Double Standard Of Masculinity In Gender Role Socialization Essays

Double Standard Of Masculinity In Gender Role Socialization Double Standard of Masculinity in Gender Role Socialization Masculinity is a topic that has been debated in our society extensively, through research as well as in informal settings. Many wonder what it means to be masculine, and if we can really assign a definition to such a subjective term. After all, shouldn't one's own perception be the determinant of what constitutes masculinity? This self-construction would be the ideal in our society, but unfortunately, it represents a false belief. Masculinity has certain characteristics assigned to it by our culture. In this paper I will explore the many facets of masculinity and demonstrate how certain beliefs pertaining to it are perpetuated in our society. I will also uncover many of the contradictions between society's assigned definition of masculinity and the expectation that males will somehow learn how to act contrary to that assigned and learned meaning. Definition of Masculinity Men are primarily and secondarily socialized into believing certain characteristics are definitive in determining their manliness and masculinity. These characteristics range from not crying when they get hurt to being and playing violently. The socialization of masculinity in our society begins as early as the first stages of infancy. A child's burgeoning sense of self or self-concept is a result of the multitude of ideas, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs to which he is exposed (Witt 1997). Later in this paper the question of whether there are genetic factors will be discussed. However, to further my argument at this point, I will discuss masculinity as it is socially defined. From the outset of a boy's life he is socialized into the belief that he should be 'tough'. Often when boys get hurt, 'scrape their knee', or come whimpering to their mother or father, the fated words, Little boys don't cry, issue forth. Children internalize parental messages regarding gender at an early age, with awareness of adult sex role differences being found in two-year-old children. One study found that children at two and a half years of age use gender stereotypes in negotiating their world and are likely to generalize gender stereotypes to a variety of activities, objects, and occupations (Witt 1997). This legitimization teaches males that boys and men are not allowed to cry. There also exists the belief that boys are often required to do 'men's work' outside of the home such as mowing the lawn, cleaning the garage, etc., and not 'sissy women's work' such as cooking and cleaning, etc. Other factors help to perpetuate certain standards expected of men and boys (Stearns 1990). The violence boy's witness on television further legitimates this belief. Katz explains that advertising imagery equates masculinity with violence. For boys this means aggression is instrumental in that it enables them to establish their masculinity (Katz 1995). Lee Bowker researched the influence advertisements have on youth. He asserts that toy advertisements featuring only boys depict aggressive behavior. Strangely, the aggressive behavior generally results in positive consequences more often than negative. Bowker also looked at commercials with boys that contain references to domination. The results of all the commercials indicate that 68.6% of the commercials positioned toward boys contain incidents of verbal and physical aggression. There was no cross?gender display of aggressive behavior. Interestingly, not one single-sex commercial featuring girls shows any act of aggression (Bowker 1998). This research helps explain that it is not just the reinforcement of close caretakers t o the child that legitimate masculinity but society as a whole (using the television as a symbol of society and it's desires). Another example of how this can be reinforced even by women who may or may not be trying to promulgate such a belief is with an experience I had growing up: When I would get a cut or a bruise, I would muster up all the strength I had to not cry. I feared that if I cried I wouldn't be worthy of being a tough kid. On one occasion I had a severe cut in my knee that required several stitches. When I took a look at the wound after rolling up my pant leg, my first inclination was to break out crying. However, at that moment my teacher told me what a

Content Analysis of The Catbird Seat Essay Example

Content Analysis of The Catbird Seat Essay Example Content Analysis of The Catbird Seat Essay Content Analysis of The Catbird Seat Essay The story can be called as a revenge comedy because of its unexpected and funny ending. Revenge is a word which has a deep meaning behind it. It’s a feeling more than an action. In this story of Mr. Thurber, the feelings of Mr. Martin are touched by giving details step by step. Mr. Martin is a meek, introverted and socially isolated person. His job is his life. He doesn’t have any hobby. He doesn’t even know the popular sports jargons of his time. Such a man can do anything for his job and such workers are preferred by every kind of company. Mrs. Barrows is a smart woman. At least, she looks like one. She is the special adviser of the president Mr. Fitweiler. She is a dominant woman and she is quite obnoxious. Because of her, many co-workers of Mr. Martin were fired from the company. So, something must be done to stop this woman. Otherwise the person who will be fired next will be Mr. Martin. Because of these reasons, Mr. Martin makes up his mind and decides to k ill Mrs. Barrows. This is what we call revenge or vengeance. At this point, I would like to share Eric Sheridan’s craft discussion on the narration of the story. Thurber builds an entire story around this most unexpected action, and in doing so creates dramatic tension in an engaging way, even though we see almost immediately behind Mr. Martin’s curtain. The reader is let in on the secret early on: Martin is not what he appears to be; he is a different man when pushed. His inner trail and conviction of Barrows tell us right away that something is up. But the dramatic tension is built as the detail of Martin’s plan becomes clear. (2002) In the story, the author constantly gives details and small elements of the big picture of the events which are going to happen. This method of the author can be called detective narration. At the beginning of the story Mr. Martin goes to the most crowded cigar store of Broadway, NYC. The readers don’t have any idea about what his n

The Capabilities And Intentions Of Al-Qaeda Essay

The Capabilities And Intentions Of Al-Qaeda - Essay Example Al-Qaeda is an Islamic terrorist organization that has misused the Islamic teachings to propagate internal resentment of a few fundamentalists caused by desperation against western forces. These resentments are not totally baseless as the western world has down-casted the eastern world since times immemorial by trying to superimpose themselves on the lesser creed. However the methodology to show this anger is infuriated up to the height of absolute hatred for the western nations. Their stated purpose is to remove the U.S. from Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, and if possible, from the world arena (DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS, 2001); (Gunaratna, 2002). Al-Qaeda is part of the "The World Islamic Front" (the networks of the networks) which further has many distinguished terrorist organizations from all over the world including, Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida, Al Jihad, the Islamic Group, Jamaat ul Ulema-e-Pakistan, the Moslem Brotherhood, components of the 'black' (operational) network from the defunct Bank of Credit and Commerce Inc. (BCCI), and elements of Abu Nidal's terrorist organization. However, the most successful organization has been Al-Qaeda, especially after the horrifying September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center (DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS, 2001). The leader as we know is Osama Bin Ladin however since his hiding, Al-Qaeda was been run by a superior strategist, Ayman al-Zawahiri (Hoffman, 2001); (McCarthy, 2004). Ironically for the United States, which is Al-Qaeda's number 1 enemy, the creation of Al-Qaeda was done thorugh secret channels by the US to drive out the Soviet Union (which was at that time US's number 1 enemy) from Afghanistan. At that time, he muslim fundamentalists were recurited to oppose the Soviet invasion to aid in US's mission in destroying the soviet power which ended in the disparging of Soviet Union in Russia and other countries (Jr., 2002). Attacks List From then onwards, these Muslim fundamentalists formed the Al-Qaeda organization and formed their credo to destroy all those nations that were either practicing a tainted Islamic life or were Non-Islamic nations trying to take over the Islamic nations. Till now, Al-Qaeda has committed numerous acts of violence against such countries using conventional bombings, shoot-outs, and now more recently, suicide bombings. Important and high-level acts of violence include the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, a four month bombing campaign in France in 1995 targeting the metro, the Arc de Triomphe and a Jewish school in Lyon, multiple bombings in Pakistan in 2002, bomb attacks against 4 trains in Madrid in 2004 when terrorists blew themselves up when confronted by police, and 4 explosions in UK in 2005 in tube trains and a bus. (Archive, 2005) Intentions Ever since the formation of Al-Qaeda, their sole objective has been to destroy the western influence on Islamic lives even if it means death and destruction. And they have shown that they are ready to take their own lives to convey their messages to the world. The global media has also been very actively covering Al-Qaeda related news and every once in a while, a video tape of Osama Bin Laden appears on our TV screens, with the Al-Qaeda leader congratulating his people for the attacks and continuously warning America against further attacks. Osama's nominal deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, published a treatise in the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Alsharq al-Awsat in December 2001 with the title "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner." The article painted a picture of Islam under siege by a predatory, Western-dominated world in which "there is no

Assignment in Planning and Programming Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

In Planning and Programming - Assignment Example The paper defines a project plan as the guide towards the execution and control of a project. Project plan forms a fundamental base towards the success or failure of a given project. According to Kerzner a project plan defines the appropriate methods to be employed during the project. The defined methods ensure successful completion of projects. Project plan ensures optimisation of the resources towards achieving the objectives of the project. The plan, therefore, acts as a guideline in maintaining a balance between resource utilisation and project schedule compliance. The plan ensures proper utilisation of project resources and timely completion of projects. The project planning process in the construction industry forms a fundamental activity for the entire project. The planning process consists of numerous stages. The stages include. †¢ Choosing of correct technology and construction method to be employed in the project. †¢ Establishing the work tasks. †¢ Defining the existing relationships between various activities. †¢ Estimating the activity durations. †¢ Estimating the resource requirements for the work activities involved. Numerous factors within the construction sector affect the planning process. The factors affecting the project planning process lie within the financial and time functions of the project. The factors can, therefore, be defined as cost factors and schedule factors. The chart below shows the factors affecting the planning process. ... These uncertainties form what project managers consider project risks. Risk management becomes an essential part of projects execution in ensuring the success of a project. Ireland (2006) defines the element of risk assessment as the critical analysis of the expected constraints and uncertainties before embarking on a project. Comprehensive analysis of the risks becomes essential in minimising the probabilities of project failure. Ireland continues to discuss that failure to analyse these factors efficiently and critically, poses surmountable problem of project failure. The process of risk assessment involves, identifying the uncertainties, analysing them, and prioritising the risks as analysed. The last phase, of prioritising, ensures the arrangement of the risks in relation to the impacts they may posses on the project. This phase allows project managers to eliminate the substantial risks perfectly while managing the other risks throughout the project duration. Financial planning P roject management process includes financial planning as an element within the execution process. A financial plan defines and identifies the financial needs of the entire project. All expenses expected within the project execution, need to be indicated within the scope of financial plan. Kerzner (2009) defines financial planning as the element of drawing the budgetary needs for the different phases of a project. Financial planning provides a breakdown of all expenses to be incurred at different stages during the project execution duration. The importance of financial planning lies in ensuring controlled utilisation of financial resources available for projects. Financial

Strategies for Promoting Democracy in Iraq Term Paper

Strategies for Promoting Democracy in Iraq - Term Paper Example This is usually entrenched in the laws of the land. It involves social, cultural and economic conditions that provide free and fair practice of self-determination politically. It hails from a Greek word demokratia whose meaning is â€Å"rule of the people†. This word can be divided into two. Demos meaning â€Å"people† and Kratos meaning â€Å"power†. Democracy contrasts other forms of government like monarchy and aristocracy /oligarchy. Monarchy is where power is held by one individual while aristocracy is where power is held by a group of people. Contemporary governments tend to have a mixture of all these elements. There are several types of democracy (Lijphart 150-250). The two basic forms of democracy are a direct democracy and representative or indirect democracy. In direct democracies, citizens have direct participation in the decision-making process within the government. In indirect  democracies, citizens elect representatives (Lijphart 200-250). He ex plains that in modern democracies, the sovereign power is retained by the people while the political power is exercised through the representatives (200-250). He further explains that an electoral democracy government is determined by popular sovereignty (200-300). People in the country determine who will govern them. They do this by voting. Liberal democracy is one in which both sovereignty and liberties are manifested. The civil society is very active and restraints the government from misusing power. A substantive democracy is a working democracy. Under the representative democracy, we have a parliamentary, presidential and constitutional democracy. Parliamentary democracy is a democracy where the government is chosen by elected representatives (Lijphart 200-250). The government in this case is checked by the legislative parliament elected by people. The legislature can dismiss the prime minister under this system of government. This happens by passing a vote of no confidence. Th e presidential system of democracy is where the public elects the president through general elections (Lijphart 200-250).

Implementing Product Life Cycle Management in Indian Product

Implementing Product Life Cycle Management in Indian Product IMPLEMENTING PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT IN INDIAN PRODUCT MANUFACTURE ORGANIZATIONS Abstract Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from market demand, product design, manufacturing, services and disposal. By integrating people, data, process, business systems to provide product information which can foster a companys product innovation ability and their extended enterprise. In short all-encompassing vision for managing all data relating to the design, production, support and ultimate disposal of manufactured goods. The aerospace, medical devices, military, nuclear and automobile industries need to maintain safety and control extremely important. This safety and control measure brought about the concept of PLM in to the market. The configuration management further evolved into electronic data management systems. This further evolved into data management systems. By using the PLM features, many manufacturers of industrial machinery, capital goods, consumer electronics and packaged goods have benefited largely in the past ten years, since the advent of the PLM. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT: Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the procedure of managing the complete lifecycle of a product. It symbolizes the encompassing vision for supervising all the data relating to the design, manufacturing, support and the dumping of the produced goods. The concept of PLM was first introduced in the areas where safety and control were extremely important like aerospace, nuclear industries, military and medical device. These industries invented the discipline of configuration management (CM), which later got evolved in to the electronic data management system (EDMS), and this was further developed to the product data management (PDM). The usage of PLM solution has benefited the manufacturers of the industrial machinery, packaged goods, consumer electronics and complicated engineered products, and also there is a rapid increase in the adoption of PLM software by the industries. Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the procedure of managing the complete lifecycle of a product from its beginning, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal. PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprise. Product lifecycle management is one of the four cornerstones of a corporations information technology system structure. Every company needs to communicate and share information with their customer relation management (CRM) and also shared with the supply chain management and their resources with enterprises management (ERP-Enterprise Resource Planning) and their planning (SDLC-System Development Life-cycle). The manufacturing and engineering companies should compulsorily develop, describe, manage, and communicate information about their products. 1.2 PLM SOLUTIONS:[1] 1.3 Some requirements of PLM: * Data File Control Management (The right data†¦) * Product Data Access Control (To the right person†¦) * Workflow Process Management (At the right time†¦) * Geometry Management * CAD File Control Management * Digital Mockup * Integration Point For Single Source of Product Data * Information System Interfaces * Authoring Application Integration * Product Data Distribution * Product Data Viewing * Change Control * Configuration Identification * Configuration Status Accounting, Verification and Audit * Program / Project Management Coordination * Requirements Design Traceability 1.4 Benefits: Benefits of product lifecycle management include:- * Reduced time to market * Improve product quality * Reduced prototyping costs * Saving through the re-use of original data * A frame work for product optimization * Reduce waste * Saving through the complete integration of engineering workflows 1.5 History: Inspiration for the burgeoning business process now known as PLM came when America Motor Corporation (AMC) was looking for a way to speed up its product development process to compete better against its larger competitors in 1985, according to Francois casting Vice President for Product Engineering and Development. After the introduction of its compact jeep Cherokee (XJ), the vehicle that launched the modern sport utility vehicle (SUV) market, AMC began to develop a new model, which later came out as Jeep Grand Cherokee. The first part in its quest for faster product development was Computer Aided Design (CAD) software system that makes engineers more productive. The conflicts are very easily solved by using new communication system .By this system costly engineering also changes because of availability of drawings and documents in a central database. AMC was purchased by Chrysler because of the effectiveness of the product data management .This made the designing and building product to connect with enterprise. While an early adopter of PLM technology, Chrysler was able to become the auto industrys lowest-cost producer, recording development costs that were half of the industry average for the Burge owning business process now known as PLM came when America average by the mid-1990s. C:Documents and SettingskranthiDesktoprakesh_prj_imgRKSH_IMG4.bmp Fig 1. Layout of Product life cycle management 1.6 Timeline -Increasing Productivity with Technology:[2] 1980s  § Introduction of Commercial Computer Aided Design (CAD) radically improved  § Productivity in Product Design 1990s  § Adoption of ERP Systems  § ERP Systems included Engineering and Change Management Modules  § Design Build remained separated in silos 2000s  § Adoption of Workflow Web technologies accelerated PLM concepts  § Workflow enabled collaboration between different company silos  § PLM drastically improved NPI cycle cutting time cost  § PLM extended visibility and collaboration to CMs Suppliers using the we Present  § PLM extended Product Design to 3rd party Design Outsourcing  § Collaboration extended across the global chain to Customers Suppliers  § Introduction of Industry Government Standards Compliance  § Adoption of Collaborative Quality Improvement across the supply chain  § Adoption of Program/Project based PLM Portfolio Management  § Adoption of PLM Analytics and Intelligence for Cost/Process Analysis Improve. 1.7 Phases of Product lifecycle:[3] There are many software solutions now developed which are use to organize and integrate the various phases of the product ‘s life cycle. PLM is the single software with a suite of tools with several working methods, all these integrates to define single or different stage of product life cycle. PLM range is covered by some software providers but other only single application. Some of the applications can span various fields of PLM with different modules, with in the similar data model. All fields in PLM are covered here. It should also not be forgotten that one of the main goals of PLM is to collect knowledge that can be reused for other projects and to coordinate simultaneous concurrent development of many products. PLM is mainly related with engineering tasks and also involves the activities of marketing like Product Portfolio Management (PPM), and mainly with regards to the new product introduction (NPI). 1.7.1. Phase 1: Conceive: Imagine, specify, plan, and innovate The initial phase in idea is the definition of its requirements based on customer, company, market and regulatory bodies viewpoints. Major technical parameter can be defined by this product specification. Many functional aspect and requirement specification are carried out parallel with the initial concept design work carried out by defining the visual aesthetics of the product. For the Industrial Design Styling, work many different media are used from pencil and paper, clay models to 3D Computer Aided Design software 1.7.2. Phase 2: Design: Describe, Define, Develop, Test, Analyze and validate This is where the detailed design and development of the products form starts, progressing to prototype testing, through pilot release to full product launch. It may also include the redesign and ramp for improvement to present products as well as Planned obsolescence. CAD tool is used for design and development. This can be a simple or plain 2D Drawing / Drafting or 3D Parametric Feature Based Solid/Surface Modeling. Such software includes technology such as Hybrid Modeling, Reverse Engineering, KBE (Knowledge Based Engineering), NDT (Non Destructive Testing), Assembly construction This step covers many engineering disciplines including: Mechanical, Electrical, Electronic, Software (embedded), and domain-specific, such as Architectural, Aerospace, Automotive, Along with the actual creation of geometry there is the analysis of the components and product assemblies. By standing alone the CAE (Computer-aided engineering) software can perform simulation validation and optimization task or it may carry out by integrating with CAD package. These are used to perform tasks such as: Dimensional tolerance (Engineering) analysis task is performed by using CAQ (computer aided quality) such as Dimensional Tolerance (engineering) Analysis. Another task which is carried out at this phase is the sourcing of bought out components, possibly with the aid of Procurement systems. 1.7.3. Phase 3: Realize Manufacture, Make, Build, Procure, Produce, Sell and Deliver: The method of manufacturing is defined when the design of the products componnent is completed. It performs task such as design creation of CNC machining instructions for the products part as also it can perform tolls to manufacture those product which can be done using integrated or separate CAM. Process simulation for operations such as casting molding and die press forming will also be involve in the analysis tools. CPM comes in to play only when the manufacture method gets identified. The original CAD data with the use of Computer Aided Inspection equipment and software is used for checking the geometrical form and size of the components after they get manufactured. Sales product configuration and marketing documentation work will be taking place parallel to the engineering task. This could include transferring engineering data (geometry and part list data) to a web based sales configuration and other Desktop Publishing systems 1.7.4. Phase 4: Service: Use, Operate, Maintain, Support, sustain, phase-out, Retire, Recycle and Disposal In final stage of the lifecycle the managing of in service information is involved. The repair and maintence, waste management/recycling information is provided to the customers and to service engineers. Maintenance repair and operation management software tools are involved. 1.7.5. All phases: Product lifecycle: Communicate, Manage and Collaborate In many cases or in real practical a project does not run sequentially or maintain isolation of other project development project. The co-ordination of and management of product definition data is the main part of PLM, it includes release status of the components, managing of engineering changes, management of documents, project resources planning, configuration product variations, timescale and risk assessment. The text and metadata such as the product bills of materials needs to be managed. At the engineering departments stage this is the area of PDM (Product Data Management) software, at the commercial level EDM (Enterprise Data Management) software; it is typical to see two or more data management systems within an organization. These systems are also linked to other systems such as SCM, CRM, and ERP. Associated with these systems are Project Management Systems for Project/Program Planning. Numerous collaborative product development tools cover this central role which runs throu ghout the whole life cycle and across organizations. This needs various technology tools in the area of Conferencing, Data Sharing and Data Translation. CHAPTER 2 Research study conducted on (Cell phone) During past decade of time the, cell phone has become a part of our daily life .Like any product, making a cell phone and its parts requires natural resources and energy. Understanding the life cycle of a product can help you make environmental choices about the products you use, and how you dispose of them. Let us consider the example of a Nokia cell phone product life cycle management. 2.1 Concept Design:[4] The design of the product influences each stage of its lifecycle and also influences the environment. Design will affect the materials which are used in manufacturing of a product. If cheaper materials are used they are less durable, the product will have a short useful life. Waste can be prevented by proper design of the product. The design of the product with modular components can be easily replaced and entire product need not be thrown away if only one part of the product gets broken. The items having long life, trendy design should be avoided because they are not thrown away when they go out of style. 2.2 Materials Extraction:[4] All products are manufactured from the materials which are found in or on the earth. Raw materials, such as trees or ore, are directly mined or harvested from the earth and this process can create a lot of pollution and also involves usage of large amounts of energy and depletes the limited natural resources. The manufacturing of new products from recycled materials will reduce the amounts of the raw materials, being taken from the earth. The hand set consists of 40 percent metals, 40 percent plastics, and 20 percent ceramics and trace materials. The circuit board which is also termed as a printed wiring board, present in the hand set is the main component and is the brain of the cell phone controlling all of its functions. The circuit boards are up of mined and raw materials like silicon, copper, lead, nickel, tantalum, beryllium and other metals. Circuit board manufacturing requires crude oil for plastics and limestone and sand for the fiberglass, these materials are also known as â€Å"persistent toxins† and can stay in the environment for long periods of time even after their disposal. The cell phone consists of a liquid crystal display (LCD), a low power, flat- panel display on the front of the phone that shows information and images. The passage of electric current through it makes it opaque. The contrast between the opaque and transparent areas forms visible characters. Various liquid crystalline substances, either naturally occurring (such as mercury, a potentially dangerous substance) or human-made, are used to make LCDs, require the usage of plastic or glass. The rechargeable batteries used to power the phones can use several types of batteries: nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH), lithium-ion (Li-Ion), nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cad), or lead acid. These batteries contain nickel, cobalt, zinc, cadmium, and copper. 2.3 Materials Processing:[4] Once materials are extracted, they must be converted into a form that can be used to make products. For example, in cell phones: Crude oil is combined with natural gas and chemicals in a processing plant to make plastic; Copper is mined, ground, heated, and treated with chemicals and electricity to isolate the pure metal used to make circuit boards and batteries. The resulting copper pieces are transported to the manufacturer where they are formed into sheets and wires. 2.4 Manufacturing:[4] The basic shape of the circuit board is made by using plastics and fiberglass, and is then coated with gold plating. The board has several electronic components which are connected with wires made of copper and are soldered to the board, are secured with coatings and protective glues. LCDs are manufactured by sandwiching the liquid crystal in between layers of plastic or glass. Batteries have two separate parts known as electrodes, which are made from two different metals. Electrolyte is a liquid substance which touches each electrode. 2.5 Packaging Transportation:[4] The use of packaging can protect products from damage and provide product information. Finished products are transported in trucks, planes, and trains to different locations where they are sold. All of these modes of transportation burn fossil fuels, which can contribute to global climate change. The finished products and the parts of the cell phone require packaging and transportation in order to get from one place to another. The transportation done by plane, rail or truck requires the usage of the fossils fuels for energy, which contribute to the global climate change. While the packaging of the product protects it from getting damaged, identifies contents and provides information, decorative or excessive packaging can be wasteful. Packaging makes use of the valuable natural resources which include paper (from trees), plastics (from crude oil from the earth), and aluminum (from ore) and other materials, all of which makes use of energy to produce and can result in waste. 2.6 Reuse/Recycling/Disposal:[4] The way products are used can impact the environment. For example, products that are only used once create more waste than products that are used again and again. Using a product over and over again prevents the need to create the product from scratch, which saves resources and energy while also preventing pollution. Recycling or re-manufacturing products also reduces the amount of new materials that have to be extracted from the earth. Always comparison shop to be sure that you get the proper service and the phone that is right for you. By using the rechargeable batteries in cell phones reduces the amount of the waste and toxicity that disposable batteries will create. Be sure to follow the manufacturers instructions for charging your batteries so you can extend their life as long as possible 2.7 Life:[4] Recycling or donating the cell phones when they are no longer needed by you or want them extends their useful lives, and preventing them from going into the trash where they can cause problems relating to the environment. 2.8 Reuse:[4] Many organizations including recyclers, Charities, and electronics manufacturers accept working cell phones and offer them to schools, community organizations, and individuals in need. Reuse provides people, who cannot afford them, free or reduced cost access to new phones and their accessories. And thereby it extends the useful lifetime of a phone. 2.9 Recycle:[4] Springing up of electronics recyclers is every-where. Today, various stores, recycling centers and manufacturers accept cell phones for recycling. While few electronics recyclers only allow large shipments, the communities, schools, or groups can work together to collect used cell phones for shipment to electronics recyclers. Some of the rechargeable batteries can also be recycled, as many retail stores and some communities have started collecting them. The material recovered from the rechargeable batteries when they are recycled can be used for making new stainless steel products and batteries. You can use the phone book or Internet to find the local contacts that refurbish and recycle cell phones. 2.10 Disposal:[4] By 2009, the rate at which cell phones are discarded is predicted to exceed 125 million phones each year, resulting in more than 65,000 tons of waste. The cell phones which are thrown into the trash end up in a landfill or are burned. As the cell phone contains plastics, chemical, metals and other hazardous substances, you should always recycle, donate or trade in your old cell phone. 2.11 Headset:[4] Many people use a cell phone headset when they are driving or when they are walking around to keep their hands free. Most models of headsets can be reused when you buy a new phone. 2.12 Belt clip:[4] Some people buy belt clips to carry cell phones while not in use. Reusing or donating your belt clip when you are finished using it prevents waste. 2.13 Face plate:[4] Decorative face plates can be trendy and fun, but you dont need them to use a cell phone. The best way to prevent waste is to simply not buy products you dont need. If you do buy face plates, donate unwanted ones to a charity or swap them with your friends instead of throwing them away. Portable gaming cell phones have a lot of the same parts as hand-held video game and CD players, consoles and portable CD players, including speakers, circuit boards, and LCDs. Old or broken consoles and players can also be reused or recycled when no longer wanted. Advances in cell phone technology have given phones many uses today. CHAPTER 3 CASE STUDY 3.1 Case study: Siemens Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices (SHC) is a leading company for home and office communication infrastructure. The company sells its products in more than 50 countries. 3.1.1 Business Challenge: SHC has several engineering and manufacturing disciplines which are unique and located at one single site, in Germany. Mold tooling development, mechanical design development, manufacturing and assembling are all done in Bocholt, Germany. For Siemens the market pressure is very high in electronics and electric and consumer goods, and there is stress from this competition to reduce development cycles and its time to market new goods, as there is a wide range of products introduced into the market year after year with new designs and more complexity. Therefore Siemens recognized that it has to make improvements in its quality and thus needed to enhance the supply chain integration and collaboration to meet its marketing challenges. Siemens soon recognized that to overcome the external and internal pressures it has to improve its development and product life cycle for the future success of Siemens SHC. Siemens had been working with a 3-D CAD system â€Å" Euclid 3† for about 10 years on which it had made all possible improvements and it cannot upgrade it any further, so it has to get help from outside partner to help and implement a new product life cycle (PLM) system. 3.1.2 Solution: Siemens in partnership with IBM services implemented CATIA V5 and SMART TEAM as a new PLM platform for improvement in product development. CATIA V5 has a set of predefined product and process templates, helps to quickly complete even sophisticated design tasks with a high level of accuracy. With CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM, SHC has improved design innovation, taking advantage of the existing know-how and design to manufacturing process to the development and reduction of costs. In addition to that, this tool has helped make the mold tool development and NC manufacturing very competitive with low-cost suppliers from places like China. 3.2 Case study 2: Airbus UK 3.2.1 Business Challenge: To meet tight deadlines for delivery and reduce design and manufacturing costs by constantly improving working processes throughout the aircraft lifecycle. 3.2.2 Solution: IBM has provided with a team of flexible and scalable experts which included strategic business consultants, aircraft industry specialists and project managers to define and implement transformation programs in business, financial and organizational disciplines. 3.2.3 Business Benefits: Improved collaboration with suppliers eliminated data re-entry, saving â‚ ¬18 million on collaboration with suppliers. * Improved concurrent engineering reduced lead time on wing by 41 weeks (36% reduction). * The worlds first flight of largest passenger aircraft completed on time. * Keeping Scheduled programming. * Innovative practices introduced from concurrent engineering and collaborative working. 3.2.4 Why it matters? IBM team created new business, financial and organizational processes to meet the deadlines while cost cutting the design and manufacturing for the new Airbus A380. These changes has transformed the airplane manufacturing methodology while enabling Airbus UK to cut cost and time out of design and manufacture, improve collaboration with suppliers and deliver key components on schedule to ensure the A380 aircrafts on-time first flight. 3.2.5 Key Components: IBM Global Business Services In developing the new technologies and pushing the boundaries of knowledge in the aerospace industry Airbus is leading the world. Airbus is an extremely complex business, which employs advanced technologies and procedures, some of which have mainly been developed for this project. In such a large-scale, modern design and manufacturing process, a lot of attention is paid at keeping costs under control. Wing assembly is one of the most complex parts of the aircraft, an element for which Airbus UK has the design and manufacturing responsibility. The company realized early in the A380 program that new processes would be needed to achieve the aggressive timeline for the airplane. â€Å"We needed to radically transform our approach to the A380, and saw value in bringing in an objective external consultancy to help define and implement new ways of working,† says Iain Gray, Managing Director of Airbus UK. Nowhere is this more evident than in its design and development of the A380, the worlds largest passenger jet. Airbus is a highly complex business, employing advanced technologies and processes, some of which have specifically been developed for this project. In such a large-scale, innovative design and manufacturing operation, much attention is paid to keeping costs under control. Airbus UK commissioned IBM Global Business Services to bring together a team of experts to analyze designs, design processes and manufacturing operations. â€Å"IBM is exclusively placed to give advice and help us transform Airbus UK,† s ays Gray. â€Å"It has enormous breadth and depth of knowledge, with expertise in business, financial and organizational disciplines as well as the aircraft industry and computer technology.† The core IBM Global Business Services program team includes strategic business consultants, aircraft industry specialists and project managers. This team is expanded when ever required by drafting in specialists and consultants who bring a complete cross-section of business and technical skills relevant to the specific problem being addressed. 3.2.6 Designing out cost: â€Å"Initiatives from IBM Global Business Services help us drive cost out of design and manufacture, improve collaborative working, and transform the way we work with our many subcontractors,† explains Gray. Improved collaboration with suppliers eliminated data re-entry, saving â‚ ¬18 million. The IBM team has helped the Airbus UK improve the concurrent engineering, reducing lead time of the wing by 41 weeks (36 percent reduction). Sometimes, initiatives originated directly from the IBM team. Airbus built complete 3D models of A380 components to analyze clash conditions in airframe systems and structure before committing to cut metal—for example, to ensure that there were adequate clearances for slat and flap mechanisms on the wing and the landing gear. Such large-scale 3D modeling involves an enormous volume of number-crunching, which would normally trigger the purchase of large processors. Seeing this situation, IBM consultants introduced Airbus to the concept of GRID computing, which pools unutilized processing capacity in hundreds of distributed workstations for use with processor-intensive applications. A prototype was developed, and IBM then completed the implementation of GRID technology, there by saving Airbus a considerable investment. In the area of business transformation, IBM Global Business Services is organizing an experienced team of human resource and organizational specialists to help Airbus UK transform from a development organization to one undertaking large-scale serial production. The key aspect in the success of the A380 program is educating several hundred people across Airbus UK and its many of the subcontractors in the new tools, processes and collaborative working. With an infinite pool of resources, IBM responded very rapidly to Airbus training needs, building and delivering of tailored courses that reflect the processes and technologies defined at the strategic level. 3.3 Case Study 3: Maruti Udyog Ltd Maruti Udyog Ltd., a subsidiary of Suzuki Moto Corporation of Japan, has been the leading Indian passenger car maker for about two decades. The company has a diverse portfolio that includes: the Maruti 800;the Omni; a premium small car, Zen; the international brands, Alto and WagonR; an off-roader, Gypsy; the mid-size Esteem; a luxury car, Baleno; an MPV, Versa; a premium subcompact car, Swift; and a luxury SUV, Grand Vitara XL7. The companys 11 base platforms encompass300 variants for 100 export destinations. According to Marutis vision statement, its goals include maintaining leadership in the Indian automobile industry, creating customer delight, increasing shareholder wealth and being â€Å"a pride of India.† Customers have shown their approval, ranking Maruti high in customer satisfaction for six years in a row according to the J.D. Power Asia Pacific 2005 India Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) Study. The company has also ranked highest in the India Sales Satisfaction St udy. 3.3.1The need for PLM: Among the companys product development challenges, the need for shorter cycle times is always at the top. Management wants to be able to launch new models faster and reduce the time required for minor changes and development of product variants. Another challenge is co-development. Marutis goal is to collaborate closely with its global teams and suppliers on the development of new platforms and product freshening. Other challenges include streamlining the process of vehicle localization and enhancing quality and reliability. These challenges pointed directly to a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution with capabilities for information management, process management, knowledge capture and support for global collaboration; a PLM solution directly addressing Marutis business challenges. For example, PLMs information management capabilities address the issue of the many plat forms, local variants and export destinations. Process management permits concurrent development and faster c hange management and provides a platform for other process improvements for faster vehicle development. Knowledge capture increases innovation and also reduces costs by increasing part re-use. PLMs collaboration capabilities permit global development by ensuring fast and accurate dissemination of product information. 3.3.2. Implementation profile: Maruti selected the UGS PLM software solution because â€Å"UGS leverages the business value by offering complete PLM solution,† according to C.V. Raman, general manager, Engineering Division, Maruti Udyog Ltd. Marutis PLM implementation includes Team centre, NX and Techno matrix software. Team centre provides a wide range of functionality for release management including bills of material management and change management. Team centre also handles the vehicle localization process, coordinates the part approval process and integrates design and engineering information with the companys ERP system. Team centre also provides Implementing Product Life Cycle Management in Indian Product Implementing Product Life Cycle Management in Indian Product IMPLEMENTING PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT IN INDIAN PRODUCT MANUFACTURE ORGANIZATIONS Abstract Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from market demand, product design, manufacturing, services and disposal. By integrating people, data, process, business systems to provide product information which can foster a companys product innovation ability and their extended enterprise. In short all-encompassing vision for managing all data relating to the design, production, support and ultimate disposal of manufactured goods. The aerospace, medical devices, military, nuclear and automobile industries need to maintain safety and control extremely important. This safety and control measure brought about the concept of PLM in to the market. The configuration management further evolved into electronic data management systems. This further evolved into data management systems. By using the PLM features, many manufacturers of industrial machinery, capital goods, consumer electronics and packaged goods have benefited largely in the past ten years, since the advent of the PLM. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT: Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the procedure of managing the complete lifecycle of a product. It symbolizes the encompassing vision for supervising all the data relating to the design, manufacturing, support and the dumping of the produced goods. The concept of PLM was first introduced in the areas where safety and control were extremely important like aerospace, nuclear industries, military and medical device. These industries invented the discipline of configuration management (CM), which later got evolved in to the electronic data management system (EDMS), and this was further developed to the product data management (PDM). The usage of PLM solution has benefited the manufacturers of the industrial machinery, packaged goods, consumer electronics and complicated engineered products, and also there is a rapid increase in the adoption of PLM software by the industries. Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the procedure of managing the complete lifecycle of a product from its beginning, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal. PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprise. Product lifecycle management is one of the four cornerstones of a corporations information technology system structure. Every company needs to communicate and share information with their customer relation management (CRM) and also shared with the supply chain management and their resources with enterprises management (ERP-Enterprise Resource Planning) and their planning (SDLC-System Development Life-cycle). The manufacturing and engineering companies should compulsorily develop, describe, manage, and communicate information about their products. 1.2 PLM SOLUTIONS:[1] 1.3 Some requirements of PLM: * Data File Control Management (The right data†¦) * Product Data Access Control (To the right person†¦) * Workflow Process Management (At the right time†¦) * Geometry Management * CAD File Control Management * Digital Mockup * Integration Point For Single Source of Product Data * Information System Interfaces * Authoring Application Integration * Product Data Distribution * Product Data Viewing * Change Control * Configuration Identification * Configuration Status Accounting, Verification and Audit * Program / Project Management Coordination * Requirements Design Traceability 1.4 Benefits: Benefits of product lifecycle management include:- * Reduced time to market * Improve product quality * Reduced prototyping costs * Saving through the re-use of original data * A frame work for product optimization * Reduce waste * Saving through the complete integration of engineering workflows 1.5 History: Inspiration for the burgeoning business process now known as PLM came when America Motor Corporation (AMC) was looking for a way to speed up its product development process to compete better against its larger competitors in 1985, according to Francois casting Vice President for Product Engineering and Development. After the introduction of its compact jeep Cherokee (XJ), the vehicle that launched the modern sport utility vehicle (SUV) market, AMC began to develop a new model, which later came out as Jeep Grand Cherokee. The first part in its quest for faster product development was Computer Aided Design (CAD) software system that makes engineers more productive. The conflicts are very easily solved by using new communication system .By this system costly engineering also changes because of availability of drawings and documents in a central database. AMC was purchased by Chrysler because of the effectiveness of the product data management .This made the designing and building product to connect with enterprise. While an early adopter of PLM technology, Chrysler was able to become the auto industrys lowest-cost producer, recording development costs that were half of the industry average for the Burge owning business process now known as PLM came when America average by the mid-1990s. C:Documents and SettingskranthiDesktoprakesh_prj_imgRKSH_IMG4.bmp Fig 1. Layout of Product life cycle management 1.6 Timeline -Increasing Productivity with Technology:[2] 1980s  § Introduction of Commercial Computer Aided Design (CAD) radically improved  § Productivity in Product Design 1990s  § Adoption of ERP Systems  § ERP Systems included Engineering and Change Management Modules  § Design Build remained separated in silos 2000s  § Adoption of Workflow Web technologies accelerated PLM concepts  § Workflow enabled collaboration between different company silos  § PLM drastically improved NPI cycle cutting time cost  § PLM extended visibility and collaboration to CMs Suppliers using the we Present  § PLM extended Product Design to 3rd party Design Outsourcing  § Collaboration extended across the global chain to Customers Suppliers  § Introduction of Industry Government Standards Compliance  § Adoption of Collaborative Quality Improvement across the supply chain  § Adoption of Program/Project based PLM Portfolio Management  § Adoption of PLM Analytics and Intelligence for Cost/Process Analysis Improve. 1.7 Phases of Product lifecycle:[3] There are many software solutions now developed which are use to organize and integrate the various phases of the product ‘s life cycle. PLM is the single software with a suite of tools with several working methods, all these integrates to define single or different stage of product life cycle. PLM range is covered by some software providers but other only single application. Some of the applications can span various fields of PLM with different modules, with in the similar data model. All fields in PLM are covered here. It should also not be forgotten that one of the main goals of PLM is to collect knowledge that can be reused for other projects and to coordinate simultaneous concurrent development of many products. PLM is mainly related with engineering tasks and also involves the activities of marketing like Product Portfolio Management (PPM), and mainly with regards to the new product introduction (NPI). 1.7.1. Phase 1: Conceive: Imagine, specify, plan, and innovate The initial phase in idea is the definition of its requirements based on customer, company, market and regulatory bodies viewpoints. Major technical parameter can be defined by this product specification. Many functional aspect and requirement specification are carried out parallel with the initial concept design work carried out by defining the visual aesthetics of the product. For the Industrial Design Styling, work many different media are used from pencil and paper, clay models to 3D Computer Aided Design software 1.7.2. Phase 2: Design: Describe, Define, Develop, Test, Analyze and validate This is where the detailed design and development of the products form starts, progressing to prototype testing, through pilot release to full product launch. It may also include the redesign and ramp for improvement to present products as well as Planned obsolescence. CAD tool is used for design and development. This can be a simple or plain 2D Drawing / Drafting or 3D Parametric Feature Based Solid/Surface Modeling. Such software includes technology such as Hybrid Modeling, Reverse Engineering, KBE (Knowledge Based Engineering), NDT (Non Destructive Testing), Assembly construction This step covers many engineering disciplines including: Mechanical, Electrical, Electronic, Software (embedded), and domain-specific, such as Architectural, Aerospace, Automotive, Along with the actual creation of geometry there is the analysis of the components and product assemblies. By standing alone the CAE (Computer-aided engineering) software can perform simulation validation and optimization task or it may carry out by integrating with CAD package. These are used to perform tasks such as: Dimensional tolerance (Engineering) analysis task is performed by using CAQ (computer aided quality) such as Dimensional Tolerance (engineering) Analysis. Another task which is carried out at this phase is the sourcing of bought out components, possibly with the aid of Procurement systems. 1.7.3. Phase 3: Realize Manufacture, Make, Build, Procure, Produce, Sell and Deliver: The method of manufacturing is defined when the design of the products componnent is completed. It performs task such as design creation of CNC machining instructions for the products part as also it can perform tolls to manufacture those product which can be done using integrated or separate CAM. Process simulation for operations such as casting molding and die press forming will also be involve in the analysis tools. CPM comes in to play only when the manufacture method gets identified. The original CAD data with the use of Computer Aided Inspection equipment and software is used for checking the geometrical form and size of the components after they get manufactured. Sales product configuration and marketing documentation work will be taking place parallel to the engineering task. This could include transferring engineering data (geometry and part list data) to a web based sales configuration and other Desktop Publishing systems 1.7.4. Phase 4: Service: Use, Operate, Maintain, Support, sustain, phase-out, Retire, Recycle and Disposal In final stage of the lifecycle the managing of in service information is involved. The repair and maintence, waste management/recycling information is provided to the customers and to service engineers. Maintenance repair and operation management software tools are involved. 1.7.5. All phases: Product lifecycle: Communicate, Manage and Collaborate In many cases or in real practical a project does not run sequentially or maintain isolation of other project development project. The co-ordination of and management of product definition data is the main part of PLM, it includes release status of the components, managing of engineering changes, management of documents, project resources planning, configuration product variations, timescale and risk assessment. The text and metadata such as the product bills of materials needs to be managed. At the engineering departments stage this is the area of PDM (Product Data Management) software, at the commercial level EDM (Enterprise Data Management) software; it is typical to see two or more data management systems within an organization. These systems are also linked to other systems such as SCM, CRM, and ERP. Associated with these systems are Project Management Systems for Project/Program Planning. Numerous collaborative product development tools cover this central role which runs throu ghout the whole life cycle and across organizations. This needs various technology tools in the area of Conferencing, Data Sharing and Data Translation. CHAPTER 2 Research study conducted on (Cell phone) During past decade of time the, cell phone has become a part of our daily life .Like any product, making a cell phone and its parts requires natural resources and energy. Understanding the life cycle of a product can help you make environmental choices about the products you use, and how you dispose of them. Let us consider the example of a Nokia cell phone product life cycle management. 2.1 Concept Design:[4] The design of the product influences each stage of its lifecycle and also influences the environment. Design will affect the materials which are used in manufacturing of a product. If cheaper materials are used they are less durable, the product will have a short useful life. Waste can be prevented by proper design of the product. The design of the product with modular components can be easily replaced and entire product need not be thrown away if only one part of the product gets broken. The items having long life, trendy design should be avoided because they are not thrown away when they go out of style. 2.2 Materials Extraction:[4] All products are manufactured from the materials which are found in or on the earth. Raw materials, such as trees or ore, are directly mined or harvested from the earth and this process can create a lot of pollution and also involves usage of large amounts of energy and depletes the limited natural resources. The manufacturing of new products from recycled materials will reduce the amounts of the raw materials, being taken from the earth. The hand set consists of 40 percent metals, 40 percent plastics, and 20 percent ceramics and trace materials. The circuit board which is also termed as a printed wiring board, present in the hand set is the main component and is the brain of the cell phone controlling all of its functions. The circuit boards are up of mined and raw materials like silicon, copper, lead, nickel, tantalum, beryllium and other metals. Circuit board manufacturing requires crude oil for plastics and limestone and sand for the fiberglass, these materials are also known as â€Å"persistent toxins† and can stay in the environment for long periods of time even after their disposal. The cell phone consists of a liquid crystal display (LCD), a low power, flat- panel display on the front of the phone that shows information and images. The passage of electric current through it makes it opaque. The contrast between the opaque and transparent areas forms visible characters. Various liquid crystalline substances, either naturally occurring (such as mercury, a potentially dangerous substance) or human-made, are used to make LCDs, require the usage of plastic or glass. The rechargeable batteries used to power the phones can use several types of batteries: nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH), lithium-ion (Li-Ion), nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cad), or lead acid. These batteries contain nickel, cobalt, zinc, cadmium, and copper. 2.3 Materials Processing:[4] Once materials are extracted, they must be converted into a form that can be used to make products. For example, in cell phones: Crude oil is combined with natural gas and chemicals in a processing plant to make plastic; Copper is mined, ground, heated, and treated with chemicals and electricity to isolate the pure metal used to make circuit boards and batteries. The resulting copper pieces are transported to the manufacturer where they are formed into sheets and wires. 2.4 Manufacturing:[4] The basic shape of the circuit board is made by using plastics and fiberglass, and is then coated with gold plating. The board has several electronic components which are connected with wires made of copper and are soldered to the board, are secured with coatings and protective glues. LCDs are manufactured by sandwiching the liquid crystal in between layers of plastic or glass. Batteries have two separate parts known as electrodes, which are made from two different metals. Electrolyte is a liquid substance which touches each electrode. 2.5 Packaging Transportation:[4] The use of packaging can protect products from damage and provide product information. Finished products are transported in trucks, planes, and trains to different locations where they are sold. All of these modes of transportation burn fossil fuels, which can contribute to global climate change. The finished products and the parts of the cell phone require packaging and transportation in order to get from one place to another. The transportation done by plane, rail or truck requires the usage of the fossils fuels for energy, which contribute to the global climate change. While the packaging of the product protects it from getting damaged, identifies contents and provides information, decorative or excessive packaging can be wasteful. Packaging makes use of the valuable natural resources which include paper (from trees), plastics (from crude oil from the earth), and aluminum (from ore) and other materials, all of which makes use of energy to produce and can result in waste. 2.6 Reuse/Recycling/Disposal:[4] The way products are used can impact the environment. For example, products that are only used once create more waste than products that are used again and again. Using a product over and over again prevents the need to create the product from scratch, which saves resources and energy while also preventing pollution. Recycling or re-manufacturing products also reduces the amount of new materials that have to be extracted from the earth. Always comparison shop to be sure that you get the proper service and the phone that is right for you. By using the rechargeable batteries in cell phones reduces the amount of the waste and toxicity that disposable batteries will create. Be sure to follow the manufacturers instructions for charging your batteries so you can extend their life as long as possible 2.7 Life:[4] Recycling or donating the cell phones when they are no longer needed by you or want them extends their useful lives, and preventing them from going into the trash where they can cause problems relating to the environment. 2.8 Reuse:[4] Many organizations including recyclers, Charities, and electronics manufacturers accept working cell phones and offer them to schools, community organizations, and individuals in need. Reuse provides people, who cannot afford them, free or reduced cost access to new phones and their accessories. And thereby it extends the useful lifetime of a phone. 2.9 Recycle:[4] Springing up of electronics recyclers is every-where. Today, various stores, recycling centers and manufacturers accept cell phones for recycling. While few electronics recyclers only allow large shipments, the communities, schools, or groups can work together to collect used cell phones for shipment to electronics recyclers. Some of the rechargeable batteries can also be recycled, as many retail stores and some communities have started collecting them. The material recovered from the rechargeable batteries when they are recycled can be used for making new stainless steel products and batteries. You can use the phone book or Internet to find the local contacts that refurbish and recycle cell phones. 2.10 Disposal:[4] By 2009, the rate at which cell phones are discarded is predicted to exceed 125 million phones each year, resulting in more than 65,000 tons of waste. The cell phones which are thrown into the trash end up in a landfill or are burned. As the cell phone contains plastics, chemical, metals and other hazardous substances, you should always recycle, donate or trade in your old cell phone. 2.11 Headset:[4] Many people use a cell phone headset when they are driving or when they are walking around to keep their hands free. Most models of headsets can be reused when you buy a new phone. 2.12 Belt clip:[4] Some people buy belt clips to carry cell phones while not in use. Reusing or donating your belt clip when you are finished using it prevents waste. 2.13 Face plate:[4] Decorative face plates can be trendy and fun, but you dont need them to use a cell phone. The best way to prevent waste is to simply not buy products you dont need. If you do buy face plates, donate unwanted ones to a charity or swap them with your friends instead of throwing them away. Portable gaming cell phones have a lot of the same parts as hand-held video game and CD players, consoles and portable CD players, including speakers, circuit boards, and LCDs. Old or broken consoles and players can also be reused or recycled when no longer wanted. Advances in cell phone technology have given phones many uses today. CHAPTER 3 CASE STUDY 3.1 Case study: Siemens Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices (SHC) is a leading company for home and office communication infrastructure. The company sells its products in more than 50 countries. 3.1.1 Business Challenge: SHC has several engineering and manufacturing disciplines which are unique and located at one single site, in Germany. Mold tooling development, mechanical design development, manufacturing and assembling are all done in Bocholt, Germany. For Siemens the market pressure is very high in electronics and electric and consumer goods, and there is stress from this competition to reduce development cycles and its time to market new goods, as there is a wide range of products introduced into the market year after year with new designs and more complexity. Therefore Siemens recognized that it has to make improvements in its quality and thus needed to enhance the supply chain integration and collaboration to meet its marketing challenges. Siemens soon recognized that to overcome the external and internal pressures it has to improve its development and product life cycle for the future success of Siemens SHC. Siemens had been working with a 3-D CAD system â€Å" Euclid 3† for about 10 years on which it had made all possible improvements and it cannot upgrade it any further, so it has to get help from outside partner to help and implement a new product life cycle (PLM) system. 3.1.2 Solution: Siemens in partnership with IBM services implemented CATIA V5 and SMART TEAM as a new PLM platform for improvement in product development. CATIA V5 has a set of predefined product and process templates, helps to quickly complete even sophisticated design tasks with a high level of accuracy. With CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM, SHC has improved design innovation, taking advantage of the existing know-how and design to manufacturing process to the development and reduction of costs. In addition to that, this tool has helped make the mold tool development and NC manufacturing very competitive with low-cost suppliers from places like China. 3.2 Case study 2: Airbus UK 3.2.1 Business Challenge: To meet tight deadlines for delivery and reduce design and manufacturing costs by constantly improving working processes throughout the aircraft lifecycle. 3.2.2 Solution: IBM has provided with a team of flexible and scalable experts which included strategic business consultants, aircraft industry specialists and project managers to define and implement transformation programs in business, financial and organizational disciplines. 3.2.3 Business Benefits: Improved collaboration with suppliers eliminated data re-entry, saving â‚ ¬18 million on collaboration with suppliers. * Improved concurrent engineering reduced lead time on wing by 41 weeks (36% reduction). * The worlds first flight of largest passenger aircraft completed on time. * Keeping Scheduled programming. * Innovative practices introduced from concurrent engineering and collaborative working. 3.2.4 Why it matters? IBM team created new business, financial and organizational processes to meet the deadlines while cost cutting the design and manufacturing for the new Airbus A380. These changes has transformed the airplane manufacturing methodology while enabling Airbus UK to cut cost and time out of design and manufacture, improve collaboration with suppliers and deliver key components on schedule to ensure the A380 aircrafts on-time first flight. 3.2.5 Key Components: IBM Global Business Services In developing the new technologies and pushing the boundaries of knowledge in the aerospace industry Airbus is leading the world. Airbus is an extremely complex business, which employs advanced technologies and procedures, some of which have mainly been developed for this project. In such a large-scale, modern design and manufacturing process, a lot of attention is paid at keeping costs under control. Wing assembly is one of the most complex parts of the aircraft, an element for which Airbus UK has the design and manufacturing responsibility. The company realized early in the A380 program that new processes would be needed to achieve the aggressive timeline for the airplane. â€Å"We needed to radically transform our approach to the A380, and saw value in bringing in an objective external consultancy to help define and implement new ways of working,† says Iain Gray, Managing Director of Airbus UK. Nowhere is this more evident than in its design and development of the A380, the worlds largest passenger jet. Airbus is a highly complex business, employing advanced technologies and processes, some of which have specifically been developed for this project. In such a large-scale, innovative design and manufacturing operation, much attention is paid to keeping costs under control. Airbus UK commissioned IBM Global Business Services to bring together a team of experts to analyze designs, design processes and manufacturing operations. â€Å"IBM is exclusively placed to give advice and help us transform Airbus UK,† s ays Gray. â€Å"It has enormous breadth and depth of knowledge, with expertise in business, financial and organizational disciplines as well as the aircraft industry and computer technology.† The core IBM Global Business Services program team includes strategic business consultants, aircraft industry specialists and project managers. This team is expanded when ever required by drafting in specialists and consultants who bring a complete cross-section of business and technical skills relevant to the specific problem being addressed. 3.2.6 Designing out cost: â€Å"Initiatives from IBM Global Business Services help us drive cost out of design and manufacture, improve collaborative working, and transform the way we work with our many subcontractors,† explains Gray. Improved collaboration with suppliers eliminated data re-entry, saving â‚ ¬18 million. The IBM team has helped the Airbus UK improve the concurrent engineering, reducing lead time of the wing by 41 weeks (36 percent reduction). Sometimes, initiatives originated directly from the IBM team. Airbus built complete 3D models of A380 components to analyze clash conditions in airframe systems and structure before committing to cut metal—for example, to ensure that there were adequate clearances for slat and flap mechanisms on the wing and the landing gear. Such large-scale 3D modeling involves an enormous volume of number-crunching, which would normally trigger the purchase of large processors. Seeing this situation, IBM consultants introduced Airbus to the concept of GRID computing, which pools unutilized processing capacity in hundreds of distributed workstations for use with processor-intensive applications. A prototype was developed, and IBM then completed the implementation of GRID technology, there by saving Airbus a considerable investment. In the area of business transformation, IBM Global Business Services is organizing an experienced team of human resource and organizational specialists to help Airbus UK transform from a development organization to one undertaking large-scale serial production. The key aspect in the success of the A380 program is educating several hundred people across Airbus UK and its many of the subcontractors in the new tools, processes and collaborative working. With an infinite pool of resources, IBM responded very rapidly to Airbus training needs, building and delivering of tailored courses that reflect the processes and technologies defined at the strategic level. 3.3 Case Study 3: Maruti Udyog Ltd Maruti Udyog Ltd., a subsidiary of Suzuki Moto Corporation of Japan, has been the leading Indian passenger car maker for about two decades. The company has a diverse portfolio that includes: the Maruti 800;the Omni; a premium small car, Zen; the international brands, Alto and WagonR; an off-roader, Gypsy; the mid-size Esteem; a luxury car, Baleno; an MPV, Versa; a premium subcompact car, Swift; and a luxury SUV, Grand Vitara XL7. The companys 11 base platforms encompass300 variants for 100 export destinations. According to Marutis vision statement, its goals include maintaining leadership in the Indian automobile industry, creating customer delight, increasing shareholder wealth and being â€Å"a pride of India.† Customers have shown their approval, ranking Maruti high in customer satisfaction for six years in a row according to the J.D. Power Asia Pacific 2005 India Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) Study. The company has also ranked highest in the India Sales Satisfaction St udy. 3.3.1The need for PLM: Among the companys product development challenges, the need for shorter cycle times is always at the top. Management wants to be able to launch new models faster and reduce the time required for minor changes and development of product variants. Another challenge is co-development. Marutis goal is to collaborate closely with its global teams and suppliers on the development of new platforms and product freshening. Other challenges include streamlining the process of vehicle localization and enhancing quality and reliability. These challenges pointed directly to a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution with capabilities for information management, process management, knowledge capture and support for global collaboration; a PLM solution directly addressing Marutis business challenges. For example, PLMs information management capabilities address the issue of the many plat forms, local variants and export destinations. Process management permits concurrent development and faster c hange management and provides a platform for other process improvements for faster vehicle development. Knowledge capture increases innovation and also reduces costs by increasing part re-use. PLMs collaboration capabilities permit global development by ensuring fast and accurate dissemination of product information. 3.3.2. Implementation profile: Maruti selected the UGS PLM software solution because â€Å"UGS leverages the business value by offering complete PLM solution,† according to C.V. Raman, general manager, Engineering Division, Maruti Udyog Ltd. Marutis PLM implementation includes Team centre, NX and Techno matrix software. Team centre provides a wide range of functionality for release management including bills of material management and change management. Team centre also handles the vehicle localization process, coordinates the part approval process and integrates design and engineering information with the companys ERP system. Team centre also provides

Ancient Greece Essay

Greek Mythology, set of diverse traditional tales told by the ancient Greeks about the exploits of gods and heroes and their relations with ordinary mortals. The ancient Greeks worshiped many gods within a culture that tolerated diversity. Unlike other belief systems, Greek culture recognized no single truth or code and produced no sacred, written text like the Bible or the Qur’an. Stories about the origins and actions of Greek divinities varied widely, depending, for example, on whether the tale appeared in a comedy, tragedy, or epic poem. Greek mythology was like a complex and rich language, in which the Greeks could express a vast range of perceptions about the world. A Greek city-state devoted itself to a particular god or group of gods in whose honor it built temples. The temple generally housed a statue of the god or gods. The Greeks honored the city’s gods in festivals and also offered sacrifices to the gods, usually a domestic animal such as a goat. Stories about the gods varied by geographic location: A god might have one set of characteristics in one city or region and quite different characteristics elsewhere. II A A1  PRINCIPAL FIGURES IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY Greek mythology has several distinguishing characteristics, in addition to its multiple versions. The Greek gods resembled human beings in their form and in their emotions, and they lived in a society that resembled human society in its levels of authority and power. However, a crucial difference existed between gods and human beings: Humans died, and gods were immortal. Heroes also played an important role in Greek mythology, and stories about them conveyed serious themes. The Greeks considered human heroes from the past closer to themselves than were the immortal gods. Gods  Given the multiplicity of myths that circulated in Greece, it is difficult to present a single version of the genealogy (family history) of the gods. However, two accounts together provide a genealogy that most ancient Greeks would have recognized. One is the account given by Greek poet Hesiod in his Theogony (Genealogy of the Gods), written in the 8th century BC. The other account, The Library, is attributed to a mythographer (compiler of myths) named Apollodorus, who lived during the 2nd century BC. The Creation of the Gods According to Greek myths about creation, the god Chaos (Greek for â€Å"Gaping Void†) was the foundation of all things. From Chaos came Gaea (â€Å"Earth†); the bottomless depth of the underworld, known as Tartarus; and Eros (â€Å"Love†). Eros, the god of love, was needed to draw divinities together so they Greek Mythology might produce offspring. Chaos produced Night, while Gaea first bore Uranus, the god of the heavens, and after him produced the mountains, sea, and gods known as Titans. The Titans were strong and large, and they committed arrogant deeds. The youngest and most important Titan was Cronus. Uranus and Gaea, who came to personify Heaven and Earth, also gave birth to the Cyclopes, one-eyed giants who made thunderbolts. See also Creation Stories. A2 A3 A4 Cronus and Rhea Uranus tried to block any successors from taking over his supreme position by forcing back into Gaea the children she bore. But the youngest child, Cronus, thwarted his father, cutting off his genitals and tossing them into the sea. From the bloody foam in the sea Aphrodite, goddess of sexual love, was born. After wounding his father and taking away his power, Cronus became ruler of the universe. But Cronus, in turn, feared that his own son would supplant him. When his sister and wife Rhea gave birth to offspring—Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon—Cronus swallowed them. Only the youngest, Zeus, escaped this fate, because Rhea tricked Cronus. She gave him a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to swallow in place of the baby. Zeus and the Olympian Gods When fully grown, Zeus forced his father, Cronus, to disgorge the children he had swallowed. With their help and armed with the thunderbolt, Zeus made war on Cronus and the Titans, and overcame them. He established a new regime, based on Mount Olympus in northern Greece. Zeus ruled the sky. His brother Poseidon ruled the sea, and his brother Hades, the underworld. Their sister Hestia ruled the hearth, and Demeter took charge of the harvest. Zeus married his sister Hera, who became queen of the heavens and guardian of marriage and childbirth. Among their children was Ares, whose sphere of influence was war. Twelve major gods and goddesses had their homes on Mount Olympus and were known as the Olympians. Four children of Zeus and one child of Hera joined the Olympian gods Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, and Ares. Zeus’s Olympian offspring were Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, and Athena. Hera gave birth to Hephaestus. The Offspring of Zeus  Zeus had numerous children by both mortal and immortal women. By the mortal Semele he had Dionysus, a god associated with wine and with other forms of intoxication and ecstasy. By Leto, a Titan, Zeus fathered the twins Apollo and Artemis, who became two of the most important Olympian divinities. Artemis remained a virgin and took hunting as her special province. Apollo became associated with music and prophecy. People visited his oracle (shrine) at Delphi to seek his prophetic advice. By the nymph Maia, Zeus became father of Hermes, the Olympian trickster god who had the power to cross all kinds of boundaries. Hermes guided the souls of the dead down to the underworld, Greek Mythology carried messages between gods and mortals, and wafted a magical sleep upon the wakeful. Two other Olympian divinities, Hephaestus and Athena, had unusual births. Hera conceived Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, without a male partner. Subsequently he suffered the wrath of Zeus, who once hurled him from Olympus for coming to the aid of his mother; this fall down onto the island of Lemnos crippled Hephaestus. The birth of Athena was even stranger. Zeus and Metis, daughter of the Titan Oceanus, were the parents of Athena. But Gaea had warned Zeus that, after giving birth to the girl with whom she was pregnant, Metis would bear a son destined to rule heaven. To avoid losing his throne to a son, Zeus swallowed Metis, just as Cronus had previously swallowed his own children to thwart succession. Metis’s child Athena was born from the head of Zeus, which Hephaestus split open with an axe. Athena, another virgin goddess, embodied the power of practical intelligence in warfare and crafts work. She also served as the protector of the city of Athens. Another of Zeus’s children was Persephone; her mother was Demeter, goddess of grain, vegetation, and the harvest. Once when Persephone was gathering flowers in a meadow, Hades, god of the underworld, saw and abducted her, taking her down to the kingdom of the dead to be his bride. Her grief-stricken mother wandered the world in search of her; as a result, fertility left the earth. Zeus commanded Hades to release Persephone, but Hades had cunningly given her a pomegranate seed to eat. Having consumed food from the underworld, Persephone was obliged to return below the earth for part of each year. Her return from the underworld each year meant the revival of nature and the beginning of spring. This myth was told especially in connection with the Eleusinian Mysteries, sacred rituals observed in the Greek town of Elevsis near Athens. The rituals offered initiates in the mysteries the hope of rebirth, just as Persephone had been reborn after her journey to the underworld. Many Greek myths report the exploits of the principal Olympians, but Greek myths also refer to a variety of other divinities, each with their particular sphere of influence. Many of these divinities were children of Zeus, symbolizing the fact that they belonged to the new Olympian order of Zeus’s regime. The Muses, nine daughters of Zeus and the goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, presided over song, dance, and music. The Fates, three goddesses who controlled human life and destiny, and the Horae, goddesses who controlled the seasons, were appropriately the children of Zeus and Themis, the goddess of divine justice and law. Far different in temperament were the Erinyes (Furies), ancient and repellent goddesses who had sprung from the earth after it had been impregnated with the blood of Uranus’s severed genitals. Terrible though they were, the Erinyes also had a legitimate role in the world: to pursue those who had murdered their own kin. A5 Disruptive Deities Human existence is characterized by disorder as well as order, and many of the most characteristic figures in Greek mythology exert a powerfully disruptive effect. Satyrs, whom the Greeks imagined as part human and part horse (or part goat), led lives dominated by wine and lust. Myths depicted them as companions of Dionysus who drunkenly pursued nymphs, spirits of nature represented as young and beautiful maidens. Many of the jugs used at Greek symposia (drinking parties) carry images of satyrs. Equally wild, but more threatening than the satyrs, were the savage centaurs. These monsters, Greek Mythology depicted as half-man and half-horse, tended toward uncontrolled aggression. The centaurs are known for combat with their neighbors, the Lapiths, which resulted from an attempt to carry off the Lapith women at a wedding feast. This combat was depicted in sculpture on the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena in Athens. The Sirens, usually portrayed as birds with women’s heads, posed a different sort of threat. These island-dwelling enchantresses lured mariners to their deaths by the irresistible beauty of their song. The seafaring Greek hero Odysseus alone survived this temptation by ordering his companions to block their own ears, to bind him to the mast of his ship, and to ignore all his entreaties to be allowed to follow the lure of the Sirens’ song. B B1 B2 Mortals The Greeks had several myths to account for the origins of humanity. According to one version, human beings sprang from the ground, and this origin explained their devotion to the land. According to another myth, a Titan molded the first human beings from clay. The Greeks also had a story about the destruction of humanity, similar to the biblical deluge. The Creation of Human Beings Conflicting Greek myths tell about the creation of humanity. Some myths recount how the populations of particular localities sprang directly from the earth. The Arcadians, residents of a region of Greece known as Arcadia, claimed this distinction for their original inhabitant, Pelasgus (see Pelasgians). The Thebans boasted descent from earthborn men who had sprung from the spot where Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, had sown the ground with the teeth of a sacred dragon. According to another tale, one of the Titans, Prometheus, fashioned the first human being from water and earth. In the more usual version of the story Prometheus did not actually create humanity but simply lent it assistance through the gift of fire. Another tale dealt with humanity’s re-creation. When Zeus planned to destroy an ancient race living on Earth, he sent a deluge. However, Deucalion, a son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha—the Greek equivalents of the biblical Noah and his wife—put provisions into a chest and climbed into it. Carried across the waters of the flood, they landed on Mount Parnassus. After the waters receded, the couple gratefully made sacrifices to Zeus. His response was to send Hermes to instruct them how to repopulate the world. They should cast stones behind them. Stones thrown by Deucalion became men; those thrown by Pyrrha, women. The Greek People According to myth, the various peoples of Greece descended from Hellen, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. One genealogy related that the Dorian and the Aeolian Greeks sprang from Hellen’s sons Dorus and Aeolus. The Achaeans and Ionians descended from Achaeos and Ion, sons of Hellen’s other son, Xuthus. These figures, in their turn, produced offspring who, along with children born of unions Greek Mythology between divinities and mortals, made up the collection of heroes and heroines whose exploits constitute a central part of Greek mythology. C C1 C2 C3 Heroes Myths about heroes are particularly characteristic of Greek mythology. Many of these heroes were the sons of gods, and a number of myths involved expeditions by these heroes. The expeditions generally related to quests or combats. Scholars consider some of these myths partly historical in nature—that is, they explained events in the distant past and were handed down orally from one generation to the next. Two of the most important of the semihistorical myths involve the search for the Golden Fleece and the quest that led to the Trojan War. In other myths heroes such as Heracles and Theseus had to overcome fearsome monsters. Jason and the Golden Fleece Jason was a hero who sailed in the ship Argo, with a band of heroes called the Argonauts, on a dangerous quest for the Golden Fleece at the eastern end of the Black Sea in the land of Colchis. Jason had to fetch this family property, a fleece made of gold from a winged ram, in order to regain his throne. A dragon that never slept guarded the fleece and made the mission nearly impossible. Thanks to the magical powers of Medea, daughter of the ruler of Colchis, Jason performed the impossible tasks necessary to win the fleece and to take it from the dragon. Afterward Medea took horrible revenge on Pelias, who had killed Jason’s parents, stolen Jason’s throne, and sent Jason on the quest for the fleece. She tricked Pelias’s daughters into cutting him up and boiling him in a cauldron. Medea’s story continued to involve horrific violence. When Jason rejected her for another woman, Medea once more used her magic to avenge herself with extreme cruelty. Meleager Jason and the same generation of heroes took part in another adventure, with Meleager, the son of King Oeneus of Calydon and his wife Althea. At Meleager’s birth the Fates predicted that he would die when a log burning on the hearth was completely consumed. His mother snatched the log and hid it in a chest. Meleager grew to manhood. One day, his father accidentally omitted Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, from a sacrifice. In revenge Artemis sent a mighty boar to ravage the country. Meleager set out to destroy it, accompanied by some of the greatest heroes of the day, including Peleus, Telamon, Theseus, Jason, and Castor and Polydeuces. The boar was killed. However, Meleager killed his mother’s brothers in a quarrel about who should receive the boar skin. In her anger Althea threw the log on to the fire, so ending her son’s life; she then hanged herself. Heroes of the Trojan War The greatest expedition of all was that which resulted in the Trojan War. The object of this quest was Helen, a beautiful Greek woman who had been abducted by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy. Helen’s husband Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon led an army of Greeks to besiege Troy. After ten Greek Mythology years, with many heroes dead on both sides, the city fell to the trick of the Trojan Horse—a giant wooden horse that the Greeks built and left outside the gates of Troy while their army pretended to withdraw. Not knowing that Greek heroes were hiding inside the horse, the Trojans took the horse into the city. The hidden Greeks then slipped out, opened the city gates and let their army in, thus defeating Troy. The Iliad, an epic poem attributed to Greek poet Homer, tells the story of the Trojan War. The story continued with the Odyssey, another long poem attributed to Homer, in which the Greek hero Odysseus made his way home after the Trojan War. Odysseus returned to his faithful wife, Penelope, whereas Agamemnon returned to be murdered by his faithless wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover. Historians considered the Trojan War entirely mythical until excavations in Turkey showed that there had been cities on the site of Troy and that fire had destroyed one of these cities at about the time of the Trojan War, sometime from 1230 BC to 1180 BC. C4 C5 Heracles and Theseus. The deeds of the heroes Heracles (see Hercules) and Theseus exemplify a central theme in Greek mythology: the conflict between civilization and wild savagery. Each hero confronted and overcame monstrous opponents, yet neither enjoyed unclouded happiness. Heracles had been an Argonaut but left the expedition after being plunged into grief at the loss of his companion Hylas. In another story, a fit of madness led Heracles to kill his own wife and children. But he is best known for his feats of prowess against beasts and monsters, which began soon after his birth. The most difficult of these feats are known as the 12 labors, which are believed to represent efforts to conquer death and achieve immortality. Although Heracles died, his father, Zeus, gave him a place on Mount Olympus. Theseus successfully slew the Minotaur, a monster that was half man and half bull. On his voyage home to Athens, however, he forgot to hoist the white sails that would have signified the success of his adventure. According to one tale, Theseus’s heartbroken father Aegeus, seeing black sails, believed his son had died, and committed suicide. The Aegean Sea in which he drowned is presumably named after Aegeus. Oedipus No hero of Greek mythology has proved more fascinating than Oedipus. He destroyed a monster, the Sphinx, by answering its riddle. Yet his ultimate downfall served as a terrifying warning of the instability of human fortune. As a baby, Oedipus had been abandoned on a mountainside by his parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes, because of a prophecy that the child would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Saved by the pity of a shepherd, the child—its identity unknown—was reared by the king and queen of the neighboring city of Corinth. In due course, Oedipus unwittingly fulfilled the prophecy, matching the horrific crimes he had committed with the equally ghastly self-punishment of piercing his own eyes with Jocasta’s brooch-pins. Greek Mythology III A Gods and Goddesses B THE NATURE OF GREEK GODS AND HEROES In many respects the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology resembled extraordinarily powerful human beings. They experienced emotions such as jealousy, love, and grief, and they shared with humans a desire to assert their own authority and to punish anyone who flouted it. However, these emotions and desires took supernaturally intense form in gods and goddesses. As numerous literary descriptions and artistic representations testify, the Greeks imagined their gods to have human shape, although this form was strongly idealized. The Greeks, moreover, modeled relationships between divinities on those between human beings. Apollo and Artemis were brother and sister, Zeus and Hera were husband and wife, and the society of the gods on Mount Olympus resembled that of an unruly family, with Zeus at its head. The gods could temporarily enter the human world. They might, for example, fall in love with a mortal, as Aphrodite did with Adonis; Apollo with Daphne; and Zeus with Leda, Alcmene, and Danae. Or they might destroy a mortal who displeased them, as Dionysus destroyed King Pentheus of Thebes for mocking his rites. Not all Greek divinities resembled human beings. They could also be uncanny, strange, and alien, a quality made visible in artistic representations of monsters. For example, the snake-haired Gorgon Medusa had a stare that turned her victims to stone. The Graeae, sisters of the Gorgons, were gray-haired old crones from birth. They possessed but a single tooth and a single eye between them. Typhoeus was a hideous monster from whose shoulders grew a hundred snakeheads with dark, flickering tongues. Even the major deities of Olympus showed alien characteristics at times. A recurrent sign of divine power is the ability to change shape, either one’s own or that of others. Athena once transformed herself into a vulture; Poseidon once took the form of a stallion. This ability could prove convenient such as when Zeus assumed the form of a swan to woo Leda. Zeus turned Lycaon, a disrespectful king, into a wolf to punish him for his wickedness. The ability to exercise power over the crossing of boundaries is a crucial feature of divine power among the Greeks. Heroes Greek mythology also told how divinities interacted with heroes, a category of mortals who, though dead, were believed to retain power to influence the lives of the living. In myths heroes represented a kind of bridge between gods and mortals. Heroes such as Achilles, Perseus, and Aeneas were the products of a union between a deity and a mortal. The fact that the gods often intervened to help heroes—for example, during combat—indicated not the heroes’ weakness but their special importance. Yet heroes were not the equals of the gods. With a logic characteristic of Greek myth, heroes typically possessed a defect to balance out their exceptional power. For example, the warrior Achilles, hero of the Trojan War, was invulnerable except in the heel. The prophet Cassandra, who warned the Trojans of dangers such as the Trojan Horse, Greek Mythology always prophesied the truth but was never believed. Heracles constituted an extreme example of this paradox: His awesome strength was balanced by his tendency to become a victim of his own excessive violence. Nevertheless, the gods allowed Heracles to cross the ultimate boundary by gaining admission to Olympus. IV A B THE FUNCTIONS OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY Like most other mythological traditions, Greek myths served several purposes. First, Greek myths explained the world. Second, they acted as a means of exploration. Third, they provided authority and legitimacy. Finally, they provided entertainment. Explanation Greek myths lent structure and order to the world and explained how the current state of things had originated. Hesiod’s Theogony narrated the development of the present order of the universe by relating it to Chaos, the origin of all things. By a complex process of violence, struggle, and sexual attraction, the regime led by Zeus had eventually taken over. Another poem by Hesiod, Works and Days, explained why the world is full of trouble. According to the poem the first woman, Pandora, opened a jar whose lid she had been forbidden to lift. As a result of her disobedience all the diseases and miseries previously confined in the jar escaped into the world. Such a myth also makes a statement about relationships between the sexes in Hesiod’s own world. Scholars assume that he composed the poem for a largely male audience that was receptive to a tale that put women at the root of all evil. One of the commonest types of explanation given in myths relates to ritual. Myths helped worshipers make sense of a religious practice by telling how the practice originated. A prime example is sacrifice, a ritual that involved killing a domesticated animal as an offering to the gods. The ceremony culminated in the butchering, cooking, and sharing of the meat of the victim. Hesiod recounts the myth associated with this rite. According to this myth, the tricky Titan Prometheus tried to outwit Zeus by offering him a cunningly devised choice of meals. Zeus could have either an apparently unappetizing dish—an ox paunch, which had tasty meat concealed within—or a seemingly delicious one, gleaming fat on the outside, which had nothing but bones hidden beneath. Zeus chose the second dish, and ever since human beings have kept the tastiest part of every sacrifice for themselves, leaving the gods nothing but the savor of the rising smoke. Exploration Myths charted paths through difficult territory, examining contradictions and ambiguities. For instance, Homer’s Iliad explores the consequences during the Trojan War of the Greek leader Agamemnon’s decision to deprive the warrior Achilles of his allotted prize, a female slave. Achilles feels that Agamemnon has assailed his honor or worth but wonders how far he should go in reaction. Is he right to refuse to fight, if that means the destruction of the Greek army? Is he justified in rejecting Agamemnon’s offer of compensation? One of this poem’s themes explores the limits of honor. Greek Mythology The dramatic genre of tragedy provides the clearest example of mythical exploration (see see Greek Literature; Drama and Dramatic Arts). The great Athenian playwrights of the 5th century BC— Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—wrote tragedies that explored social questions by placing them, in extreme and exaggerated form, in a mythical context. Sophocles’s tragic play Antigone concerns just such an extreme situation. Two brothers have killed each other in battle: Eteocles defending his homeland, and Polynices attacking it. Their sister Antigone, in defiance of an edict by the city’s ruler, attempts to bury her ostensibly traitorous brother Polynices. Sophocles raises several moral issues. Is Antigone justified in seeking to bury her brother? Which should prevail, a religious obligation to tend and bury a corpse, or a city’s well-being? The answers to these moral issues are far from clear-cut, as we might expect from a work whose subtlety and profundity have so often been admired. C D V A Legitimation Myths also had the function of legitimation. A claim, an action, or a relationship acquired extra authority if it had a precedent in myth. Aristocratic Greek families liked to trace their ancestry back to the heroes or gods of mythology. The Greek poet Pindar, who wrote in the early 5th century BC, offers ample evidence for this preference. In his songs Pindar praised the exploits of current victors in the Olympian Games by linking them with the deeds of their mythical ancestors. In addition, two Greek city-states could cement bonds between them by showing that they had an alliance in the mythological past. Entertainment Finally, myth telling was a source of enjoyment and entertainment. Homer’s epics contain several descriptions of audiences held spellbound by the songs of bards (poets), and recitations of Homer’s poems also captivated audiences. Public performances of tragic drama were also hugely popular, regularly drawing some 15,000 spectators. ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY Our knowledge of Greek mythology begins with the epic poems attributed to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which date from about the 8th century BC even though the stories they relate probably have their origins in events that occurred several centuries earlier. Scholars, however, know that the origins of Greek mythology reach even farther back than that. Origins of Greek Mythology Linguists (people who study languages) have concluded that some names of Greek deities, including Zeus, can be traced back to gods worshiped by speakers of Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit languages. But it would be misleading to regard the people who may have spoken this language as originators of Greek mythology because many other elements contributed. Greek Mythology Archaeologists have shown that many of the places where mythical events presumably took place correspond to sites that had historical importance during the Mycenaean period of Greek history (second half of the 2nd millennium BC). Scholars thus consider it likely that the Mycenaeans made a major contribution to the development of the stories, even if this contribution is hard to demonstrate in detail. Some scholars have argued that the Minoan civilization of Crete also had a formative influence on Greek myths. The myth of the Minotaur confined in a labyrinth in the palace of King Minos, for example, might be a memory of historical bull-worship in the labyrinthine palace at Knossos on Crete. However, there is little evidence that Cretan religion survived in Greece. Nor have any ancient inscriptions confirmed that Minos ever existed outside of myth. Scholars can demonstrate influence on Greek mythology from the Middle East much more reliably than influence from Crete. Greek mythology owed much to cultures in Mesopotamia and Anatolia, especially in the realm of cosmogony (origin of the universe) and theogony (origin of the gods). To take one example, a clear parallel exists in an early Middle Eastern myth for Greek poet Hesiod’s story about the castration of Uranus by his son Cronus and the subsequent overthrow of Cronus by his son Zeus. The Middle Eastern myth tells of the sky god Anu who was castrated by Kumarbi, father of the gods. The weather and storm god Teshub, in turn, displaced Anu. Scholars continue to bring to light more and more similarities between Greek and Middle Eastern mythologies. B Development of Greek Mythology Our knowledge of Greek myths comes from a mixture of written texts, sculpture, and decorated pottery. Scholars have reconstructed stories that circulated orally by inference and guesswork. Homer’s epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, stand at the beginning of Greek literary tradition (see Greek literature), even though they almost certainly depended on a lengthy previous tradition of oral poetry. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War; it focuses on the consequences of a quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, two of the leading Greek warriors. The Odyssey is about the aftermath of the Trojan War, when the Greek hero Odysseus at last returns to his home on the island of Ithaca following years of wandering in wild and magical lands. The Trojan War later provided subject matter for many tragic dramas and for imagery on countless painted vases. Hesiod’s Theogony, composed in the 8th century BC at about the same time as the Homeric epics, gave an authoritative account of how things began. The creation of the world, described by Hesiod in terms of passions and crimes of the gods, is a theme that later Greek philosophers such as Empedocles and Plato developed but took in new directions. This connection serves as a reminder that mythology was not a separate aspect of Greek culture, but one that interacted with many other fields of experience, particularly the writing of history. For example, in the 5th century BC Greek historian Herodotus employed numerous themes and story patterns from Greek epics and tragedies in writing his historical account of the war between Greeks and Persians (see Persian Wars). Although the authority of Homer and Hesiod remained dominant, the poetic retelling of myths continued throughout antiquity. Myths were constantly remade in the light of new social and political circumstances. The Hellenistic period of Greek history (4th century to 1st century BC) saw many new trends in the treatment of myths. One of the most important was the development of mythography, Greek Mythology the compilation and organization of myths on the basis of particular themes (for example, myths about metamorphosis). Such organization corresponded to a wish of newly established Hellenistic rulers to lend legitimacy to their regimes by claiming that they continued a cultural tradition reaching back into a great past. Artists, too, portrayed myths. Statues of gods stood inside Greek temples, and relief sculptures of scenes from mythology adorned pediments and friezes on the outside of these temples (see Greek Art and Architecture). Among the best-known examples are the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens. These reliefs include depictions of combat between centaurs and Lapiths. Other visual representations of mythology were more modest in size and scope. The best evidence for the use of mythology in Greek painting comes from painted ceramic vases. The Greeks used these vases in a variety of contexts, from cookery to funerary ritual to athletic games. (Vases filled with oil were awarded as prizes in games. ) In most cases scholars can securely identify the imagery on Greek vases as mythological, but sometimes they have no way of telling whether the artist intended an allusion to mythology because myth became fused with everyday life. For example, does a representation of a woman weaving signify Penelope, wife of Odysseus who spent her days at a loom, or does it portray someone engaged in an everyday activity? The Greeks retold myths orally, as well as preserving them in literary and artistic works. The Greeks transmitted to children tales of monsters and myths of gods and heroes. Old men gathered to exchange tales in leschai (clubs or conversation places). Storytelling, whether in writing, art, or speech, was at the heart of Greek civilization. VI A THE LEGACY OF GR.