Social and Psychological Theories in the depiction of the Wannsee Essay

Social and Psychological Theories in the depiction of the Wannsee meeting in the film Conspiracy - Essay Example "Conspiracy" is a real eye-opener as it opens a whole new load of questions for the viewer. We already know that the Holocaust already happened, but what is really mind-boggling is how is became possible in the first place. How killing 11 million lives could just be a matter of logistics: how much would it cost How to dispose of the bodies And here, we see the machinations of the hands that turn the wheels, so to speak. Now we could try to form an understanding, an attempt to grasp the psychological ruminations of those involved, by explaining their actions through some knows social and psychological principles. For example, what makes it possible for individuals to carry out evil or genocide Whenever a group, with the majority in unison, is involved in a decision-making process, they "tend to stifle dissent because group harmony is the anticipated outcome" (Heffner). In the movie, the men were unanimous in declaring their hatred for Jews. The meeting is also dominated by Reinhard Heydrich, a charismatic man who knows how to manipulate his colleagues, and to stifle any arising objection. Wilhelm Kritzinger, who expressed doubts on the matter of extermination based on moral grounds was merely deprecated. The few men who tried to argue against extreme policies eventually give way to the more dominant consensus. "When we all agree, and are happy with that agreement, we typically do not want to hear opposing arguments" (Heffner). This phenomenon is called "group think" and many aspects of the conference, including the characters' behaviors display this. Here, the individual's mind takes a back seat and the "group mind" takes over. Meanwhile, the principle of Group Polarization happens when a group tends to takes an "extreme position". Fuelling each others' beliefs, they become so hyped-up by and convinced of their positions, that they end up hastily agreeing to an idea without considering other aspects of the debate (Heffner). An example of this happened when the talk of "relocation" to Madagascar turns to "extermination" or the "final solution" while the officials express their hate of and regard for sub-humanity of Jews. Aside from the Holocaust, some examples of "group think" taken to the extremes due to Group Polarization include "lynch mobs, actions of the Ku Klux Klan, discrimination among hate groups, and mass riots" (Heffner). Also, the Nazi officials do not look particularly menacing or murderous, but as a whole, they have managed to put a stamp to the death certificate of an entire race. Fundamentally, the decision theory, "a body of knowledge and related analytical techniques of different degrees o f formality designed to help a decision maker choose among a set of alternatives in light of their possible consequences" ("Decision Theory") which governs groups including that of the Wannsee meeting, is that of "group think" and Group Polarization. It could also be noted that the officers never used the words "killing" or "murder", merely "evacuation" in labor camps with harsh conditions designed for slow and eventual death, those who will survive will be "treated accordingly". This kind of masquerading serves to desensitize them of the reality of what they are actually doing.

Increasing investment attractiveness of CIS countries Research Paper

Increasing investment attractiveness of CIS countries - Research Paper Example As compared to the Baltic and Eastern European nations, the CIS countries experience serious economic crisis and gradual growth in restructuring the productive framework in the respective countries; resulting in the need for increased investments (Shiellis, 2003). The significance of the investments can extend to close the investment gap because of insufficient savings. The external factors that are increased investments include the transfer of managerial skills, technology, processing of information, and a proficient knowledge of sales and marketing.The dissolution of central planning created a market of 100 million consumers in Eastern Europe and 300 million in the successor countries to the USSR. Phyllis says that among the CIS, Russia is having the highest population and several states advocated to embrace the policy of free trade, which permitted imported commodities to meet the local demand. As a result, the imported commodities become wide during the first years of change as t he people used their savings in buying the western goods and services. Due to the economic crisis and escalating inflation rate immediately after the transition, there was a significant decrease in the savings and lowered incomes resulting in the inability for the local consumers to purchase the western products. On the contrary, foreign investors in Eastern Europe privatized the firms from the government and already began to restructure the industries with the objective of increasing the local production.

Condition monitoring, fault diagnosis, fault classification or fiding Dissertation

Condition monitoring, fault diagnosis, fault classification or fiding fault for machenary - Dissertation Example In recent years, there has been a growing trend to introduce more intelligent methods in order to deal with condition monitoring and fault classification for machines (Mills, 2010). The realm of artificial intelligence and its application may be infant as yet but still involves the application of various methods and techniques for achieving desired ends. The current research will look into various artificial intelligence methods that have been applied to the condition monitoring and fault diagnosis for a reciprocating air compressor based on emerging and already developed methods and techniques. 1.2 Artificial IntelligenCe Based Methods It is possible to solicit problems in plant machinery using vibration signals that can be processed to reveal a multitude of information relating to the machine and its components as well as their operation (Wang & Chen, 2011). Given that condition monitoring and diagnosis relies largely on vibration feature analysis, it is important to extract the vi bration signals at every state change that the machine experiences (Lin & Qu, 2000) (Wang & Chen, 2007). Extracting vibration features can often be difficult since the measured vibration patterns tend to contain a large amount of noise that must be filtered out (Wang & Chen, 2011). ... The application of these techniques would allow for both pattern recognition as well as automated fault diagnosis. A number of different researches have been carried out in order to deal with condition monitoring and fault diagnosis of plant machinery that relies on discriminating fault types from a common pool of fault types based on the available vibration data. Theoretically, such an approach may make a lot of sense but practical application of such techniques is hindered by ambiguous diagnosis problems. It is possible that first layer symptoms may be similar for a number of different faults and it is also possible that first layer symptoms may have similar values in different states. The situation is complicated by the fact that there are no definite relationships between symptoms and fault types for plant machinery. The added complexity of plant machinery and the various interacting components means that the overall fault states are enormous to say the least. It is not possible to rely on one or on a number of different symptom parameters that could be utilised to track down faults, supposing that each fault occurs independent of others. This situation is complicated all the more when faults tend to occur simultaneously and the application of theoretical frameworks tends to fail altogether or in large part (Mitoma et al., 2008) (Wang & Chen, 2008). A number of different methods and techniques have been applied in recent researches in order to solicit vibration feature extraction and analysis for accurate and reliable condition monitoring and fault diagnosis. These techniques and methods could be classified as (Wang & Chen, 2011): wavelet transform; rough sets; neural networks; sequential fuzzy inference;

Activity Based Costing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Activity Based Costing - Essay Example Currently at Stream International, there is no defined way of recruiting and appointing people. Personnel management and conductance of HR activities at Stream International do not follow a charted procedure. As given in the case data, 34 different people conduct HR activities. Due to this, some of the activities like payroll, training etc. get duplicated. For Stream International, costs of human resources hiring, training, development and even allocation of resources is getting duplicated. Jobs are getting redundant because too many people are hiring individuals without any consideration of specific requirements categorized by departmental needs, roles and skills demanded. Controlling and supervision is also getting haywire because employees are not under single leadership. Also, due to excessive hiring by a number of HR people, roles have become ambiguous. Thus, people have outnumbered actual job duties. If number of recruiters at Stream International is large and undefined, recruitment will not be efficient because views and opinions will bound to clash and appropriate candidate would be difficult to find who can fulfill wishes of all. As such, first of all, there has to be made a central recruitment team or division which carefully analyzes manpower requirements of divisions, skills demanded and then hires accordingly. Re-engineering the recruitment process has to be undertaken. While doing so, departmental (Leitner 2004:3) dependencies have to be taken into account. For example, if an employee can undertake two activities of two different divisions, there is no need to hire two separate individuals for both the activities. By identifying people requirements based on departments, salaries, bonuses, incentives, training and development and other expenses can be easily apportioned to the respective business so that costs and

Increasing investment attractiveness of CIS countries Research Paper

Increasing investment attractiveness of CIS countries - Research Paper Example As compared to the Baltic and Eastern European nations, the CIS countries experience serious economic crisis and gradual growth in restructuring the productive framework in the respective countries; resulting in the need for increased investments (Shiellis, 2003). The significance of the investments can extend to close the investment gap because of insufficient savings. The external factors that are increased investments include the transfer of managerial skills, technology, processing of information, and a proficient knowledge of sales and marketing.The dissolution of central planning created a market of 100 million consumers in Eastern Europe and 300 million in the successor countries to the USSR. Phyllis says that among the CIS, Russia is having the highest population and several states advocated to embrace the policy of free trade, which permitted imported commodities to meet the local demand. As a result, the imported commodities become wide during the first years of change as t he people used their savings in buying the western goods and services. Due to the economic crisis and escalating inflation rate immediately after the transition, there was a significant decrease in the savings and lowered incomes resulting in the inability for the local consumers to purchase the western products. On the contrary, foreign investors in Eastern Europe privatized the firms from the government and already began to restructure the industries with the objective of increasing the local production.

Activity Based Costing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Activity Based Costing - Essay Example Currently at Stream International, there is no defined way of recruiting and appointing people. Personnel management and conductance of HR activities at Stream International do not follow a charted procedure. As given in the case data, 34 different people conduct HR activities. Due to this, some of the activities like payroll, training etc. get duplicated. For Stream International, costs of human resources hiring, training, development and even allocation of resources is getting duplicated. Jobs are getting redundant because too many people are hiring individuals without any consideration of specific requirements categorized by departmental needs, roles and skills demanded. Controlling and supervision is also getting haywire because employees are not under single leadership. Also, due to excessive hiring by a number of HR people, roles have become ambiguous. Thus, people have outnumbered actual job duties. If number of recruiters at Stream International is large and undefined, recruitment will not be efficient because views and opinions will bound to clash and appropriate candidate would be difficult to find who can fulfill wishes of all. As such, first of all, there has to be made a central recruitment team or division which carefully analyzes manpower requirements of divisions, skills demanded and then hires accordingly. Re-engineering the recruitment process has to be undertaken. While doing so, departmental (Leitner 2004:3) dependencies have to be taken into account. For example, if an employee can undertake two activities of two different divisions, there is no need to hire two separate individuals for both the activities. By identifying people requirements based on departments, salaries, bonuses, incentives, training and development and other expenses can be easily apportioned to the respective business so that costs and

Air Pollution Essay Example for Free

Air Pollution Essay The use of automobiles in our society today is as normal as waking up every morning and taking a shower. We are so dependent on the use of automobiles that we could not see ourselves without them, but we might have to start to consider one day not using them. Driving a car is the single most polluting thing that most of us does today or may be this might not be so true anymore. Now this is not a new problem, we have been discussing automobiles causing air pollution for decades, but what is new is the amount of air pollution that is being formed from our automobiles. Since air pollution from automobiles is rapidly increasing people need to learn what we have done in the past to try and change it, what is coming out of our automobiles, have we done all we can to prevent it, or can we do more to help preserve our planet. Now people have been talking about cars and air pollution for years and years, and it may seem as if we are still in the same place we were decades ago, but what most do not know is that we have actually tried and accomplished to decrease it. In 1988 The Clean Air Act was passed. It was to decrease emission levels of Carbon Monoxide and other gases, imposes regulation onto businesses to meet certain limits of pollution output for the products they develop. Within the next several years, the Act’s primary goals were to: 1. Decrease automobile pollution by 60% 2. Decrease industrial plant toxic air emissions by 90%; 3. Supply cleaner gasoline in already –polluted cities; 4. Decrease sulfur dioxide (acid rain) emissions from coal;-burning electrical plants by 50%. In order to meet these limits, automobile manufactures had to try to make significant developments to decrease emissions and increase fuel-efficiency. They are still striving to produce vehicles with emission levels ranging from half the current average car level to zero emissions (Andrew Waterman). Cars do not just sit there on the road and cause air pollution; the emissions from the car while it is running cause it. The problem is, is that we resort to using gasoline for our source of power. When we ordinary gasoline ,which is what we all use when we will up our gas tanks, we are burning cheap, ordinary gasoline that gives off three primary pollutants : Hydrocarbons (HC), Carbon Monoxide(CO), and Nitrogen oxides (NO). These products contribute mostly to smog and the ozone in cities such as Los Angeles, California (Andrew Waterman). Now ozone is not in fuels and/or is it a by-product of combustion, it is formed in the atmosphere through a complex set of chemical reactions involving hydrocarbons (HC), oxides of nitrogen, and sunlight. In typical urban areas (like Los Angeles) at least half of those pollutants come from cars, buses, and trucks. This is because it is so populated so the use of automobiles much higher than most other cities, and the cause of that is the city being covered in smog more than 70% of the time (Michael Bright). Now when most people hear the word hydrocarbon, or carbon monoxide, many would say that they do not know what they are or consist of. This is a problem because this is the stuff that is coming out of our Mercedes-Benz, BMWs, and trucks since we all drive those these days. Now hydrocarbon is any of numerous organic compounds, such as benzene and methane that contains only carbon and hydrogen. Now it doesn’t seem like it would be bad, but carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, highly poisonous gas, CO, formed by the incomplete combustion of carbon or a carbonaceous material, such as gasoline. And Nitrogen Oxides are NOx Chemical compounds of nitrogen and oxygen; produced primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels, they contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone. Now these three chemicals are the main chemicals that are causing air pollution and the word â€Å"poisonous gas† doesn’t sound like its helping our problem (Answers. com Those three harsh chemicals are not all that effect air pollution, smog is also another huge one. Smog’s unpleasant properties result from the irradiation by sunlight of hydrocarbons caused primarily by unburned gasoline emitted by automobiles and other combustion sources. Smog is created by burning coal and heavy oil that contain sulfur impurities in automobiles, and forms of transportation. The smog consists mostly of a mixture of sulfur dioxide and fog. Suspended droplets of sulfuric acid are formed from some of the sulfur dioxide, and a variety of suspended solid particles. This smog is common during the winter in cities that are highly populated because the use of automobiles is a lot higher than other cities (answers. com) when major cites burned large amounts of heavy oil without control of the output, large-0scale problems were witnessed such as in 1952, even thought it was over 50 years ago, we still have problems due to it, in London, England 4,000 people died. They died as a result of that form of fog A. K. A Smog. Now the problem is better today, heavy oil is burned only in large boilers and with reasonably good control and/or tall smokestacks so that industrial smog is less of a problem, but some major countries still burn large quantities of oil without using adequate controls (Tom Socha). Since we know what is coming out of our automobiles, we should also know that it is affecting our schools, elementary, middle and even high schools, especially those near highways even more. One in three U. S. public schools is in the â€Å"air pollution danger zone†. 30% of American public schools are within 400 meters, or a quarter mile, of major highways that consistently serve as main truck and traffic routes. The worst part about this study is that it is believed to be the first study of highly populated highways next to schools ever. This basically means that our children have been going to school where air pollution is at its highest, and no one has noticed or done anything about this problem. Major roads play an important role in the economy, but we need to strike a balance between economic and health considerations as we break ground on new areas. † It is almost as if no matter how we try to improve emissions coming out of automobiles, it doesn’t matter because populations keep growing, and major highways keep getting built (Amanda Harper). With the population increase daily and the growth of major highways taking place daily it is hard to imagine that air pollution from automobiles could be decreased. What most do not realize is that it has and is still decreasing. Today’s vehicles are 80 to 99 percent cleaner per mile that vehicles produced in the late 1960’s, even though since 1970, the number of vehicle miles traveled nationwide has increased by 159 percent, from 1. 1 trillion in 1970 to 2. 87 trillion in 2002 ( clean air program reports). Industries have been making significant improvements compared to the 1960’s, when no attempt was made to limit automotive air pollution before that. Even though the number of automobiles on the road is increasing by the year, still the emissions from cars have decreased the production of air pollution. Hydrocarbon emissions are down almost 98% from the 1960’s levels, while Carbon monoxide levels are down 96%, and nitrogen oxides are down 90%. Smog and air qualities levels are changing for the better in most major cities, but not 100%. The pollution from automobiles is actually coming from only a small group of â€Å"grossly polluting†, newer cars, however, as about 10% of cars on the roes are accounting for 50% of all harmful emissions put out by automobiles. Studies now show that, in fact, automobiles are becoming less of the major contributor to air pollution, but yet are still causing a lot of it (Andrew waterman). Though air pollution from cars has decreased by a lot over the last couple of decades, there are still things we can do to decrease it even more. Further exhaust emission controls for vehicles are approaching the limit of technology, and the only way to ensure healthy air is to markedly reduce our use of cars or to switch to cleaner fuels. Some fuels inherently cleaner than gasoline because they emit less nitrogen oxides or hydrocarbons that are less likely to react in the atmosphere to a form of ozone. These fuels include alcohols, electricity, natural gas, and liquid petroleum (propane). Basic changes in the composition of gasoline itself also can reduce emissions of most air toxics. Unless we dramatically reduce the amount of pollution that newer vehicles emit in actual use or drastically cut back on the amount we drive them, smog free is will continue to be non-existent in major cities (Michael bright). At the same time, with government legislation, increasing knowledge of the bigger picture, and the ability to profit from shifts toward less pollution, the harmful effects of emissions could/ will eventually be abandoned due to people wanting cleaner, safer, and more efficient means of gaining energy from nature (Andrew waterman). By every day that passes, automobiles pollute the air, may be not as much as they did decades ago, but they still do. The three major pollutants are hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, which are major reasons as to why air pollution is accruing. Now unless we completely change our form of gasoline or just stop using automobiles than we will keep having air pollution affects us. We now know what we have done in the past to try and change it, what is coming out of our automobiles, have we done all we can to prevent it, and the answer is that we have not done all we can to prevent it, because it we did than there would be no reason to talk about air pollution from automobiles because it would be known existent.