Robust Face-Name Graph Matching Essay Example for Free

Robust Face-Name Graph Matching Essay 1. Login In this module is going to explain the Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification designing and how we did the face detection and recognition in this project. The images will explain about the facial fetching details. After that admin going to login with the details which needed for the login page. 2. Detection In this module we are going to detect the face of the movie characters. In this module we are using the emgu cv library we must install the emgu cv library. After installing the emgu cv lib in our project we need to add reference with the name emgu.cv, emgu.cv.util, emgu.cv.ui. When you will complete the references you will get the emgu controls in the toolbox. 3. Recognition In this module we are going to recognize the face of the movie characters which is we previously stored on the face database. We just found that the give the real name of it. This is going to be done here. Here we are using the With the help of these eigenObjectRecognizer we are going to recognize the face. Chellangess In This Methodology :- 1. We detect the face in minute this is a big challenge for us because exiting system take more time for detection. 2. More challenging problem due to the huge variation in the appearance of each character. 3. It is increase speed of matching character and identify the character. Objectivies :- The Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification designing and how we did the face detection and recognition in this project. In this project we present two schemes of global face-name matching based framework for robust character identification. It is use in movies, video, cartoons. Problem Analysis :- 1. It is difficult to Complex character changes are handled by simultaneously graph partition and graph matching. 2. Many character are not easily matching and identification face in movies. 3. It is hard to be increase speed of matching character and identify the character. Existing Work :- This project is used to detect the face of movie characters and recognize the characters in minute process and the existing system are taking the too much time to detect the face. But this one we can do it in a minute process. Proposed Work :- In this Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification is used to detect the face of movie characters and the Proposed system is taking the minimum time to detect the face. In this One we can do it in a minute process. Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification Jitao Sang, Changsheng Xu, Senior Member, IEEE Abstract—Automatic face identification of characters in movies has drawn significant research interests and led to many interesting applications. It is a challenging problem due to the huge variation in the appearance of each character. Although existing methods demonstrate promising results in clean environment, the performances are limited in complex movie scenes due to the noises generated during the face tracking and face clustering process. In this paper we present two schemes of global face-name matching based framework for robust character identification. The contributions of this work include: 1) A noise insensitive character relationship representation is incorporated. 2) We introduce an edit operation based graph matching algorithm. 3) Complex character changes are handled by simultaneously graph partition and graph matching. 4) Beyond existing character identification approaches, we further perform an in-depth sensitivity analysis by introducing two types of simulated noises. The proposed schemes demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on movie character identification in various genres of movies. Index Terms—Character identification, graph matching, graph partition, graph edit, sensitivity analysis. Fig. 1. Examples of character identification from movie â€Å"Notting Hill†. I. INTRODUCTION A. Objective and Motivation The proliferation of movie and TV provides large amount of digital video data. This has led to the requirement of efficient and effective techniques for video content understanding and organization. Automatic video annotation is one of such key techniques. In this paper our focus is on annotating characters in the movie and TVs, which is called movie character identification [1]. The objective is to identify the faces of the characters in the video and label them with the corresponding names in the cast. The textual cues, like cast lists, scripts, subtitles and closed captions are usually exploited. Fig.1 shows an example in our experiments. In a movie, characters are the focus center of interests for the audience. Their occurrences provide lots of clues about the movie structure and content. Automatic character identification is essential for semantic movie index and retrieval [2], [3], scene segmentation [4], summarization [5] and other applications [6]. Copyright (c) 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to use this material for any other purposes must be obtained from the IEEE by sending a request to pubs [emailprotected] ieee.org. This work was supported in part by the National Program on Key Basic Research Project (973 Program, Project No. 2012CB316304) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 90920303, 61003161). J. Sang and C. Xu (corresponding author) are with the National Lab of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; and also with the China- Singapore Institute of Digital Media, Singapore, 119613 Character identification, though very intuitive to humans, is a tremendously challenging task in computer vision. The reason is four-fold: 1) Weakly supervised textual cues [7]. There are ambiguity problem in establishing the correspondence between names and faces: ambiguity can arise from a reaction shot where the person speaking may not be shown in the frames 1; ambiguity can also arise in partially labeled frames when there are multiple speakers in the same scene 2. 2) Face identification in videos is more difficult than that in images [8]. Low resolution, occlusion, no rigid deformations, large motion, complex background and other uncontrolled conditions make the results of face detection and tracking unreliable. In movies, the situation is even worse. This brings inevitable noises to the character identification. 3) The same character appears quite differently during the movie [3]. There may be huge pose, expression and illumination variation, wearing, clothing, even makeup and hairstyle changes. Moreover, characters in some movies go through different age stages, e.g., from youth to the old age. Sometimes, there will even be different actors playing different ages of the same character. 4) The determination for the number of identical faces is not trivial [2]. Due to the remarkable intra-class variance, the same character name will correspond to faces of huge variant appearances. It will be unreasonable to set the number of identical faces just according to the number of characters in the cast. Our study is motivated by these challenges and aims to find solutions for a robust framework for movie character identification. B. Related Work The crux of the character identification problem is to exploit the relations between videos and the associated texts in order 1 I.e., the name in the subtitle/closed caption finds no corresponding faces in the video. 2 I.e., multiple names in the subtitle/closed caption correspond to multiple faces in the video. Fig. 2. Framework of scheme 1: Face-name graph matching with #cluster pre specified to label the faces of characters with names. It has similarities to identifying faces in news videos [9], [10], [11]. However, in news videos, candidate names for the faces are available from the simultaneously appearing captions or local transcripts. While in TV and movies, the names of characters are seldom directly shown in the subtitle or closed caption, and script screenplay containing character names has no time stamps to align to the video. According to the utilized textual cues, we roughly divide the existing movie character identification methods into three categories. 1) Category 1: Cast list based: These methods only utilize the case list textual resource. In the â€Å"cast list discovery† problem [12], [13], faces are clustered by appearance and faces of a particular character are expected to be collected in a few pure clusters. Names for the clusters are then manually selected from the cast list. Ramanan et al. proposed to manually label an initial set of face clu sters and further cluster the rest face instances based on clothing within scenes [14]. In [15], the authors have addressed the problem of finding particular characters by building a model/classifier of the character’s appearance from user-provided training data. An interesting work combining character identification with web image retrieval is proposed in [17]. The character names in the cast are used as queries to search face images and constitute gallery set. The probe face tracks in the movie are then identified as one of the characters by multi-task joint sparse representation and classification. Recently, metric learning is introduced into character identification in uncontrolled videos [16]. Cast-specific metrics are adapted to the people appearing in a particular video in an unsupervised manner. The clustering as well as identification performance are demonstrated to be improved. These cast list based methods are easy for understanding and implementation. However, without other textual cues, they either need manual labeling or guarantee no robust clustering and classification performance due to the large intra-class variances. 2) Category 2: Subtitle or Closed caption, Local matching based: Subtitle and closed caption provide time-stamped dialogues, which can be exploited for alignment to the video frames. Effingham et al. [18], [3] proposed to combine the film script with the subtitle for local face-name matching. Time-stamped name annotation and face exemplars are generated. The rest of the faces were then classified into these exemplars for identification. They further extended their work in [19], by replacing the nearest neighbor classifier by multiple kernel learning for features combination. In the new framework, non-frontal faces are handled and the coverage is extended. Researchers from University of Pennsylvania utilized the readily available time-stamped resource, the closed captions, which is demonstrated more reliable than OCR-based subtitles [20], [7]. They investigated on the ambiguity issues in the local alignment between video, screenplay and closed captions. A partially-supervised multiclass classification problem is formulated. Recently, they attempted to address the character identification problem without the use of screenplay [21]. The reference cues in the closed captions are employed as multiple instance constraints and face tracks grouping as well as face-name association are solved in a convex formulation. The local matching based methods require the time-stamped information, which is either extracted by OCR (i.e., subtitle) or unavailable for the majority of movies and TV series (i.e., closed caption). Besides, the ambiguous and partial annotation makes local matching based methods more sensitive to the face detection and tracking noises. 3) Category 3: Script/Screenplay, Global matching based: Global matching based methods open the possibility of character identification without OCR-based subtitle or closed caption. Since it is not easy to get local name cues, the task of character identification is formulated as a global matching problem in [2], [22], [4]. Our method belongs to this category and can be considered as an extension to Zhang’s work [2]. In movies, the names of characters seldom directly appear in the subtitle, while the movie script which contains character names has no time information. Without the local time information, the task of character identification is formulated as a global matching problem between the faces detected from the video and the names extracted from the movie script. Compared with local matching, global statistics are used for name-face association, which enhances the robustness of the algorithms. Our work differs from the existing research in threefold: Regarding the fact that characters may show various appearances, the representation of character is often affected Fig. 3. Framework of scheme 2: Face-name graph matching without #cluster pre-specified. by the noise introduced by face tracking, face clustering and scene segmentation. Although extensive research efforts have been concentrated on character identification and many applications have been proposed, little work has focused on improving the robustness. We have observed in our investigations that some statistic properties are preserved in spite of these noises. Based on that, we propose a novel representation for character relationship and introduce a name-face matching method which can accommodate a certain noise. Face track clustering serves as an important step in movie character identification. In most of the existing methods some cues are utilized to determine the number of target clusters prior to face clustering, e.g., in [2], the number of clusters is the same as the number of distinct speakers appearing in the script. While this seems convinced at first glance, it is rigid and even deteriorating the clustering results sometimes. In this paper, we loose the restriction of one face cluster corresponding to one character name. Face track clustering and face-name matching are jointly optimized and conducted in a unique framework. Sensitivity analysis is common in financial applications, risk analysis, signal processing and any area where models are developed [23], [24]. Good modeling practice requires that the modeler provides an evaluation of the confidence in the model, for example, assessing the uncertainties associated with the modeling process and with the outcome of the model itself. For movie character identification, sensitivity analysis offers valid tools for characterizing the robustness to noises for a model. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no efforts directed at the sensitivity analysis for movie character identification. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by introducing two types of simulated noises. A preliminary version of this work was introduced by [1]. We provide additional algorithmic and computational details, and extend the framework considering no pre-specification for the number of face clusters. Improved performance as well as robustness are demonstrated in movies wit h large character appearance changes. C. Overview of Our Approach In this paper, we propose a global face-name graph matching based framework for robust movie character identification. Two schemes are considered. There are connections as well as differences between them. Regarding the connections, firstly, the proposed two schemes both belong to the global matching based category, where external script resources are utilized. Secondly, to improve the robustness, the ordinal graph is employed for face and name graph representation and a novel graph matching algorithm called Error Correcting Graph Matching (ECGM) is introduced. Regarding the differences, scheme 1 sets the number of clusters when performing face clustering (e.g., K-means, spectral clustering). The face graph is restricted to have identical number of vertexes with the name graph. While, in scheme 2, no cluster number is required and face tracks are clustered based on their intrinsic data structure (e.g., mean shift, affinity propagation). Moreover, as shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3, scheme 2 has an additional module of graph partition compared with scheme 1. From this perspective, scheme 2 can be seen as an extension to scheme 1. m1) Scheme 1: The proposed framework for scheme 1 is shown in Fig.2. It is similar to the framework of [2]. Face tracks are clustered using constrained K-means, where the number of clusters is set as the number of distinct speakers. Co-occurrence of names in script and face clusters in video constitutes the corresponding face graph and name graph. We modify the traditional global matching framework by using ordinal graphs for robust representation and introducing an ECGM-based graph matching method. For face and name graph construction, we propose to represent the character co-occurrence in rank ordinal level [25], which scores thestrength of the relationships in a rank order from the weakest to strongest. Rank order data carry no numerical meaning and thus are less sensitive to the noises. The affinity graph used in the traditional global matching is interval measures of the co-occurrence relationship between characters. While continuous measures of the strength of relationship holds complete information, it is highly sensitive to noises. For name-face graph matching, we utilize the ECGM algorithm. In ECGM, the difference between two graphs is measured by edit distance which is a sequence of graph edit operations. The optimal match is achieved with the least edit distance. According to the noise analysis, we define appropriate graph edit operations and adapt the distance functions to obtain improved name-face matching performance. 2) Scheme 2: The proposed framework for scheme 2 is shown in Fig.3. It has two differences from scheme 1 in Fig.2. First, no cluster number is required for the face tracks clustering step. Second, since the face graph and name graph may have different number of vertexes, a graph partition component is added before ordinal graph representation. The basic premise behind the scheme 2 is that appearances of the same character vary significantly and it is difficult to group them in a unique cluster. Take the movie â€Å"TheCurious Case of Benjamin Button† for example. The hero and heroine go through a long time period from their childhood, youth, middle-age to the old-age. The intra-class variance is even larger than the inter-class variance. In this case, simply enforcing the number of face clusters as the numberof characters will disturb the clustering process. Instead of grouping face tracks of the same character into one cluster, face tracks from different characters may be grouped together. In scheme 2, we utilize affinity propagation for the face tracks clustering. With each sample as the potential center of clusters, the face tracks are recursively clustered through appearance-based similarity transmit and propagation. High cluster purity with large number of clusters is expected. Since one character name may correspond to several face clusters, graph partition is introduced before graph matching. Which face clusters should be further grouped (i.e., divided into th e same subgraph) is determined by whether the partitioned face graph achieves an optimal graph matching with the name graph. Actually, face clustering is divided into two steps: coarse clustering by appearance and further modification by script. Moreover, face clustering and graph matching are optimized simultaneously, which improve the robustness against errors and noises. In general, the scheme 2 has two advantages over the scheme 1. (a) For scheme 2, no cluster number is required in advance and face tracks are clustered based on their intrinsic data structure. Therefore, the scheme 2 provides certain robustness to the intra-class variance, which is very common in movies where characters change appearance significantly or go through a long time period. (b) Regarding that movie cast cannot include pedestrians whose face is detected and added into the face track, restricting the number of face tracks clusters the same as that of name from movie cast will deteriorate the clustering process. In addition, there is some chance that movie cast does not cover all the characters. In this case, pre-specification for the face clusters is risky: face tracks from different characters will be mixed together and graph matching tends to fail. 3) Sensitivity Analysis: Sensitivity analysis plays an important role in characterizing the uncertainties associated with a model. To explicitly analyze the algorithm’s sensitivity to noises, two types of noises, coverage noise and intensity noise, are introduced. Based on that, we perform sensitivity analysis by investigating the performance of name-face matching with respect to the simulated noises.

Gender and Leadership Styles

Gender and Leadership Styles

The Character of Mama in Alice Walker’s Everyday Use Essay -- essays r

â€Å"I am a large, big boned woman with rough, man-working hands† Mama describes of herself in the short story Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Mama, who additionally takes the role of narrator, is a lady who comes from a wealth of heritage and tough roots. She is never vain, never boastful and most certainly never selfish. She speaks only of her two daughters who she cares deeply for. She analyzes the way she has raised them and how much she has cared too much or too little for them, yet most of all how much they value their family. Mama never speaks of herself, other than one paragraph where she describes what she does. â€Å"My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing† (Walker, 60). She does not need to tell readers who she is, for her descriptions of what she does and how her family interacts, denotes all the reader needs to know. Although Mama narrates this story rather bleakly, she gives readers a sense of l ove and sense of her inner strength to continue heritage through â€Å"Everyday Use†. Regretfully, though readers can see how Mama has had a difficult time in being a single mother and raising two daughters, Dee, the oldest daughter, refuses to acknowledge this. For she instead hold the misconception that heritage is simply material or rather artificial and does not lie in ones heart. However, from Mama’s narrations, readers are aware that this cultural tradition does lie within ones heart, especially those of Mama’s and Maggie’s, and that it is the pure foundation over any external definition. One situation in particular that Mama brings up is the time when she offers to Dee to bring some of the ancestral quilts with her to college. She claims, â€Å"I had offered Dee a quilt whe... ...rn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece . . . that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War" (Walker, 65). These quilts, which have become an heirloom, not only represent the family, but are an integral part of the family. A concept in which Dee, could just not possibly understand. Mama then grasps the quilts out of Dee’s clutch and places them on Maggie’s lap, for Maggie knows that the quilts are personal and emotional rather than by any means financial (p.66). These quilts are for â€Å"Everyday Use.† In this last scene, Mama proves to herself that you do not need an education, or generation knowledge to be able to posses strength. For Mama had inner strength all along, she just needed her true rich and beautiful beliefs of her heritage to shine through, and they did. The Character of Mama in Alice Walker’s Everyday Use Essay -- essays r â€Å"I am a large, big boned woman with rough, man-working hands† Mama describes of herself in the short story Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Mama, who additionally takes the role of narrator, is a lady who comes from a wealth of heritage and tough roots. She is never vain, never boastful and most certainly never selfish. She speaks only of her two daughters who she cares deeply for. She analyzes the way she has raised them and how much she has cared too much or too little for them, yet most of all how much they value their family. Mama never speaks of herself, other than one paragraph where she describes what she does. â€Å"My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing† (Walker, 60). She does not need to tell readers who she is, for her descriptions of what she does and how her family interacts, denotes all the reader needs to know. Although Mama narrates this story rather bleakly, she gives readers a sense of l ove and sense of her inner strength to continue heritage through â€Å"Everyday Use†. Regretfully, though readers can see how Mama has had a difficult time in being a single mother and raising two daughters, Dee, the oldest daughter, refuses to acknowledge this. For she instead hold the misconception that heritage is simply material or rather artificial and does not lie in ones heart. However, from Mama’s narrations, readers are aware that this cultural tradition does lie within ones heart, especially those of Mama’s and Maggie’s, and that it is the pure foundation over any external definition. One situation in particular that Mama brings up is the time when she offers to Dee to bring some of the ancestral quilts with her to college. She claims, â€Å"I had offered Dee a quilt whe... ...rn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece . . . that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War" (Walker, 65). These quilts, which have become an heirloom, not only represent the family, but are an integral part of the family. A concept in which Dee, could just not possibly understand. Mama then grasps the quilts out of Dee’s clutch and places them on Maggie’s lap, for Maggie knows that the quilts are personal and emotional rather than by any means financial (p.66). These quilts are for â€Å"Everyday Use.† In this last scene, Mama proves to herself that you do not need an education, or generation knowledge to be able to posses strength. For Mama had inner strength all along, she just needed her true rich and beautiful beliefs of her heritage to shine through, and they did.

Controlling Process in Management Essay -- Control Methods Technology

Controlling Process in Management Controlling is directly related to planning. The controlling process ensures that plans are being implemented properly. In the functions of management cycle - planning, organizing, directing, and controlling - planning moves forward into all the other functions, and controlling reaches back. Controlling is the final link in the functional chain of management activities and brings the functions of management cycle full circle. Control is the process through which standards for performance of people and processes are set, communicated, and applied. Effective control systems use mechanisms to monitor activities and take corrective action, if necessary. The supervisor observes what happens and compares that with what was supposed to happen. He or she must correct below-standard conditions and bring results up to expectations. Effective control systems allow supervisors to know how well implementation is going. Control facilitates delegating activities to employees. Since supervisors are ultimately held accountable for their employees' performance, timely feedback on employee activity is necessary. Control Process The control process is a continuous flow between measuring, comparing and action. There are four steps in the control process: establishing performance standards, measuring actual performance, comparing measured performance against established standards, and taking corrective action. Step 1. Establish Performance Standards. Standards are created when objectives are set during the planning process. A standard is any guideline established as the basis for measurement. It is a precise, explicit statement of expected results from a product, service, machine, individual, or organizational unit. It is usually expressed numerically and is set for quality, quantity, and time. Tolerance is permissible deviation from the standard. What is expected? How much deviation can be tolerated? Â · Time controls relate to deadlines and time constraints. Material controls relate to inventory and material-yield controls. Equipment controls are built into the machinery, imposed on the operator to protect the equipment or the process. Cost controls help ensure cost standards are met. Employee performance controls focus on actions and behaviors of individuals and groups of employees. Examples inclu... ...properly to be effective. When control standards are inflexible or unrealistic, employees cannot focus on the organization's goals. Control systems must prevent, not cause, the problems they were designed to detect. Performance variance can also be the result of an unrealistic standard. The natural response for employees whose performance falls short is to blame the standard or the supervisor. If the standard is appropriate, then it is up to the supervisor to stand his or her ground and take the necessary corrective action. An example of effective controls is the dashboard on a car. There are many things that can go wrong with a car. Only the most critical items to the car's operation are the focus on the dashboard (oil level, engine heat, fuel gauge, etc.). Variations in these items are most likely to inflict the most damage to the car. The critical items on the dashboard are easily understood and used by drivers. They point out a problem and specify a solution. They are accurate and timely. They call the driver's attention to variations in time to prevent serious damage. Yet, there is not so much information on the dashboard that the driver is overwhelmed. Controlling Process in Management Essay -- Control Methods Technology Controlling Process in Management Controlling is directly related to planning. The controlling process ensures that plans are being implemented properly. In the functions of management cycle - planning, organizing, directing, and controlling - planning moves forward into all the other functions, and controlling reaches back. Controlling is the final link in the functional chain of management activities and brings the functions of management cycle full circle. Control is the process through which standards for performance of people and processes are set, communicated, and applied. Effective control systems use mechanisms to monitor activities and take corrective action, if necessary. The supervisor observes what happens and compares that with what was supposed to happen. He or she must correct below-standard conditions and bring results up to expectations. Effective control systems allow supervisors to know how well implementation is going. Control facilitates delegating activities to employees. Since supervisors are ultimately held accountable for their employees' performance, timely feedback on employee activity is necessary. Control Process The control process is a continuous flow between measuring, comparing and action. There are four steps in the control process: establishing performance standards, measuring actual performance, comparing measured performance against established standards, and taking corrective action. Step 1. Establish Performance Standards. Standards are created when objectives are set during the planning process. A standard is any guideline established as the basis for measurement. It is a precise, explicit statement of expected results from a product, service, machine, individual, or organizational unit. It is usually expressed numerically and is set for quality, quantity, and time. Tolerance is permissible deviation from the standard. What is expected? How much deviation can be tolerated? Â · Time controls relate to deadlines and time constraints. Material controls relate to inventory and material-yield controls. Equipment controls are built into the machinery, imposed on the operator to protect the equipment or the process. Cost controls help ensure cost standards are met. Employee performance controls focus on actions and behaviors of individuals and groups of employees. Examples inclu... ...properly to be effective. When control standards are inflexible or unrealistic, employees cannot focus on the organization's goals. Control systems must prevent, not cause, the problems they were designed to detect. Performance variance can also be the result of an unrealistic standard. The natural response for employees whose performance falls short is to blame the standard or the supervisor. If the standard is appropriate, then it is up to the supervisor to stand his or her ground and take the necessary corrective action. An example of effective controls is the dashboard on a car. There are many things that can go wrong with a car. Only the most critical items to the car's operation are the focus on the dashboard (oil level, engine heat, fuel gauge, etc.). Variations in these items are most likely to inflict the most damage to the car. The critical items on the dashboard are easily understood and used by drivers. They point out a problem and specify a solution. They are accurate and timely. They call the driver's attention to variations in time to prevent serious damage. Yet, there is not so much information on the dashboard that the driver is overwhelmed.

Free College Admissions Essays: Summer Camp Entrepreneur :: College Admissions Essays

Summer Camp Entrepreneur The first wedding that I planned was in no way a traditional wedding. Ten eager little girls decorated the printed invitations with sequins, buttons, and markers. The same energetic hands prepared the wedding feast, consisting of bagged lunches, blintz soufflé, and of course a layer cake. On the big day I looked around with excitement. Again, I noticed something odd about this wedding. All the participants and guests appeared about four feet high. The "groom" had long hair pinned up with brown lines on her face (was that supposed to be a beard?) The wedding location, a back yard with a swing set and a wading pool, seemed far from romantic. This wedding however was not supposed to be one of those types of weddings. As I pressed the "PLAY" button on the tape recorder I knew that ten 4-6-year-old girls cared deeply about this wedding. Despite the absence of a reason for celebration, I pulled all the girls into the circle and we started dancing and clapping to the music. The energ y that went into the preparation on previous days could finally be appreciated. My campers and I not only celebrated the accomplishment of the mock wedding, we celebrated the fun and excitement we experienced for the first three weeks in Camp Glitter Girls. I had begun preparing for Camp Glitter Girls over four months before by budgeting, sending out fliers, confirming registration and finally making sure that every camper would have the time of her life. As I danced, I celebrated the times I almost lost my patience but didn't, the times that I planned activities late into the night because I knew that only an organized schedule would ensure the success of my camp. The lessons I had learned from previous summer camps contributed greatly to this camp's success. At the age of thirteen, I first ran a camp for eight children. The next year a friend and I co-managed a camp for twenty children at a small school campus. Finally at the age of fifteen I created my most challenging summer camp with thirty-five children. In just three years the size of my camp tripled and so did the life lessons. I not only carried the responsibility for my own "bunk," but with my co-manager I hired other counselors, arranged busing to and from field trips, managed a $15,000 budget, and ensured that thirty-five children had a fun summer.

International Politics Essay

Transformation—is one of the few words which could be used in order to define and describe the current situation of the international community. In every parts of the world, transformation is currently occurring from the simple acquisition of one product to another. Such situation could be one of the few examples of the changes which are present in the current society. In the modern society, boundaries and limits had now been erased due to the technology including the issues facing most states in the global community. The past limitation of states in surpassing territorial boundaries of their own state is now removed. Such hindrances are not a concern any longer. The gaps in which divides states are now being linked therefore making each and everyone of us connected. The far away lands of Africa or Europe could now be reached through one click of a button. The then complicated processes of communication as well as the process of international relations had changed due to globalization. The process of globalization became a significant change in the relations of states. In addition, states are not only the actors in the international community. The active participation of non-state actors had been highlighted in the past events which had recently occurred such as wars, conflicts and environmental phenomenon. In the past such as the events of the World War I, nations were the only actors in the war. Decisions were only influenced by the leaders of the states involved. Although international organizations were present in providing aid to the victims of the war, they were not equally involved in the decision making process. But as these events unfold, it is evident that international organizations are similarly participating with the political issues at hand. In the principle of realism, the main actors were only states however; in the view of the liberalism theory, other actors such that of international organizations, trans-national organizations, multinational corporations and the likes. In the book of Baylis and Smith, the authors stated that in â€Å"Realists emphasize states’ ruthlessly self-interested search for territorial, military and economic resources† (Baylis and Smith, 2008). On the other hand, Liberalism or Idealism pursues to promote internationalism during the inter-war period (Baylis and Smith, 2008). The theory of liberalism’s main idea is to attach government together with good governance which will create a connection between states and the societies of the global community. Liberalism promotes the need for the world to unite and commune with the issues of the international community equally. However, unlike the liberalism, realists approach the view of internationalism is translated as anarchy. (Baylis and Smith, 2008) Evidently, the world is already shifting and adopting another form of ideology other than realism which was mainly utilized in the past. In the inter-war years, the liberalist theorists started to promote their perspective in which advocates that international institutions should encourage the values of having order, justice, liberty and toleration within the relationship of states. It was believed in such theory that the conflicts between states could not only be resolved through the use of force and warfare. International institutions or organizations much act as mediators when conflicts are at hand. In addition, such international institutions must be the area of discussion for the reason that it could create other actions in resolving disputes in a much objective manner. Therefore, the liberalists were able to influence every state in creating an international organization which lead to the creation of the League of Nations in which became the fundamental foundation of the United Nations. Although the ideas of the liberalists were idealistic, each state must be a member of the organization in order to fully accomplish and pursue the goals of the international organization. (Baylis and Smith, 2008) In our changing world, the past conflicts and issues of a state are realized to also be affecting the world. The recent war on terror had been actively participated by different states in order to deter the effects of terrorism. After the war on terror, many states changes their view point which such situations—following the chief state which proclaimed the war. The war on terror became a global issue due to the involvement of different states. Additionally, international organizations became a great factor in such war. The war in Afghanistan for example, the United Nations became one of the main decision maker and supporter of the war. The United Nations launched protocols and written agendas in order to promote action against the cruel ruling and the storage of the weapons of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein. In the incident given, the United Nations played a great role in encouraging and promoting in the issue against terrorism. United Nations became one of the main actors is countering against terrorism unlike in the past. (Bredel, 2003) Another issue which is currently in debate until this day is the issues concerning the global environment—climate change. This issue is one of the most controversial and debated issues because it is one of the problems of the world which passes the boundaries of states. Climate change not only affects the climate and the environment but also the politics and economics of each state. One of the few very specific problems under climate change is pollution. Pollution had been a great problem for different states for the reason that it encompasses the boundaries of states. It is known that most industries or factory excretes smoke which turns out to be air pollutants due to the machineries used to create products and the likes. Water pollution also has the same situation for the reason that it flows although out different forms of water and continuously flow to the water of other states. The problem obviously passes through the limitation of the international law and protocols available. The problem becomes a trans-national issue that requires states to cooperate and coordinate with each other in order to solve such crisis. With the issue of climate change, trans-national entities are the most reliable organizations in laying down such issues. Trans-national organizations provide states a much immediate and larger picture of the issue. Due to the personality of trans-national organization, different organizations that aim for the same goals as others come together to be able to solve the dilemmas at hand. With the issue of climate change, the main agent which is very much focused is the United Nations. The international organization created a branch which focuses on the issues of environment which is the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The branch of United Nations provides answer to the needs of each state in order to address the problem. The UNEP together with the states and other organizations with the same advocacy such as Green Peace and other local organizations with in the various states to be able to provide answer to the issue. The role of non-state actors and trans-national networks had become significant in the international community due to the promotion of international organization during crisis. The power given to non-state actors as well as trans-national networks enable these agencies to freely interfere with the conflicts of states and within states. Therefore, these groups provide their own view points, influencing states and individuals with their perspective. Most of the time, such organizations changes the civil society which then results to the change of the government. One example that could be cited is the pursuance of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) in Asia to promote change in the civil society, therefore promoting development within the society. It is stated by Harriet Bulkeley and Michele Merrill Betsill (2005) in their book that â€Å"the international, regional, national and local interact â€Å"with actors influencing the activities of different levels simultaneously† (cited in O’ Riordan and Jordan 1996). With the statement given by the authors, it is evident that the role of non-state actors as well as trans-national organization is equally important as the responsibility of states. Therefore, the international order is changed due to the additional actors that are also acting in the international community. Currently, the international community is evidently reliant to non-state actors as well as to the trans-national networks due to the important role that it is undertaking with conflicts and decision making processes of a state. Non-state actors and trans-national networks had become one of the main components of international relations whether it may be in conflict resolution or in times of celebration. Such groups empower and support positive ideology due to the idealistic nature of most non-state and trans-national networks. The usual â€Å"state-only† theory had now been changed into a new form of relations of states which brings together actors that has the same goals to attain making the relations of states peaceful. Although most non-state actors and trans-national networks aims to create a united international community, there are also groups alike that promotes otherwise. One well known group is the Al-Qaeda which seeks to promote terror and violence from the eyes of most states. Although Al-Qaeda is seen as an extremist group in promoting change, it is also considered a trans-national network for the reason that it encompasses the boundaries of its home state and promotes their ideology to the world. The group creates networks in different parts of the world while maintaining a balance relation with other networks associated to the group. Due to the negative effects they such trans-national network is creating; it definitely changes the order of the international community. Not only it brings terror to the whole global community but the group promotes division and conflict within the global society. (Pearlstein, 2004) In conclusion, the issues that the international community is facing are now crossing the boundaries of states such that of the terrorism and climate change. There is a need for states to get together and resolve such dilemma. Therefore, trans-national networks and non-state actors play a vital role in resolving such problems. The non-state and trans-national networks are the best area for the resolution of such conflicts because objectiveness within the situation is achieved. The international community sets the non-states actors and trans-national networks as the one of the numerous vital actors in the global community. The participation of such actors promotes the unity of the whole international community in times of crisis or triumph. References Baylis J. , Smith S. , & Owens, P. Eds.(2008). The Globalization of World Politics: An introduction to International Relations. New York: Oxford University Press. Bredel, R. (2003). Long-term Conflict Prevention and Industrial Development: The United Nations and Its Specialized Agency, UNIDO. Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Bulkeley, H. , and Betsill, M. M. (2005). Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance. London: Routledge. Pearlstein, R. M. (2004). Fatal Future? : Transnational Terrorism and the New Global Disorder. Texas:University of Texas Press.

“A Stranger in the Village” by Baldwin

â€Å"Stranger in the Village† by James Baldwin is about author’s experience in a small village situated in Switzerland. Baldwin writes that he is black and because of his race he villagers find him different and, thus, fascinating. He says that villagers have never seen a black man: â€Å"†¦from all available evidence no black man had ever set foot†.Therefore, they are curious about his color of a skin and it is interesting for them to find out whether black man can ever rub off. Baldwin admits that small children are afraid of him because a black man for them was something similar to devil. Actually, Baldwin is treated as an exotic rarity, though Baldwin thinks that the difference between whites and blacks doesn’t exist in American society. He doesn’t want to be regarded as rarity; instead he wants to be treated equally as human being.The author often refers to emotions when writing about conflicts which appear in the Swiss village. In partic ular, these emotions are outrage and astonishment.In such a way, the author in his essay contrasts his experience of being a black man offering an insightful critique of the history of American race relations: â€Å"What one’s imagination makes of other people is dictated, of course, by the laws of one's own personality and it is one of the ironies of black-white relations that, by means of what the white man imagines the black man to be, the black man is enabled to know who the white man is†.The author says that an air of racism will be always present in society, because he was called â€Å"le sale negre† behind his back. Furthermore, he was accused of stealing wood. Because of such treatment, Baldwin feels undeniable rage toward the villagers.Misconception of his complexion leads to misconception of his human credibility and results in perceiving as a â€Å"living wonder†.   Despite the fact that people try to eliminate racism in American society, rac ial discrimination is still alive in smaller towns and villages. He concludes that no one enjoys being considered an alien.