Alexander II Domestic Policies

Alexander II Domestic Policies Alexander II of Russia was in many ways one the most important tsar in the History of the Russian Empire. He took over the throne from his Father, Nicholas I, in 1955. When he first came into power his first task was to end the Crimean war in which his father had been involved. After the Crimean war, many other countries saw Russia as weak. The army was outdated and despite its magnitude, not strong enough. People also saw Russia as underdeveloped and behind because of the weakness of its industry. Alexander wanted to change this. He not only wanted to show the rest of the world what Russia could achieve, but he also wanted to show Russia what it could achieve. Encouraged by public opinion he began a period of radical reforms, including trying to make Russia less dependant on a landed aristocracy controlling the poor. He also wanted to develop the natural resources of Russia reform the government to make it less like an autocracy. Until his assassination in 1881, how far did Alexande r II succeed in changing his domestic policy? Alexander initiated substantial reforms in the government, the judiciary and the military. But before he started these reforms, his first radical act was in 1861 when he proclaimed the emancipation of around 20 million privately held serfs. Serfdom was how the Upper classes and the Nobles controlled the peasants and the lower classes. In 1959, there were 23 million serfs in Russia. And the total population of Russia was 67.1 Million. The serfs lived under harsh conditions that were often worse than the conditions Peasants lived in during the Middle Ages. Alexander decided to abolish serfdom from above rather than wait for it to be abolished from below by revolution. The emancipation was effected by local commissions, which were dominated by landlords, who gave land and limited freedom to serfs. The former serfs remained stayed in the village commune, but they were required to make redemption payments to the government over a period of almost 50 years. The government compensated forme r owners of serfs by issuing them bonds. The regime had envisioned that the 50,000 landlords who possessed estates of more than 110 hectares would thrive without serfs and would continue to provide loyal political and administrative leadership in the countryside. The government also had expected that peasants would produce sufficient crops for their own consumption and for export sales, thereby helping to finance most of the governments expenses, imports, and foreign debt. However, Both of these assumptions were unrealistic. Emancipation left both former serf and their former owners unsatisfied. The new peasants soon fell behind in their payments to the government because the land they had received was poor and because Russian agricultural methods were inadequate. The former owners often had to sell their lands to remain solvent because most of them could neither farm nor manage estates without their former serfs. In addition, the value of their government bonds fell as the peasants failed to make their redemption payments. Reforms of local government closely followed emancipation. In 1864 most local governments in the European part of Russia were organized into provincial and district zemstva which were made up of representatives of all classes and were responsible for local schools, public health, roads, prisons, food supply, and other concerns. In 1870 elected city councils were formed. Dominated by property owners and constrained by provincial governors and the police, the zemstva and the city councils raised taxes to support their activities. In 1864 the regime implemented judicial reforms. In major towns, Western-style courts with juries were established. In general, the judicial system functioned effectively, but the government lacked the finances and cultural influence to extend the court system to the villages, where traditional peasant justice continued to operate with minimal interference from provincial officials. In addition, the regime instructed judges to decide each case on its merits and not to use precedents, which would have enabled them to construct a body of law independent of state authority. The regime also proposed to reform the military. One of the main reasons for the emancipation of the serfs was to facilitate the transition from a large standing army to a reserve army by instituting territorial levies and mobilization in times of need. Before emancipation, serfs could not receive military training and then return to their owners. However, there was no military reform until the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) demonstrated the necessity of building a modern army. The levy system introduced in 1874 gave the army a role in teaching many peasants to read and in pioneering medical education for women. But the army remained backward despite these military reforms. Officers often preferred bayonets to bullets, expressing worry that long-range sights on rifles would induce cowardice. In spite of some notable achievements, Russia did not keep pace with Western technological developments in the construction of rifles, machine guns, artillery, ships, and naval ordnance. Russia al so failed to use naval modernisation as a means of developing its industrial base in the 1860s. Although Alexander II was in many ways the first tsar to attempt change the Russian political and social system and modernise it, he did not succeed as well as he set out to. His main focus of he reforms was the emancipation of the slaves. However, in many ways this did not succeed as well as his other reforms. Alexander wanted to improve living conditions for the serfs and at the same time keep the landlords happy. However, he did neither of these things well. His reforms were also not supported by a lot of people. And especially the Nobles believed that the new laws were ruining the country. Despite Alexander trying to revolutionise the Autocratic system, a radical revolutionary group assassinated him in March 1881. Although Alexander II set out with high goals, which he in some ways for filled, in the end he failed.

The treatment plan

A client profile:   John Moran is a thirty-four year old man who lives with his fiancà ©e in the town centre of Galway. He is the bar manager of a local venue and is a singer in a rock band. He is a very busy man and seldom has time for himself. His job is very stressful as his boss puts him under a lot of pressure.He also finds dealing with drunken customers very stressful and often ends the night with a headache. He doesn’t get much sleep ( about six hours a night at the most) because he finds it hard to switch his brain off when he is trying to sleep and doesn’t have a day off. He is a non-smoker but feels that the smokey working atmosphere is having a toll on his lungs. On average he does at least one gig a week with his own band. They play all over the country so he spends a lot of time traveling at the weekend. Although he puts a lot of time into the band, organising bookings etc he finds this very enjoyable. He does find however those things can get on top of him and he gets a bit overwhelmed. Because of the amount of time he spends at work he gets little time to exercise. He was once very fit, he use to work on a building site, but would see himself as been very unfit now. He has put on a bit of weight over the last couple of years and is finding it hard to lose it as he loves his sweet stuff and eats a lot of microwave meals.The treatment plan: Because John Moran has no serious health problems, and I found no areas of tension or stiffness, I intend to make John’s sessions as relaxing as possible. I will put more emphasis on effleurage and petrissage movements and stray away from frictions and percussion. This will also help him with his sleeping problems. I will try to make the session as relaxing as possible to help him get some time away from his stresses. I will encourage him to try to eat more healthily and try to take some exercise. I will suggest that he cuts down on his caffeine intake and try to relax a bit more.SESSION ONEDetails of how the client felt du ring and after the treatment:   John Moran seemed to be a bit nervous at the beginning of the session so I asked him what his concerns where. He told me that he had never gone for a massage session before and wasn’t really sure what was going to happen. I explained that he would be covered with towels at all times apart from the area that I was working on.I explained that I would start on his legs, go to his abdomen, followed by his head shoulders and arms. I would then ask him to turn over and I would work on the back of his body. I told him that if at any time he was feeling uncomfortable, tender or in pain to let me know. He seemed a bit calmer and relaxed after this and so we proceeded with the session.Reflective practise:   Judging by the amount of stress that John is under form work I was expected to find areas of tension in his body. However over the entire message I found no area of significant stiffness or tension. All his muscles seemed quite relaxed.Details of home care advice given:   For homecare advice I suggested that he cut down on his caffeine intake as this may be a factor in his sleeping patterns. I also encouraged him to drink plenty of water as he drinks very little to none at the moment. I also suggested that he cut down on his sweet and biscuit intake and try to eat a more balanced diet.

Backstage View of ‘the Avengers’

CMT 2325 PROJECT 3 – ESSAY Backstage view of ‘The Avengers’ The primary objective of this essay is to elaborate on the creation of the different special effects in a movie. I chose the movie â€Å"The Avengers† to research and report on which is an American superhero fiction movie directed by Joss Whedon. The criterion on which I selected this movie was because it is a recent movie using all the latest techniques of cinematography and graphics.Plus, since it is a superhero fiction, there are a number of scenes, particularly the stunt scenes which need to be executed using features like CGI VFX, green/blue screens and edited using software like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium, Adobe illustrator etc. which have been discussed further in the essay. Green screens are being used extensively in almost all movies these days. â€Å"The technique is called Chroma Keying, where someone is filmed standing in front of a gr een screen and any green colors are digitally filtered out and replaced by the desired video.   (Green Screen: Environmentalism and Hollywood Cinema, David Ingram). One of the many logistical challenges on the production of The Avengers involved dealing with the multitude of main characters. Each actor had specific needs in regards to blue or green screen. The character that played Black Widow is red hair, Thor is blonde, and Captain America's costume was almost chroma blue. Thus, there were a variety of different requirements for each. The scenes were worked out with both green and blue screens and the lesser of two evils were taken for the final shoot.Example in the movie – For hulk’s punch to Thor, they put Chris Hemsworth(Actor playing Thor) in front of a bluescreen standing on top of a real section of a downed Leviathan that they built. And they attached Hemsworth to a cable pull that they retimed, so he could look like he was knocked sidewise. They then replace d the blue screen with the apt background for the final look. They also cut a few frames out of the footage, so it looks like Hulk's punch has â€Å"instant impact†. The movie had an extraordinary job of making the CGI (Computer-generated Images) realistic and incredibly clever.ILM played an important role in contributing to the visual effects of The Avengers. They were responsible for creating many of the film’s digital assets – from the Helicarrier, to New York streets and buildings, to digi-doubles of the characters, plus the Hulk and Iron Man. (Creating A 3D Animated CGI: by Michael Scaramozzino)The surprise of many perhaps the scene stealer of the film is the Hulk played by Mark Ruffalo. This is due to the less than fully successful earlier attempts at digital Hulks.Ang Lee’s 2003 Hulk and Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk both failed, for many people, in producing a Hulk that could walk the digital tightrope of impressive near undefeatabl e strength, huge body mass, fast agile movement, raw anger and likable performance. ILM did a lot of animation work in terms of selling the weight and that was hard slog to get it right and to get all the pieces working together to make his mass believable, beyond that they did several rounds of simulation as far as the muscle dynamics and the skin – to help make that all work together.To achieve this ILM deployed advanced motion capture and a new facial animation system. The face of the Hulk was built out from a life cast / scan of actor Mark Ruffalo’s face. It was then modified in ZBrush to become the Hulk, while still retaining an essence of the original actor. They also studied simian motions for the Hulk — and when Mark Ruffalo came to the studio to experiment with different motions in the mo-cap suit, he started to tend to go towards more apish motions, giving him that animalistic quality that gives you a feeling that he's not quite in control. ( http://la tino-review. om/2012/04/05/avengers-cgi-ruffle-hulk/) For the creative director, graphics ; HUD supervisor, and the screen designer/animator, the most challenging on-screen graphics job was the creation of the heads-up displays (HUDs) in the film, used for two versions of Iron Man's suits. The team also created the on-screen graphics to fill in countless digital computer screens throughout the movie. Simultaneously they created the two Iron Man HUDs (the Mark 6 and the Mark 7) and ended by animating and compositing all the final 2D and stereo comps for the HUD interior shots and the POVs.The new HUD had to look and feel like previous Iron Man HUDs, but with amplified sophistication and detail. The designing of all the widgets, icons and panels was done on Illustrator, converted to layered Adobe Photoshop files and then brought into After Effects for animation. (http://provideocoalition. com/adobe/story/Marvels_The_Avengers_Taking_the_HUD_to_new_heights/)The Avengers was the first ti me the HUD had been done in stereo. On the previous Iron Man films, there was a lot of blurred graphics for depth, but in stereo depth of field doesn't work as well.They focused a lot of time on how widgets and graphics would actually function because everything was clearly readable. Everything in the HUD, even down to the tiny micro-text, relates precisely to the current story-point. A system was devised and rig on Iron Man 2 that was upgraded for stereo within After Effects. It utilized a virtual representation of the character's head in a 3D environment surrounded by the HUD graphics. Once we got the footage, we tracked it in 2D using the point tracker in After Effects.We put point trackers on the inside corners of both of his eyes and the end of his nose. From that, we averaged those tracks and shifted out the average in z space to get rotational values. The movie The Avengers has used numerous animation and graphic techniques which have opened up a whole new realm of exciting o pportunities for future work; the creation of the Hulk character being my personal favorite. The recreation of a computer model of New York City using a huge number of photographs edited was done amazingly as well.Also the camera shots, angles, lighting, and editing, all aid into the brilliant cinematography of  The Avengers. REFRENCES 1. http://latino-review. com/2012/04/05/avengers-cgi-ruffle-hulk/ 2. http://www. studiodaily. com/2012/05/previs-techvis-and-postvis-on-the-avengers/ 3. http://provideocoalition. com/adobe/story/Marvels_The_Avengers_Taking_the_HUD_to_new_heights/ 4. Green Screen:Environmentalism and Hollywood Cinema: by David Ingram 5. Creating A 3D Animated CGI: by Michael Scaramozzino

460 Syllabus KWONG Winter 11 121220 - 855 Words

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LOS ANGELES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS MGMT 460: CASE STUDIES IN OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT Winter 2011, SHC C368 Instructor: Kern Kwong, Ph.D. Office: Simpson Tower 805 College of Business and Economics California State University, Los Angeles Office Hours: Tuesday: 2:00-6:00 p.m. Email: kkwong2@calstatela.edu Website: http://instructional1.calstatela.edu/kkwong2/Mgmt460 Office Telephone: 323-343-2899 [Use email if you need a reply quickly.] Course Description Management 460 is a case studies course in the management of manufacturing and service processes and operations. The course addresses manufacturing and service process selection and analysis, forecasting, capacity planning, aggregate†¦show more content†¦Careful preparation for each class (including preparation of case discussion questions), active class participation (active learning), and perfect attendance are generally required to excel on the examinations. Course Etiquette 1. Arrive to class on time so that you do not disturb your fellow students. 2. Turn off all audible pagers and telephones during class. 3. Raise your hand and let me call on you before speaking in class (so that I can manage class participation). Course Policies 1. There is no make-up or early exams. Check your schedule to make sure you will be able to attend the midterm and final exam. 2. Incomplete grades are given only in the case of medical emergencies. 3. A team photograph is required for identification. I need to know who you are in order to grade class participation. Pictures will be taken at the end of the first two class sessions. If you prefer, you may submit a 3 ï‚ ´ 5 photographic portrait. Team Member Evaluation Team members evaluate each other s contribution (including their own) to the team effort at the final meeting after the Team Report has been presented. Each team member s individual share of the total