woven in West Africa by artists of the Asante people, it is a spectacular example of a type of textile known as kente. Kente is woven in hundreds of patterns, each with its own name, history, and symbolism. Traditionally, a newly invented pattern was shown first to the king, who had the right to claim it for his own exclusive use. Like the Neolithic vessel, royal kente was reserved for ceremonial occasions. Rich, costly, and elaborate, the cloth distinguished its wearer as special as well, an extraordinary version of an ordinary human being. A third important task for artists has been to record and commemorate. Artists create images that help us remember the present after it slips into the past, that keep us in mind of our history, and that will speak of our times to the future. Illustrated here is a painting by a 17th-century artist named Manohar, one of several painters employed in the royal workshops of the emperor Jahangir, a ruler of the Mughal dynasty in India (1. 8). At the center of the painting we see Jahangir himself, seated beneath a sumptuous canopy. His son Khusrau, dressed in a yellow robe, offers him the precious gift of a golden cup. The painting commemorates a moment of reconciliation between father and son, who had had a violent falling out. The moment did not last, however. Khusrau would soon stage an armed rebellion that cost him the throne. Although the intricate details of Mughal history may be lost on us today, this enchanting painting gives us a vivid glimpse into their vanished world as they wanted it to be remembered. A fourth task for artists is to give tangible form to the unknown. They portray what cannot be seen with the eyes or events that can only be imagined. An anonymous Indian sculptor of the 10th century gave tangible form to the Hindu god Shiva in his guise as Nataraja, Lord of the Dance (1. 9). Encircled by flames, his long hair flying outward, Shiva dances the destruction and rebirth of the world, the end of one cycle of time and the beginning of another. The figure's four arms communicate the complexity of this cosmic moment. In one hand, Shiva holds the small drum whose beat summons up creation; in another hand, he holds the flame of destruction. A third hand points at his raised foot, beneath which worshipers may seek refuge, while a fourth hand is raised with its palm toward the viewer, a gesture that means â€Å"fear not. † A fifth function artists perform is to give tangible form to feelings and ideas. The statue of Shiva we just looked at, for example, gives tangible form to ideas about the cyclical nature of time that are part of the religious culture of Hinduism. In The Starry Night (1. 10), Vincent van Gogh labored to express his personal feelings as he stood on the outskirts of a small village in France and looked up at the night sky. Van Gogh had become intrigued by the belief that people journeyed to a star after their death, and that there they continued their lives. â€Å"Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen,† he wrote in a letter, â€Å"we take death to reach a star. †4 Seen through the prism of that idea, the night landscape inspired in him a vision of great intensity. Surrounded by halos of radiating light, the stars have an exaggerated, urgent presence, as though each one were a brilliant sun. A great wave or whirlpool rolls across the sky—a cloud, perhaps, or some kind of cosmic energy. The landscape, too, seems to roll on in waves like an ocean. A tree in the foreground writhes upward toward the stars as though answering their call. In the distance, a church spire points upward as well. Everything is in turbulent motion. Nature seems alive, communicating in its own language while the village sleeps. Finally, artists refresh our vision and help us see the world in new ways. Habit dulls our senses. What we see every day we no longer marvel at, because it has become familiar. Through art we can see the world through someone else's eyes and recover the intensity of looking for the first time. Ernst Haas' photograph Peeling Paint on Iron Bench, Kyoto, 1981 (1. 11) singles out a small detail of an ordinary day and asks us to notice how rich it is if we really take the time to look. Rain has made the colors shine with fresh intensity, brilliant red against deep black, and the star-shaped leaves could almost be made of gold. After seeing through Haas' eyes, we may find ourselves—if only for a few hours—more attentive to the world around us, which is stranger, more mysterious, more various, and more beautiful than we usually realize. CREATING AND CREATIVITY Out walking on a rainy day in Kyoto, Ernst Haas could have noticed the park bench, smiled with pleasure, and continued on his way. Standing in a field over a century ago, Van Gogh could have had his vision of the night sky, then returned to his lodgings—and we would never have known about it. We all experience the moments of insight that put us where art begins. For most of us, such moments are an end in themselves. For artists, they are a beginning, a kind of raw material that sets a creative process in motion. Creativity is a word that comes up often when talking about art, but what is creativity exactly? Are we born with it? Can it be learned? Can it be lost? Are artists more creative than other people? If so, how did they get that way? Many writers and educators have tried to analyze creativity and determine what makes a person creative. 6 Although the exact nature of creativity remains elusive, there is general agreement that creative people tend to possess certain traits, including: †¢ Sensitivity —heightened awareness of what one sees, hears, and touches, as well as responsiveness to other people and their feelings. †¢ Flexibility —an ability to adapt to new situations and to see their possibilities; willingness to find innovative relationships. Originality —uncommon responses to situations and to solving problems. †¢ Playfulness —a sense of humor and an ability to experiment freely. †¢ Productivity —the ability to generate ideas easily and frequently, and to follow through on those ideas. †¢ Fluency —a readiness to allow the free flo w of ideas. †¢ Analytical skill —a talent for exploring problems, taking them apart, and finding out how things work. †¢ Organizational skill —ability to put things back together in a coherent order. We might bear that list in mind as we look at Tim Hawkinson's Emoter (1. 12). Like many of Hawkinson's works, Emoter looks like a do-it-yourself science project that has gotten a little out of hand. The stepladder on the floor houses a black-and-white television monitor tuned to a local broadcast station. Rows of light sensors attached to the monitor's screen react to changes in the moving image, sending signals through a tangle of cords, cables, and wires up to a large photograph of the artist's face. The components of the face—eyes, nostrils, eyebrows, and mouth—move continuously in response to the signals they receive, generating expressions that are as extravagant as a mime's. Certainly, sensitivity made Hawkinson a keen observer of faces, and originality suggested to him that such unlikely material as laboratory experiments monitoring brain waves, or antiquated scientific theories linking specific facial expressions to specific emotions, could inspire a work of art. Playfulness, flexibility, fluency, and productivity set him to exploring ways in which his project could be given form, while analytical and organizational skills allowed him to carry it to completion. The profession of artist is not the only one that requires creativity. Scientists, mathematicians, teachers, business executives, doctors, librarians, computer programmers—people in every line of work, if they are any good, look for ways to be creative. Artists occupy a special place in that they have devoted their lives to opening the channels of visual creativity. Can a person become more creative? Almost certainly, if one allows oneself to be. Being creative means learning to trust one's own interests, experiences, and references, and to use them to enhance life and work. Above all, it means discarding rigid notions of what has been or should be in favor of what could be. Creativity develops when the eyes and the mind are wide open, and it is as important to looking at art as it is to making it. We close this chapter by exploring what looking creatively might involve. LOOKING AND RESPONDING Science tells us that seeing is a mode of perception, which is the recognition and interpretation of sensory data—in other words, how information comes into our eyes (ears, nose, taste buds, fingertips) and what we make of it. In visual perception, our eyes take in information in the form of light patterns; the brain processes these patterns to give them meaning. The role of the eyes in vision is purely mechanical. Barring some physical disorder, it functions the same way for everyone. The mind's role in making sense of the information, however, is highly subjective and belongs to the realm of psychology. Simply put, given the same situation, we do not all notice the same things, nor do we interpret what we see in the same way. One reason for differences in perception is the immense amount of detail available for our attention at any given moment. To navigate efficiently through daily life, we practice what is called selective perception, focusing on the visual information we need for the task at hand and relegating everything else to the background. But other factors are in play as well. Our mood influences what we notice and how we interpret it, as does the whole of our prior experience—the culture we grew up in, relationships we have had, places we have seen, knowledge we have accumulated. The subjective nature of perception explains why a work of art may mean different things to different people and how it is that we may return to a favorite work again and again, noticing new aspects of it each time. It explains why the more we know, the richer each new encounter with art will be, for we will have more experience to bring to it. It explains why we should make every effort to experience as much art in person as possible, for physical dimensions also influence perception. The works reproduced in this book are miniaturized. Many other details escape reproduction as well. Above all, the nature of perception suggests that the most important key to looking at art is to become aware of the process of looking itself—to notice details and visual relationships, to explore the associations and feelings they inspire, to search for knowledge we can bring to bear, and to try to put what we see into words. A quick glance at Juan de Valdes Leal's Vanitas (1. 13) reveals a careless jumble of objects with a cherub looking over them. In the background, a man looks out at us from the shadows. But what are the objects? And what are the cherub and the man doing? Only if we begin to ask and answer such questions does the message of the painting emerge. In the foreground to the left is a timepiece. Next to it are three flowers, each one marking a stage in the brief life of a flower across time: budding, then blossoming, then dying as its petals fall away. Then come dice and playing cards, suggesting games of chance. Further on, a cascade of medals, money, and jewelry leads up to an elaborate crown, suggesting honors, wealth, and power. At the center, books and scientific instruments evoke knowledge. Finally, back where we began, a skull crowned with a laurel wreath lies on its side. Laurel traditionally crowns those who have become famous through their achievements, especially artistic achievements. Over this display the cherub blows a bubble, as though making a comment on the riches before him. A bubble's existence is even shorter than a flower's—a few seconds of iridescent beauty, and then nothing. Behind the books, a crystal globe resembles a bubble as well, encouraging us to see a connection. When we meet the man's gaze, we notice that he has drawn back a heavy curtain with one hand and is pointing at a painting he has thus revealed with the other. â€Å"Look at this,† he all but speaks. The painting depicts the Last Judgment. In Christian belief, the Last Judgment is the moment when Christ will appear again. He will judge both the living and the dead, accepting some into Paradise and condemning others to Hell. The universe will end, and with it time itself. We might paraphrase the basic message of the painting something like this: â€Å"Life is fleeting, and everything that we prize and strive for during it is ultimately meaningless. Neither wealth nor beauty nor good fortune nor power nor knowledge nor fame will save us when we stand before God at the end of the world. † Without taking the time to perceive and reflect on the many details of the image, we would miss its message completely. Vanitas is Latin for â€Å"vanity. † It alludes to the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, a meditation on the fleeting nature of earthly life and happiness in which we read that in the end, â€Å"all is vanity. The title wasn't invented or bestowed by the artist, however. Rather, it is a generic name for a subject that was popular during his lifetime. Numerous vanitas paintings have come down to us from the 17th century, and together they show the many ways that artists treated its themes. Closer to our own time, the painter Audrey Flack be came fascinated by the vanitas tradition, and she created a series of her own, including Wheel of Fortune (Vanitas) (1. 14). Knowing something of the tradition Flack is building on, we can more easily appreciate her updated interpretation. As ever, a skull puts us in mind of death. An hourglass, a calendar page, and a guttering candle speak of time and its passing. The necklace, mirrors, powder puff, and lipstick are contemporary symbols of personal vanity, while a die and a tarot card evoke the roles of chance and fate in our lives. As in the painting by Valdes, a visual echo encourages us to think about a connection, in this case between the framed oval photograph of a young woman and the framed oval reflection of the skull just below. Flack may be painting with one eye on the past, but the other is firmly on our society as we are now. For example, she includes modern inventions such as a photograph and a lipstick tube, and she shuns symbols that no longer speak to us directly such as laurels and a crown. The specifically Christian context is gone as well, resulting in a more general message that applies to us all, regardless of faith: Time passes quickly, beauty fades, chance plays a bigger role in our lives than we like to think, death awaits. Despite their differences, both Flack and Valdes provide us with many clues to direct our thoughts. They depict objects that have common associations and then trust us to add up the evidence. At first glance, a contemporary work such as Jim Hodges' Every Touch seems very different (1. 15). Every Touch is made of artificial silk flowers, taken apart petal by petal. The petals were ironed flat, intermingled, then stitched together to form a large curtain or veil. Yet although Every Touch may not direct our thoughts as firmly as the other works, we approach it in the same way. We look, and we try to become aware of our looking. We ask questions and explore associations. We bring our experience and knowledge to bear. We interrogate our feelings. We might think of spring. We might be put in mind of other art, such as the flowered backgrounds of medieval tapestries (see 15. 24) or the role of flowers in the vanitas tradition. We might think about flowers and the occasions on which we offer them. We might think about the flowers we know from poetry, where they are often linked to beauty and youth, for all three fade quickly. We might think about petals, which fall from dying flowers. We might think about veils and when we wear them, such as at weddings and funerals. We might notice how delicately the work is stitched together and how fragile it seems. We might think about looking not only at it but also through it, and about how a curtain separates one realm from another. The man in Valdes' painting, for example, draws back a curtain to reveal the future. Every Touch is not as easily put into words as the vanitas paintings, but it can inspire thoughts about many of the same ideas: seasons that come and go, how beauty and sadness are intertwined, the ceremonies that mark life's passing, the idea of one realm opening onto another, the fragility of things. In the end, what we see in Every Touch depends on what we bring to it, and if we approach the task sincerely, there are no wrong answers. Every Touch will never mean for any of us exactly what it means for Hodges, nor should it. An artist's work grows from a lifetime of experiences, thoughts, and emotions; no one else can duplicate them exactly. Works of art hold many meanings. The greatest of them seem to speak anew to each generation and to each attentive observer. The most important thing is that some works of art come to mean something for you, that your own experiences, thoughts, and emotions find a place in them, for then you will have made them live.