Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath Essay Example for Free

Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath Essay Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath is a truly important picture expressing arts underlying paradigm, every painter paints himself, in a clear and unmistakeable way. It was reported in the mid-seventeenth century that both heads, Goliaths and Davids, are self-portraits at different stages of life though David is described as â€Å"il suo Caravaggino†, or in English â€Å"his little Caravaggio.†1 This clearly refers to how Caravaggio painted himself when young because although his real name was Michelangelo Merisi he was known in Rome as Caravaggio. 2 Remarkably, despite this, few art historians have noted Caravaggio’s self-identification in both figures. One thought it was partly sub-conscious, a psychic echo of the artists violent past.3 Michael Fried, on the other hand, a scholar who often recognizes the act of creation depicted in art thought otherwise. He recently described Davids gesture as a disguised mirror representation of the act of applying paint to canvas, though there is also an important sense in which the head of Goliath may be taken as standing for the painting itself.4 God bless Fried! Other scholars unable to explain why Caravaggio would kill himself, even in a painting, suggest the phrase refers to someone else, â€Å"a boy from the town, Caravaggio† though they cannot say who.5 It is an escape clause. In the world of literal art scholars, artists do not kill themselves in a painting so they imagine something else or ignore the problem. Few early masterpieces so clearly express that every painter paints himself but scholars, convinced that artists tell logical stories that even a patron can understand, have long tried to deny the obvious: both heads represent the artist. This painting, like so many others over the centuries, depicts its own creation in the artist’s mind. Goliath, too, is not a symbol of evil, as conventionally claimed, but of chaos, the chaos so central to creative thinking. Art is first imagined in a mind full of chaotic and random thoughts. As two or more combine spontaneously, the artist begins to impose order on the chaos to create the work. Goliaths death, his head tamed by being depicted forever in mid-scream, is a metaphoric description of that process. Yet while David with the artists frown looks inward to depict the inner process of creation, Goliath also with an artists frown looks outward. He is the painting.

American Based Media Corporations: Opening the Global Lines of Communic

Abstract The world is separated by many barriers that are today being overcome by technology. Leading the way in this explosion are American based media corporations. Earlier on many businesses saw investing in operations overseas as being a waste of money and time. Americans have had the tendency to think that the world revolves around them. This thought process has kept many companies from expanding into the international markets. The American culture dominance in regards to music, style and way of life is spreading like wildfire through out the world. Issue Paper American Based Media Corporations: Opening the Global Lines of Communication In the last twenty years technology has made expansion into overseas arenas much easier than ever before. Today American companies are relentlessly trying to capitalize on the popularity of the US culture in foreign markets. Media companies cross nationalism is no surprise in light of the fact that they have always been operating on the cutting edge. The media has a great deal of control over what people see, hear and read on a daily basis. Technology has benefited a great deal from media companies exposing new inventions and other advancements for the public to see. Media companies are also responsible for the spread of the American pop culture, which has endeared itself to many in different countries. The are several media companies capitalizing on the American pop culture boom, but the focus of this paper will be placed on three specific types of media corporations. The Associated Press, AT&T and YAR Communications deal in totally different areas of media but they all have one thing in common, they have intensely sought after the foreign market. The Associated Press In 18... ...In order to remain profitable in such competitive market a company must provide a product or service that spans the global in appeal. The vast media arena is ever changing as innovative young minds continue to find new ways to make success an inevitable fact. In essence the public will have the final say so in which business will sink or swim in the media global marketplace. The tough decisions are made on the streets and not in the boardroom. Over the years the streets have called for a more diversified aspect of the media. The companies mentioned above are leaders in this respective services they provide and will continue to play a major role in global media. Works Cited "The Associated Press." Website. http://www.ap.org/ anniversary/nhistory/past50.html. "AT&T Corp." Website. http://www.att.com/att/. "YAR Communications." Website. http://www.yar.com/en/.

Ducati Case Study Essay

Introduction: Being a motorcycle company that produces high performance, highly successful racing motorcycles, as well as motorcycles for the commercial market, has proven to be a winning strategy for Ducati. This case focuses on Ducati Corse, a subsidiary of Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. that manages racing teams, bike development, promotions, and sponsorship areas of the company. Ducati Corse is a relatively small organization that encourages cross-departmental integration with its internal teams to achieve the best motorcycle design and racing outcomes as possible. Ducati started racing in the new MotoGP Circuit during the 2003 race season. With unexpected positive racing results, Ducati took the data collected from the 2003 racing season and changed too many aspects of the bike in 2004. The 2004 racing season proved to be far worse partially because Ducati failed to test all changes made. Looking forward to the 2005 season, Ducati is debating whether to switch to a modular design for their racing motorcycle that would, over time, lead to grander designs for Ducati. Discovery: Question 1: What is the organization trying to achieve? Ducati is after a competitive advantage, via learnings from previous races, which has produced a new product design process that will allow modularity of their racing motorcycle. With success on-track, Ducati believes they can achieve increased commercial sales through a popularity increase, which comes from the surge of interest following a winning race or season. Ducati engineers collect and use enormous amounts data from previous races and tests along with rider feedback to build a winning combination of bike attributes that are specifically tuned to the nuances of the ride. Question 2: How would you describe their operating environment? The Ducati operating environment is informal and small when compared to competitors. With most departments under one roof, the company has a siloed feel to it. Ducati has hired top graduates, who have an intense passion for motorcycles. Ducati encompasses three main principles: a data-driven approach to problem  solving, a clear priority in solving problems, and frequent face-to-face communication. The importance of face-to-face communication cannot be underestimated and Ducati Corse, being a small operation, can seize the advantage of having a small floor plan, more direct personal relationships, and close geography to push operations that are more efficient. Question 3: Who are their customers and how does this affect their decision? Ducati’s customers are in-market, sport motorcycle enthusiasts looking for a high performance bike. They also have customers, likely race fans, who may one day consider a Ducati for purchase, but may not necessarily be in the market for one now. Customer-wise, Ducati has a primary focus on the Western European and North American markets. If Ducati can win on the track, marketing has additional opportunities for promotion via traditional and non-traditional media. It is crucial that Ducati performs well on-track to give customers additional assurance and confidence when applying purchase rationale that they are buying a high performance machine. Question 4: What at this point is the current dilemma? The current dilemma is whether or not to take a modular approach to their GP5 design for the 2005 race season. In the past two years, they applied an integrated design approach, which had made small design changes very expensive, but resulted in high performance. This pushes Ducati Corse to evaluate the risk of taking a modular approach, which offers ease of manufacturing and the ability to change one aspect of the bike at a time, but could result in a compromise of performance. Development: Question 1: What accounts for Ducati’s success? The perceived performance of the street bikes was positively influenced by successes on the track, which was intimately intertwined with sales. The two played well together because Ducati realized increased off track sales as they continued to win on track. Ducati’s success was a combination of Ducati engineers’ passion for their work, their detailed attention to the design process, and a well-defined, developed method called the â€Å"Ducati Method.† The â€Å"Ducati Method† helped lead to modular design via extensive  use of CAD and simulation technology to optimize the design before physically developing the components followed by intense testing to validate the design. Question 2: How did Ducati use data? Processing, interpreting, and using real-time data is a complex task which the Ducati engineers employed with the help of other departments. They utilized rider feedback from the races, videos of each race, track tests, data on race performance, and functional data acquired by on-bike sensors. Ducati used the data from the track to identify problems that could not be detected in simulation. This type of data is excellent for measuring relative performance, evaluating structural stress loads, drivetrain torque, and system temperatures. However, it can be greatly influenced by the driver and environmental conditions. Data of this volume proved difficult to sift through, and additional staffers were hired to tackle it for the 2004 season. Question 3: What is your assessment of their approach? We feel that Ducati’s approach was ineffective due to the lack of a structured plan with clear priorities. Ducati Corse tried to solve more problems than they were able, which seemed to result in missed opportunities even though each team member was hungry for success. They were overconfident with the positive results of the 2003 season, and that proved faulty for 2004. Ducati did not give themselves enough time to test everything and should have researched why they performed so well in 2003. Their decision to make big changes to GP3 in order to make GP4, despite initial success of GP3, is not comprehensible. The company should have taken an incremental approach to design changes to improve the design. Question 4: What options do they have to improve the performance in both the short and long term given their capabilities? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these options? In the short term, the company can continue to do parallel testing and make incremental changes to the design rather than making big changes. The strength in this is that improvements would be progressive in nature, but the downfall could be that you cannot always  predict or assure riders’ confidence levels and it would not simplify the design process. In the long term, they should continue with the modular design development. They cannot effectively pull off an entirely new modular design in-between seasons. The strength in this is that calculated steps toward better performance will more so guarantee movement in the right direction. Since this would be a new, large-scale design approach, it would require more testing, analysis, and validation before it could be successfully implemented. Question 5: Should they go to a modular approach†¦what should they do? The modular approach is a positive change for Ducati. With it, they have the opportunity to build a greater amount of flexibility in the engineering framework in order to provide higher results on track. This change would allow them to more easily make greater strides in performance with less effort and effect on other systems – all of which could translate to higher off track sales. Deployment: Question 1: What do you want to do? Ducati should strive to accomplish a modular design for the 2005 racing season, while working on evolutionary improvements to the current bikes as a backup plan. Ducati might want to consider re-weighting the importance of data that delivered via the riders during the race season. Perhaps focus their feedback on ergonomic features of the bike, while taking hard data from engine and subsystems to measure the performance of the bike. This will help to fine tune the changes and deliver an increased amount of on-track victories moving forward. Finally, we would need to consider the design options from commercial standpoint and will only support those design changes that can be implemented in commercial bikes. Question 2: What will it take and what approaches, tools and techniques will help? Leaving enough time to analyze the data from the current and previous racing seasons will help Ducati to use the information to the best of their ability. Improvement of this nature will take many calculated improvements. The continued use of concurrent engineering and computer-aided design will help Ducati to stay on top of technological changes in the marketplace. The use of classic engineering tools: team structure, design reviews, effective  accelerated testing, careful planning, utilize Plan Do Check Adjust and lean the problem solving. Also, more component level testing needs to be done before full system level testing is done because the eventual use of the models will be in the commercial motorcycle industry. Thus, the engineering team should collaborate with manufacturing and follow the concurrent engineering model. Question 3: How will this impact decision making, product development, and operating structure? Switching to a modular design will help Ducati in their decision making process by focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of each individual change as opposed to many all at once. The modular design will allow for smaller development teams which can work more independently and possibly even have competing teams develop variants of a given component. The product development process will become more integrated company-wide even though the product itself will be less integrated and more modular. The operating structure of the Ducati environment will effectively remain the same. Debrief: Question 1: What can you take away from this case study? There are a few overall takeaways with this case. First, effective communication done with respect is of utmost importance to effective engineering operation. Second, the need to use tools, systems, along with human feedback, provides a balance of the use of human and mechanically collected data and is most beneficial when analyzing an operation. Finally, a proper root cause analysis of any problem must be done before designing a solution. Question 2: What can you take away from the decision making approach? Ducati benefited from taking a step back and altering their approach, moving from integrated to modular design. It is not easy to be without a robust design, or a product that can function over a broad range of conditions, but Ducati kept their organization flexible enough to be able to do so quickly and have it based on real-time results. Management is making decisions and changing approaches based on learnings from past mistakes and what competitors are  doing, which will only serve to enhance their product offerings in the future. Summary: Ducati was already a successful company before taking the brave step of altering a process that had been in place for years. They had always brought in top talent, with the passion to make the company a force on the track and extremely desirable to consumers off the track. It was time to take the company to the next level and deliver consistent results on track. The engineering approach and internal collaboration led to a modular design and a more flexible approach. This renewed way of design and manufacturing is a sign that Ducati will be successful for years to come not only because they can change, but because they have the leadership and personnel who are willing to take risks and put the company ahead of any personal interests.

Development Across the Life Span Nature Versus Nurture...

Development Across the Life Span: Nature versus Nurture Barry University What is Nature versus Nurture? Development across the lifespan is one of the most interesting areas of psychology. The word development refers to human development which can be defined as â€Å"the scientific study of changes that occur in people as they age from conception until death.† (Ciccarelli, amp; White, 2009)Psychologists study this developmental change over time through several different methods. The book highlights three: Longitudinal design, cross-sectional design and cross-sequential design. Longitudinal design is a research design â€Å"in which one participant or group of participants is studied over a long period of time.† Cross sectional design differs†¦show more content†¦Because most can agree that there is an array of causes leading to gender identity, roles, and sexuality, it is often determined that gender and sexual preferences are a result of both nature and nurture. In terms of nature, biological conditions, such as complications during pregnancy or chemical imbalan ces, have been associated with homosexuality. Nature and nurture are both extremely important during crucial stages of human development, specifically when identifying gender roles and sexuality. When studying nurture, homosexuality has been linked with child abuse. In studies of physical abuse in children, gay and lesbian individuals were more likely to report former abuse than heterosexuals. In one study, seventeen percent of gay and lesbian participants reported abuse, while only twelve percent of straight participants were determined to be abused as children. (Saewyc, Bearinger, Blum, and Resnick, 1999) Even in families, homosexuals were found to be abused worse than their straight siblings as children. (Tjaden, Thoennes, and Allison, 1999) While some are able to overcome the abuse endured as children, many are left with trauma as adults. Though it is difficult to determine a definite outcome of former physical abuse, there is an obvious connection between childhood experiences and sexual preference as adults. Through these studies, it becomes clear that nurture plays a strong role inShow MoreRelatedLife Span Perspective Essay1187 Words   |  5 PagesLife Span Perspective Paper Cindy Amundson Psy/375 April 11, 2011 Professor Deborah Wilkerson, M.A., ABD The study of human development is a science. It is based on theories, data, analysis, critical thinking, and sound methodology (Berger). Five characteristics of Development that will be discussed in this paper are multidirectional, multi-contextual, multicultural, multidisciplinary and plasticity. 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