The opening case deals with unique compensation at Wegmans. Students can utilize the book and other sources for more in-depth research to answer the case ending questions. The paper should be 2-3 pages not including the title and reference page. Please post papers before 11:55 pm on the due date.

Please read and answer the questions in APA formatting. Do not write the questions and the provided the response under. Incorporate the questions and answers in the paper. The paper needs to reflect the junior/senior level of the class.

Unique Compensation at Wegmans
If you’re looking for the best Parmesan cheese for your chicken parmigiana recipe, you might try Wegmans, especially if you happen to live in the vicinity of Pittsford, New York. Cheese department manager Carol Kent will be happy to recommend the best brand because her job calls for knowing cheese as well as managing some 20 subordinates. Kent is a knowledgeable employee, and Wegmans sees that as a key asset. Specifically, Wegmans believes that its employees are more knowledgeable than are the employees of its competitors.

Wegmans Food Markets, a family-owned East Coast chain with more than 80 outlets in six states, prides itself on its commitment to customers, and it shows. It consistently ranks near the top of the annual Consumer Reports survey of the best national and regional grocery stores. But commitment to customers is only half of Wegmans’ overall strategy, which calls for reaching its customers through its employees. “How do we differentiate ourselves?” asks Danny Wegman, who then proceeds to answer his own question: “If we can sell products that require knowledge in terms of how you use them, that’s our strategy. Anything that requires knowledge and service gives us a reason to be.” That’s the logic behind one of Kent’s recent assignments—one which she understandably regards as a perk. Wegmans sent her to Italy to conduct a personal study of Italian cheese. “We sat with the families” that make the cheeses, she recalls, “broke bread with them. It helped me understand that we’re not just selling a piece of cheese. We’re selling a tradition, a quality.”

Kent and the employees in her department also enjoy the best benefits package in the industry, including fully paid health insurance. And, that includes part-timers, who make up about two-thirds of the company’s workforce of more than 37,000. In part, the strategy of extending benefits to this large segment of the labor force is intended to make sure that stores have enough good workers for crucial peak periods, but there’s no denying that the costs of employee-friendly policies can mount up. At 15–17 percent of sales, for example, Wegmans’ labor costs are well above the 12 percent figure for most supermarkets. But according to one company HR executive, holding down labor costs isn’t necessarily a strategic priority: “We would have stopped offering free health insurance [to part-timers] a long time ago,” she admits, “if we tried to justify the costs.”

Besides, employee turnover at Wegmans is about 6 percent—a mere fraction of an industry average that hovers around 19 percent (and can approach 100 percent for part-timers). And, this is an industry in which total turnover costs have been known to outstrip total annual profits by 40 percent. Wegmans employees tend to be knowledgeable because about 20 percent of them have been with the company for years, and many have logged at least a quarter century. Says one 19-year-old college student who works at an upstate New York Wegmans while pursuing a career as a high school history teacher, “I love this place. If teaching doesn’t work out, I would so totally work at Wegmans.” Edward McLaughlin, who directs the Food Industry Management Program at Cornell University, understands this sort of attitude: “When you’re a 16-year-old kid, the last thing you want to do is wear a geeky shirt and work for a supermarket,” but at Wegmans, he explains, “it’s a badge of honor. You’re not a geeky cashier. You’re part of the social fabric.”

“We would have stopped offering free health insurance [to part-timers] a long time ago,” she admits, “if we tried to justify the costs.”Footnote

— WEGMANS HR MANAGER
Wegmans usually ranks high on Fortune magazine’s annual list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. “It says that we’re doing something right,” says a company spokesperson, “and that there’s no better way to take care of our customers than to be a great place for our employees to work.” In addition to its health-care package, Wegmans has been cited for such perks as fitness center discounts, compressed work weeks, telecommuting, and domestic partner benefits, which extend to same-sex partners.

Finally, under the company’s Employee Scholarship Program, full-time workers can receive up to $2,200 a year for 4 years and part-timers up to $1,500. Since its inception in 1984, the program has handed out $80 million in scholarships to more than 24,000 employees. Like most Wegman policies, this one combines employee outreach with long-term corporate strategy: “This program has made a real difference in the lives of many young people,” says President Colleen Wegman, who adds that it’s also “one of the reasons we’ve been able to attract the best and the brightest to work at Wegmans.”

Granted, Wegmans, which has remained in family hands since its founding in 1915, has an advantage in being as generous with its resources as its family of top executives wants to be. It doesn’t have to do everything with quarterly profits in mind, and the firm likes to point out that taking care of its employees is a long-standing priority. Profit sharing and fully funded medical coverage were introduced in 1950 by Robert Wegman, son and nephew of brothers Walter and John, respectively, who opened the firm’s original flagship store in Rochester, New York, in 1930. Why did Robert Wegman make such generous gestures to his employees way back then? “Because,” he says simply, “I was no different from them.”

Think It Over
Why does Wegman’s approach to compensation seem to work so well?

In your opinion, why don’t other grocery chains use the same compensation model as Wegman’s?

Chapter Review 9
Learning Objectives/Key Terms/Key Legislation
9-1
Describe the basic issues involved in developing a compensation strategy.
Compensation and benefit programs have several fundamental purposes and objectives. One fundamental purpose is to provide an adequate and appropriate reward system for employees so that they feel valued and worthwhile as organizational members and representatives. Firms, however, can adopt one of three basic strategies when it comes to compensation: pay above-market compensation rates, pay at-market compensation rates, or pay below-market compensation rates. Several different factors contribute to the compensation strategy that a firm develops. The critical source of information that many organizations use in developing compensation strategies is pay surveys.

Compensation
Benefits
Internal equity
External equity
Pay surveys
Wages
Salary
maturity curve
9-2
Discuss how organizations develop a wage and salary structure.
After an overall strategy has been chosen, human resource (HR) managers must determine what any given job should be paid. The starting point in this effort is job evaluation, which is a method for determining the relative value or worth of a job to the organization so that individuals who perform that job can be compensated adequately and appropriately. Several job evaluation techniques and methods have been established, although alternative approaches to compensation such as pay for knowledge and skill-based pay are increasingly popular.

Job evaluation
classification system
point system
point manual
factor-comparison method
Pay for knowledge
Skill-based pay
9-3
Identify and describe the basic issues involved in wage and salary administration.
Continued administration of the wage and salary structure in an organization requires consideration of how to deal with such things as pay secrecy and general market conditions, including those resulting in pay compression.

Wage and salary administration
Pay secrecy
Pay compression
pay inversion
9-4
Discuss the basic considerations in understanding benefit programs.
Benefits take up an ever-larger portion of employers’ total compensation costs. Organizations sustain these costs because they believe that competitive benefits packages attract better applicants and help the company retain the employees they have already hired. Although benefits costs are high in the United States, levels of mandated benefits are much higher in Europe and elsewhere. The kinds of benefits that are attractive or appropriate to employees around the world differ considerably. Several laws provide guidelines for how benefits plans should be administered.

9-5
Identify and describe mandated benefits.
Additional laws mandate that all employees must have certain benefits such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. In addition, many organizations offer optional protection plans such as health and dental insurance coverage and private pension plans. The recent passage of the Affordable Care Act has, in essence, made health insurance a mandated benefit as well.

Unemployment insurance
Social Security
Workers’ compensation
9-6
Identify and describe nonmandated benefits.
Paid time off is another important benefit. The most common forms of paid time off are vacation time, holidays, religious days, sick leave, and personal time. This benefit, in particular, varies widely from country to country. Organizations are also becoming more likely to offer benefits in areas such as wellness programs, child care, elder care, and employee assistance programs (EAPs). Finally, some benefits provided by organizations are services and perks that the employee would otherwise have to pay for.

Private pension plans
Defined benefit plans
Defined contribution plans
Wellness programs
Cafeteria-style benefits plans
9-7
Discuss contemporary issues in compensation and benefits.
Because needs and preferences differ, some organizations offer cafeteria-style benefits plans in which the employee gets to pick and choose the benefits desired. These programs are expensive to run, but they result in employees getting exactly what they want, which makes the benefits program more cost-effective. Executive compensation issues have attracted considerable attention in recent years. This attention was increased when executives in the financial sector received substantial bonuses even after their firms received large infusions of government bail-out funds in 2009. There are also numerous ongoing legal issues that confront managers as they manage their organizations’ compensation and benefits programs. Given the enormous cost of compensation and benefits packages to an organization, it is clearly important that managers also carefully assess the advantages of those packages to the organization. In other words, they need to assess the effectiveness of the firm’s compensation structure to ensure that organizational and employee interests are optimized.

Vesting rights
Key Legislation
Affordable Care Act of 2010

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) guarantees a basic minimum payment that employees could expect to be paid upon retirement.

The Equal Pay Act of 1962 states that men and women who perform essentially the same job must be paid the same.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) established a minimum hourly wage for jobs and further stipulated that wages for hourly workers must be paid at a rate of 1.5 times the normal rate for work in excess of 40 hours per week.

The Social Security Act of 1935, among other things, provides social welfare and social insurance coverage for retired workers.

Key Points for Future Managers

Critical strategic decisions relate to determining what should be paid to employees and what that rate should be relative to market rates.

The decision concerning what to pay employees for is probably the most critical, and new pay-for-knowledge and skill-based pay systems advocate paying employees for what they know rather than what they do.

All decisions to pay wages and salaries at rates below, above, or at the going market rate should be made with full knowledge of the implications of each decision.

Indirect compensation and benefits represent a large portion of total compensation costs. Many of the benefits are required by law; others (e.g., vacations and medical insurance) have become such a strong part of employee expectations that they cannot easily be eliminated.

Cafeteria-style benefits plans may allow the company to spend its benefits dollars so that the plan has the greatest impact on employee satisfaction, although these plans have some disadvantages.

Executive compensation and the legal context of compensation and benefits are important issues that affect businesses.

Communication is a key part of the indirect compensation strategy, but the link between indirect compensation and organizational-level outcomes is unclear.

The Advocacy Project is to be submitted along with a detailed summary of the project; this is at least 6–7 pages in length. The Advocacy Project must include the following:

Introduction: Must include a summary of the issues and a clear thesis statement
Rationale for the mode of choice: This must include the rationale for the mode of choice detailing why the issue is relevant to public policy.
Include the elements of your outline headings: Each heading must be supported with research, facts, strategies, etc. The following outline would be an example (http://www.ala.org/advocacy/sites/ala.org.advocacy/files/content/advleg/advocacyinstitute/Advocacy%20Action%20Plan%20-%20revised%2001-09.pdf):
Setting your goals
Strategies for developing your message
Strategies to get the message out
Team building
Putting it all together
Conclusion: offers a good summary of issues treated in the paper and offers practical application.
References

Consider this scenario: Last night, a male in his early 20s was reported missing along a local body of water, a pond, river, lake, or ocean, in your jurisdiction after a night out with friends at a local bar. There is no eyewitness information about his disappearance, but a shoe resembling what he was wearing was spotted this morning on the shore of the waterway.
The city manager, police chief, local media, and the missing man’s family are putting more and more pressure on fire/rescue to call in divers to search for the missing man.
After reviewing this scenario, explain types of risk management and mitigation and how they might impact decisions made concerning major issues, potential solutions, and recommendations for the given situation. Your analysis must be a minimum of two pages in length. A minimum of one supporting source is required, which can include your textbook. Use APA style when writing your responses. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; quoted or paraphrased material must have accompanying in-text citations.

Using the summary below write a straight online news story by using the appropriate structure, content, and organization.

The story should contain:

• Give your story a headline, byline, dateline.
• Use an inverted Pyramid Structure.
• Provide an effective lead.
• Attribute / quote as appropriate.
• Provide background information.
• Use AP style guide.
• Use Preparation which includes: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, So what.

It’s another statistical study, one that surprised researchers. For years, researchers thought that advanced education translated into greater marriage stability. Then they discovered that marital disruption is greater among more highly educated women than any other group (except those who haven’t graduated from high school). Now a sociologist at The Ohio State University has conducted a new study which explains some of the reasons why women with graduate degrees are more likely to be graduated from their marriages as well. The key fact seems to be timing. Women who married early, before they began graduate school, are more likely to have established traditional family roles which they find difficult to change. When the wife goes back to school and no longer wants to handle most of the housework, it causes resentment on the part of the husband. If the husband refuses to pitch in and do his share, it creates tension. Such unhappiness on both sides often leads to divorce. Indeed, a third of the women who began graduate school after they were married ended up separated or divorced. By comparison, only 15.6 percent of those who married after they had finished an advanced degree ended up divorced or separated. They seem more likely to find husbands supportive of their educational goals.

Rubric for Cause and Effect Essay

Organization

Introduction: Engage the reader, consider inverted triangle method

____Hook/Catchy first sentence

____Getting the reader warmed up to topic by introducing the relevance of cause and effect topic or chain reactions.

____A detailed thesis statement (10-15 points off for no thesis statement)

_____Thesis statement that lays an outline for the paper.

_____Body paragraphs that are connected to thesis statement

_____Thesis is detailed in laying out the cause and effect relationship

_____ Your essay should have an argumentative tone in that you are persuading us that these factors are in fact connected.

 

Two Options for Body of Essay: Three to four body paragraphs outlining a cause and effect relationship.  You should have a minimum of 3 body paragraphs outlining in detail specific causes and/or effects.  You can choose between two different formats for the body paragraphs:

 

• Option #1—2 or more causes and one effect: In looking at the cause and effect relationship we can search for the causes of a particular effect. For instance, if you wanted to search for the causes of poverty, this option would put poverty as the effect.  And then you would write about the causes of poverty: Cause 1(BP#1): unemployment rate is high  Cause 2(BP#2) : lack of motivation  Effect (BP#3): poverty.  In this scenario you would need two causes (and you could add on a third if you wanted) but you would have only ONE effect.
• Option #2: 1 cause and 2 or more effects: The other option you might think about is looking at the effects of a particular cause. If we were to look at the effects of a person being a narcissist, we could look at multiple negative effects.  If you were to do this, it would look like this: Cause (BP#1): narcissism, Effect 1(BP#2): Strained relationships, Effect 2 (BP#3): Abuse of others.  .  In this scenario you would need  ONE cause and have two or more effects.
• You cannot have two causes and two effects because we are trying to isolate one particular thing and argue for that specific relationship.

 

Body Paragraph 1:  Cause

____Uses a clear topic sentence that gives a reader an idea of what this paragraph is about.

____Identifies cause that relates to main topic of discussion.

____Briefly defines cause and the positive and negative outcomes that it is connected with.

____ If you are doing Option #1, this paragraph should be showing the reader how this cause is connected to the effect, which is named in BP3

____ If you are doing Option #2, this paragraph should be setting up your argument that this cause has serious effects on other people which will be named in BP2 and BP3.

____Informs reader of particular effect with quotes from credible sources. Relates element/characteristic to primary concept

____Uses at least one direct quote.

____Use in source citations.

____Explains direct quote(s) in a way that relates to main idea of paragraph.

____Uses objective tone and does not use “I” or “In my opinion

Body Paragraph 2:  Cause or Effect

____Uses a clear topic sentence that gives a reader an idea of what this paragraph is about.

____Identifies cause or effect that relates to main topic of discussion.

____Depending on which method you are doing, will depend on what this paragraph is about.  If you are doing Option 1, this will be a cause paragraph.  If you are doing Option 2, this will be an effect paragraph.

____Informs reader of particular cause or effect with quotes from credible sources. Relates element/characteristic to primary relationship.

____Uses at least one direct quote.

____Use in source citations.

____Explains direct quote(s) in a way that relates to main idea of paragraph.

____Uses objective tone and does not use “I” or “In my opinion”

 

Body Paragraph 3:  Effect

____Uses a clear topic sentence that gives a reader an idea of what this paragraph is about.

____Identifies effect that relates to main topic of discussion.

____Connects effects to previously mentioned causes.

____Informs reader of particular effect with quotes from credible sources. Relates element/characteristic to primary concept

____Uses at least one direct quote.

____Use in source citations.

____Explains direct quote(s) in a way that relates to main idea of paragraph.

____Uses objective tone and does not use “I” or “In my opinion”

 

Body Paragraph 4: Your body paragraphs should already be persuading your reader that your cause and effect relationship is legitimate.   This essay should attempt to firmly persuade the reader that this is a real cause and effect relationship.   This paragraph can explain the short-term and long term consequences of this “effect”  Your paragraphs 2-4 should not be offering solutions to this problem.  However if you did want to make recommendations on what people can do to stop a particular problem, this is the paragraph you can do that in.  This paragraph can offer solutions to the cause/effect relationship.

 

 

Conclusion:

­­____Restates main aspects of this cause and effect relationship to persuade reader of this relationship

____Reminds reader why this cause and effect relationship matters to them in 2015.  Confidently stresses the cultural importance/impact of this concept.  Answer this: So what? How does this relate to my life practically?

____ Considers challenging the reader to take personal action or to change their mind in relation to this topic.

____ At least 4-5 sentences long.

____ Ends with a memorable last line or call to action.

 

 

General Details

 

____3 and 1/2 pages long(minimum).  (Not including Sources Cited page/ 5 points off for every ½ page missing)

____Includes and Uses In Source Citations correctly for all direct quotes (March 2)

_____ Uses at least 4 different sources in this essay.

____ At least 5 quotes from credible sources (minimum).

____Clarity in language—–if I have to read a sentence 3 times, then it is unclear and needs to be reworded.  Grammar exists to make our ideas accessible to others.

____5-6 paragraphs

____Sources Cited page includes correct citation of each article

____MLA format

____Essay includes title

____Essay “flows” smoothly and uses transitions.

____Essay uses a variety of language and display a sense of cohesive purpose.

____Your MLA works cited page will be worth at least 10 points on this essay—–make it good.

Essay strives to make accurate statements as opposed to generalizations about concept.  Back up your statements with a quote, evidence or statistic.

____Don’t end a paragraph with a quote.  Always end with your narration.

____Strive to show variety in language, show differences and similarities in language that isn’t cliché or generalized. AKA Avoid the word interesting and phrase things differently throughout

 

 

 

• In your introduction paragraph, consider the following questions as your hook: “Why does ____________ exist?” or “How did Americans in 2016 end up doing __________?”  “How do people become creative?”  “Why are some people more creative than others?” You want to engage your readers ideas of how and why for the cause and effect essay from the beginning.  Your purpose will be to give a presentation as to why something exists or what the effects of a certain event is.
• When you write a good essay, the reader forgets he or she is reading. They want to keep reading.  You don’t want to waste your reader’s time.  An essay that allows the reader to stop thinking and just read are  informative, interesting and clear.  Find ways to do these three things, so they will be fully engaged.
• Find ways to give relevance to why studying your concept matters.
• Ask yourself after every paragraph “So what? Why does this matter?” Make sure that you are making sense of the facts you are giving.
• Consider what people in your audience might believe that your cause and effect relationship is not real. Some people might think one of your causes is not a factor in your chosen negative outcome.  How will you persuade them that this is a real cause and effect relationship?
• Qualifying statements: Contrasting the good and the bad of a certain idea without overstating or condemning the idea. This might help:  http://spot.pcc.edu/~mdembrow/QUALIFYINGStatements.htm

 

Assignment Brief
UK Sport is the lead Government agency for major sporting events at the UK
Level. They ensure that the UK is successful in bids to stage a range of the world’s
biggest international sporting events. UK Sport and the FA are now driving a
strategy forward to host the 2021 UEFA European Women’s Championship in
England. They believe this will grow women’s football in England and raise the
profile and popularity of the women’s game at all levels.
The bid is in the early stages of development, with Newcastle and Sunderland
selected as potential Cities to host the group stages of the tournament before the
final is hosted at Wembley Stadium in London.
You have been asked to construct a report for Borough Councillors from
Newcastle and Sunderland to help ease their concerns about hosting the event.
The report should detail the concept of global sports mega events and describe
the associated bidding processes. The stakeholders involved in such events should
be identified. The challenges, impacts and benefits that Newcastle and
Sunderland could expect from staging such an event should be critically explored.
The report should be aimed at Borough Councillors who have no specific
expertise in this area.
Instructions:
• The word limit is 1,800 words (10%+/-) (but excluding the Reference
List).
• This is an individual assessment. This assessment should be submitted
electronically through EMA on BREO. Assessments must be submitted by
10am.
• When submitting your work via EMA it is essential that you use your
student ID number as the title of your work (NOT your name).
• You will have to demonstrate good report writing skills, evidence of
extensive reading using library sources, core books, academic journals and
other reports and relevant material from a variety of sources including the
internet if necessary.
Structure of the report
o Executive summary: Summarise the whole report and the key themes.
o Contents page:
o Introduction: Introduce the UEFA European Women’s Championship and the
report as a whole
o Main Body: This section should cover the following areas;
1. Introduce and explain what makes a global sports mega-event, and
whether the UEFA European Women’s Championship fits this
description.
2. Provide advice on the bidding process for hosting global sports megaevents
– use your wider knowledge and understanding of such processes,
for example for the Olympics or FIFA World Cup.
3. Discuss the associated stakeholders who would be involved in this event
and explain their interests
4. An outline of the challenges of staging the event if the bid were to be
successful
5. An outline of the potential impacts and benefits of staging the event if the
bid were to be successful
o Conclusion: Conclude the report.
o Reference List:
• Referencing and bibliography (where applicable) is essential. A minimum
of 15 referenced academic sources is required.
• This coursework is subject to University Regulations, attention is
particularly drawn to the regulations on late submission, CAAS and
plagiarism.
• Coursework should be properly referenced using the Harvard Referencing
System and should include a Reference List. Students should note that
correct referencing and the production of a Reference List are part of the
assessment criteria.
Learning Outcomes:
Demonstrate the following knowledge and understanding;
• Critically analyse the factors which influence the development of global
sport events, and the key organisational processes required for their
successful staging.
Demonstrate the following skills and abilities
• Independently explore, construct and evaluate complex frameworks
underpinning core factors of global sport events in different contexts, and
propose prospects for the future of such events.

it should be 5 paragraphg essay . and be sure that you use techniques of persuasion.

Documentary Film Response: Crips and Bloods:Made in America

After watching the documentary, write an informative personal response (5 paragraphs) based on the techniques of persuasion used by the filmmaker (at least use 3 techniques – Hyperbole, world choice, Example, Repetition ). Use specific
examples from the film to support each technique chosen.

Structure:
Paragraph 1- Introduction: This includes your overall opinion of the documentary as a persuasive text
and the three techniques of persuasion chosen.
Paragraph 2-Technique of Persuasion #1 with specific example from the film
Paragraph 3-Technique of Persuasion #2 with specific example from the film
Paragraph 4-Technique of Persuasion #3 with specific example from the film
Paragrap
h 5 -Conclusion

https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.proxy-ub.rug.nl/document/5765904/authors#authors

Here is the article on which the essay have to be based and here are the topics that must be covered in the essay:
– What are the most important conclusions of the authors?
– Do you agree? Argue why you do(n’t)
– Which fields within computing science are involved?
– Which non-ICT fields are involved?
– What ethical/societal issues are involved?
At the end of essay must be indicated the references

More than 21 centuries ago, a fabulous mechanism was created in Greece, a machine that is
capable of indicating exactly the position of the moon and sun, eclipses and lunar phases. But this
fascinating invention would be threw in the sea and its secret drowned for thousands of years.
Then, in 1900, some sponge divers have discovered the wreck of an ancient trading ship near the
small island of Antikythera where fragments of the mechanism were found. Since that period of
time, scientists and researchers are trying to discover the functions and secrets of this device.
After a few months since the machine was transported to the National Archaeological Museum
in Athens, it was opened. The artifact embodied a lump of corroded bronze, consisting of toothed
bronze gear wheels, fact that was very surprising for the researchers, because before this discover
no such metal gear technology existed in the classical world. After lots of examinations, the
interior structure and inscriptions in ancient Greek showed that the mechanism had an
astronomical purpose.
Later in 1905, a German philologist first recognized that it was an astronomical calculator. In
2005, an international big group of scientists have initiated “The Antikythera Mechanism
Research Project” with the objective of discovering all the secrets and purposes of the
Antikythera mechanism by using the imaging and analysis techniques.
The team started the research by creating and developing tools for obtaining clear images of
the Antikythera fragments. “The researchers placed a geodesic hemisphere over each fragment
that had 50 electronic flashbulbs arranged across the internal surface of the hemisphere, fired
off in structure by a computer that controls a digital camera, which takes a picture for each
flash.” Then, the efforts of the team lead to new discovers that permitted a better vision of the
images of the Antikythera mechanism. This knowledge may be included in a big field of the
computing science, called: “Computer graphic”. The computer graphic that gives us the
possibility to see some objects and images from the format of 2D to 3D, involves a lot of
mathematical calculations that were as well a part of the researches that the AMRP made to be
able to see the fragments of the oldest first computer. Every pixel that the scientists could see
in the images, usually required a lot of work. The vision of the images could be possible due to
the polynomial texture maps that were used “to represent these pixels as functions of the
lighting source’s direction to specify red, green and blue on surface components. A PTM fitter
fits a low-order polynomial to lighted samples of the object represented in the image sequence.”
In computer graphics there are numerous transformations that may be used, but the most
shared ones are “translation (moving the object), rotation (spinning it) and scaling (changing its
size). They come up often in graphics because they are applied not only to objects, but to things
like the positions of the camera and lighting sources.” These transformations were applied as
well in the researches of AM and especially when the AMRP used the CT system called: “450-
keV BladeRunner”, which was built for these researches by the X-Tek Systems. “The
system’s microfocus X-ray source has a small but intense beam diameter that allows much
greater spatial resolution than typical CT medical scanners. The detector was a 16-inch Perkin
Elmer flat panel with 2,048 × 2,048 square 400-micron pixels.”
A big field of computing science that is also involved in the researches of the international
team of researchers is the “Algorithms”. The process of decoding the ancient computer required
lots of algorithms created for different purposes, for example the algorithms used to write a
Mathematica program, which appropriate a model with n perfectly spread out teeth. “The
“goodness of fit” parameter was simply the reciprocal of the least-squares deviation between
model and data, but it worked remarkably well. In most cases, a well-defined maximum in the
fit parameter appeared when plotted against n and the angular center displacement using
Mathematica’s Plot3D function. We could establish firm tooth counts, with just a few gears
uncertain by one or two teeth. Some of the definite counts—38, 53, 127—show a deliberate
choice by the maker to include the gears necessary for astronomical ratios. For example, 38 is 2
× 19 for the 19-year cycle of the moon.”
Also the mechanism itself represent a lot of algorithms, due to which the device could work.
The star calendar writings overhead and beneath the central disks represented the dates of
arrival and departure of the stars. The middle display was made of small circles, which purpose
was to represent the Sun, the Moon, and the five planets. The distances between the planets
were indicated by the spheres’ circular positions on indicator pins. The turning pointers crossed
the outside graduated rings, signifying the zodiac and the months of the Egyptian calendar.
This is how, the locations of the figures could be determined at precise times of the year.
The whole mechanism was operated by a turning crank that was located on one of the sides of
the box. This input control the gearing system that is located inside. Built with precision, the
Antikythera mechanism contained 40 gears fluctuating in thickness (from1.0 mm to 2.7 mm.)
Gears were fixed in coats, with the cracks between them measuring only 1.4 mm per gear. This
setting of gears executed the computations that calculated each of the outputs shown on the
dials.
After the mechanism had to execute all these steps that took part of the algorithm of the
device, the calculations could be made, so the ancient computer was able to predict lunar and
solar eclipses, phases of the moon, and the paths of planets and the sun across the zodiac.
Although the Antikythera mechanism was an invention of fabulous ingenuity, it could not
perform such operations that can a modern computer perform. For the “computer” was
impossible for example to store the data. It could not have a hard disk, or a CD. Also, the
mechanism was not able to transmit or to propagate the information. It was calculated, but
could not be transmitted to other devices. All these of course because that was something
unknown to the Greeks at that time. So there we see that the invention does not involve some
ICT fields, which was completely possible, considering the fact that all these fields developed
after the World War II.
After reading the article written by Freeth and Edmunds, we clearly see that they are
completely impressed by the extraordinarily sophisticated mechanical design of the
Antikythera mechanism. One of the authors being a member of the Antikythera Mechanism
Research Project, he was able to describe the entire process of decoding the computer with a
noticed enthusiasm.
The project required a lot of hard work, which included using of “a wide range of computing
techniques, some of which were specialized and sophisticated, and others that were simplicity
personified. The flexibility of a high-level language such as Mathematica allowed relatively
rapid development of statistical analysis programs, letting us do “experimental archaeology” in
an initial assessment of the device’s accuracy in use. Constructing video simulations of the gear
trains and the display dials not only provided superb material for explaining our discoveries to
non-specialists, but also developed our own understanding of the mechanism’s structure. Our
extensive use of so many different kinds of software might not be typical of general
archaeology: our backgrounds are in astrophysics and mathematics, not classical studies or
archaeology. Software use was always likely to be effective because of the artifact’s
mathematical nature.”
At the end of the researches, the team and also the authors concluded that the device could
calculate and display the lunar and solar eclipses, phases of the moon, the paths of planets, the
sun across the zodiac and also the sequence of the Pan-Hellenic games, including the Olympic
Games. But besides all these, the authors concluded that the device could be more complex and
could have much more purposes, thing that is still a mystery for the researchers. The
participants remained fascinated by the ingenuity of the genius that managed to create this
mechanism.
Studying and searching for further information, I managed to read a lot of articles about this
mechanism. Trying to understand the algorithm of the device, took a little time. But basing on
the article and on the researches made by the AMPR, I may conclude that the decoding of the
first computer took a lot of hard work. The scientists had firstly to deal a lot with the imaging
of the mechanism, where they had to develop and build different kind of tools, programs and
systems, such as: X-Tek Systems, polynomial texture maps, and Newtek’s Lightwave 3D film.
After that, they had to establish consistent tooth calculations for all the gears that the
mechanism contained. For that they had to import numerous parallel CT slices into a CAD
program, Nemetschek’s Vectorworks and then to export the data to an Excel database for a
tooth-count examination. Based on the investigations made at the Excel of the gear image, they
have nominated possible connecting runs of teeth and have read them from the database into a
Mathematica program. Besides that, the researches required a lot of time, so as they started in
2005 and ended in 2006.
After all these, I cannot disagree with the authors who say that “the invention is an
extraordinarily sophisticated mechanism that is still an enigma.” The person who could develop
and create the Antikythera Mechanism with all its algorithms and calculations, was truly a
genius.
Analyzing the whole process, we could not forget about some ethical or social issues that
could appear during the researches. One of the ethical issues that I found relevant in this article
is the objectivity.
You should try to avoid favoritism in somewhat feature of your research, including design,
data analysis, understanding, and peer evaluation. For example, you should never recommend
as a peer reviewer somebody you know, or who you have worked with, and you should try to
safeguard that no groups are involuntarily excluded from your research. This also means that
you need to reveal any personal or economic benefits that may affect your exploration.
Reading the article, we can’t really talk about objectivity here, observing the references that
the author makes to other scientists who were involved in the research process. Of course we
can’t say for sure that it represents an interest of the author, but anyway an ethical issue may
be found everywhere. So thinking critically, I may say that this ethical problem could take part
there. Otherwise, even trying very hard to find another issue, I am not able to find it.
References:
1. Computer science field guide (Algorithms, Computer graphic)
http://www.csfieldguide.org.nz/en/index.html
2. The Antikythera mechanism, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
3. Design and Analysis of the Antikythera mechanism
https://insights.globalspec.com/article/5158/how-the-antikythera-mechanism-works
4. Using Computation to Decode the First Known Computer
https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.proxy-ub.rug.nl/document/5765904/authors

India, currently the second most populous country, is rapidly developing as its population continues to grow. India also faces many social, economic, and environmental challenges. In this writing assignment, you will analyze three major issues India and make comparisons to these situations to the U.S. context.

The first part of this assignment examines issues related to marriage. One of the main concerns in India is arranged marriages. This concept, that seems crazy to Americans but is the norm in India, is discussed in The Economist article “Marriage in India is Becoming Less Traditional”(1). Read this article, and along with additional research that you do on this topic, write about how marriage in India is similar and different to marriage in the U.S. Additionally, discuss the positive and negative impact arranged marriages have on both social and economic development in India. Be sure to include a discussion about caste systems. In your opinion, where does marriage appear to be heading in the U.S?

The second part of this assignment will be concerned with drinking water. After reading The Economist articles, “Why India has a water crisis”(2) and “That Flinty Taste”(3), write a page comparing and contrasting the water issues in India and Flint, Michigan. What are the main causes that got people in each place into their current problematic situation and how a more sustainable path towards development could have prevented these problems? Which crisis do you think is more surprising and why? How have cultural differences played a role in the attempted resolutions of these crises.

The last part of this assignment relates to environmental hazards. Watch the video “The Children of Bhopal”(4) and compare and contrast it to an environmental crisis that has happened in the U.S. How could the governments have responded to the crises better? What could have been done to prevent the issues from happening in the first place? How did the wealth of the area impact the response to the crises?

Please include an introduction and conclusion. Citations, should be in MLA format and the references are not considered as part of the page limit. Good writing and grammar are expected. If you have questions, you are encouraged to me!

1) https://www.economist.com/special-report/2017/11/25/marriage-in-india-is-becoming-less-traditional?zid=306&ah=1b164dbd43b0cb27ba0d4c3b12a5e227

2) https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2016/05/24/why-india-has-a-water-crisis

3) https://www.economist.com/united-states/2016/01/23/that-flinty-taste

4)

https://youtu.be/5chwq2ESwXc

(Dr. Strangelove or:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love )

Select a movie with a theme associated with International Relations and demonstrate in your analysis of the movie your theoretical learning and your understanding of theory building. This assignment therefore requires you to apply your theoretical understanding in terms of the following:

The actors in world politics, particularly nation-states and intergovernmental organizations.
How Interdependencies shape actors’ behavior.
Concepts such as multilateralism, unilateralism, power, and legitimacy. Ideas about actors, interdependencies, and their theoretical applications to the primary theoretical traditions and their variants should shape your discourse.
As a result, I expect you to name the theoretical tradition in which they operate and write a paper that remains logically consistent within this framework.