Avon, Mary Kay and Estee Lauder Resume Animal Testing

Avon, Mary Kay and Estee Lauder Resume Animal Testing In February of 2012, PETA discovered that Avon, Mary Kay, and Estee Lauder had resumed animal testing. The three companies had each been cruelty-free for over 20 years, but since China requires cosmetics to be tested on animals, all three companies now pay for their products to be tested on animals. For a short while, Urban Decay also planned to start animal testing but announced in July of 2012 that they would not test on animals and would not sell in China. While none of these are completely vegan companies, they have been considered cruelty-free because they did not test on animals. Urban Decay takes the extra step of identifying vegan products with a purple paw symbol, but not all Urban Decay products are vegan. Testing cosmetics and personal care products on animals are not required by U.S. law unless the product contains a new chemical. In 2009, the European Union banned cosmetics testing on animals, and that ban went into full effect in 2013. In 2011, U.K. officials announced an intention to ban animal testing of household products, but that ban has not yet been enacted. Avon and Animal Testing Avons animal welfare policy now states: Some select products may be required by law in a few countries to undergo additional safety testing, which potentially includes animal testing, under the directive of a government or health agency. In these instances, Avon will first attempt to persuade the requesting authority to accept non-animal test data. When those attempts are unsuccessful, Avon must abide by local laws and submit the products for additional testing. According to Avon, testing their products on animals for these foreign markets is not new, but it appears that PETA removed them from the cruelty-free list because PETA has become more aggressive advocates in the global arena. Avons Breast Cancer Crusade (funded by Avons popular breast cancer walk) is on the Humane Seal list of approved charities that dont fund animal research. Estee Lauder Estee Lauders animal testing statement reads, We do not conduct animal testing on our products or ingredients, nor ask others to test on our behalf, except when required by law. Mary Kay Mary Kays animal testing policy explains: Mary Kay does not conduct animal testing on its products or ingredients, nor ask others to do so on its behalf, except when absolutely required by law. There is only one country where the company operates – among more than 35 around the world – where that is the case and where the company is required by law to submit products for testing – China. Urban Decay Of the four companies, Urban Decay had had the most support in the vegan/animal rights community because they identify their vegan products with a purple paw symbol. The company even distributes free samples through The Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics, which certifies cruelty-free companies with their Leaping Bunny symbol. While Avon, Mary Kay, and Estee Lauder may have offered some vegan products, they had not specifically marketed those products to vegans and did not make it easy to identify their vegan products. Urban Decay had planned to sell their products in China, but received so much negative feedback, the company reconsidered: After careful consideration of many issues, we have decided not to start selling Urban Decay products in China . . . Following our initial announcement, we realized that we needed to step back, carefully review our original plan, and talk to a number of individuals and organizations that were interested in our decision. We regret that we were unable to respond immediately to many of the questions we received, and appreciate the patience our customers have shown as we worked through this difficult issue. Urban Decay is now back on the Leaping Bunny list and PETAs cruelty-free list. While Avon, Estee Lauder, and Mary Kay claim to oppose animal testing, as long as they are paying for animal tests anywhere in the world, they can no longer be considered cruelty-free.

The Currency Act of 1764

The Currency Act of 1764 The Currency Act of 1764 was the second and most impactful of two laws passed by the British government during the reign of King George III that attempted to take total control of the monetary systems of all 13 colonies of British America. Passed by Parliament on September 1, 1764, the act extended the restrictions of the Currency Act of 1751 to all 13 of the American British colonies. It eased the earlier Currency Act’s prohibition against printing of new paper bills, but it did prevent the colonies from repaying future debts with paper bills. Parliament had always envisioned that its American colonies should use a monetary system similar, if not identical, to the British system of â€Å"hard currency† based on the pound sterling. Feeling that it would be too hard for it to regulate colonial paper money, Parliament chose to simply declare it worthless instead. The colonies felt devastated by this and protested angrily against the act. Already suffering a deep trade deficit with Great Britain, colonial merchants feared the lack of their own hard capital would make the situation even more desperate. The Currency Act exacerbated tensions between the colonies and Great Britain and is considered to be one of the many grievances that led to the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence. Economic Problems in the Colonies Having expended almost all of their monetary resources buying expensive imported goods, the early colonies struggled to keep money in circulation. Lacking a form of exchange that did not suffer from depreciation, the colonists depended largely on three forms of currency: Money in the form of locally-produced commodities, like tobacco, used as a means of exchange.Paper money in the form of a bill of exchange or a banknote backed by the value of land owned by an individual.â€Å"Specie† or gold or silver money. As international economic factors caused the availability of specie in the colonies to decrease, many colonists turned to bartering - trading goods or services between two or more parties without the use of money. When bartering proved too limited, the colonists turned to using commodities - mainly tobacco - as money.  However, only poorer quality tobacco ended up being circulated among the colonists, with the higher quality leaves were exported for greater profit. In the face of growing colonial debts, the commodity system soon proved ineffective. Massachusetts became the first colony to issue paper money in 1690, and by 1715, ten of the 13 colonies were issuing their own currency. But the colonies’ money woes were far from over. As the amount of gold and silver needed to back them began to dwindle, so did the actual value of the paper bills. By 1740, for example, a Rhode Island bill of exchange was worth less than 4% of its face value. Worse yet, this rate of the actual value of paper money varied from colony-to-colony. With the amount of printed money growing faster than the overall economy, hyperinflation quickly reduced the buying power of the colonial currency. Forced to accept the depreciated colonial currency as a repayment of debts, British merchants lobbied Parliament to enact the Currency Acts of 1751 and 1764. The Currency Act of 1751 The first Currency Act banned only the New England colonies from printing paper money and from opening new public banks. These colonies had issued paper money mainly to repay their debts to for British and French military protection during the French and Indian Wars. However, years of depreciation had caused the New England colonies’ â€Å"bills of credit† to be worth far less than the silver-backed British pound. Being forced to accept the heavily depreciated New England bills of credit as payment of colonial debts was particularly harmful to British merchants. While the Currency Act of 1751 allowed the New England colonies to continue using their existing bills to be used to pay public debts, like British taxes, it prohibited them from using the bills to pay private debts, such as those to merchants. The Currency Act of 1764 The Currency Act of 1764 extended the restrictions of the Currency Act of 1751 to all 13 of the American British colonies. While it eased the earlier Act’s prohibition against of the printing of new paper bills, it did forbid the colonies from using any future bills for payment of all public and private debts. As a result, the only way the colonies could repay their debts to Britain was with gold or silver. As their supplies of gold and silver rapidly dwindled, this policy created severe financial hardships for the colonies. For the next nine years, English colonial agents in London, including no less than Benjamin Franklin, lobbied Parliament to repeal the Currency Act. Point Made, England Backs Down In 1770, the New York colony informed Parliament that difficulties caused by the Currency Act would prevent it from being able to pay for housing British troops as required by the also unpopular Quartering Act of 1765.  One of the so-called â€Å"Intolerable Acts,† the Quartering  Act forced the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. Faced with that expensive possibility, Parliament authorized the New York colony to issues  £120,000 in paper bills for the payment of public, but not private debts. In 1773, Parliament amended the Currency Act of 1764 to allow all of the colonies to issue paper money for the payment of public debts - especially those owed to the British Crown. In the end, while the colonies had reclaimed at least a limited right to issue paper money, Parliament had reinforced its authority over its colonial governments. Legacy of the Currency Acts While both sides managed to temporarily move on from the Currency Acts, they contributed substantially to the growing tensions between the colonists and Britain. When the First Continental Congress issued a Declaration of Rights in 1774, delegates included the Currency Act of 1764 as one of the seven British Acts labeled as â€Å"subversive of American rights.† An Excerpt From the Currency Act of 1764 WHEREAS great quantities of paper bills of credit have been created and issued in his Majestys colonies or plantations in America, by virtue of acts, orders, resolutions, or votes of assembly, making and declaring such bills of credit to be legal tender in payment of money: and whereas such bills of credit have greatly depreciated in their value, by means whereof debts have been discharged with a much less value than was contracted for, to the great discouragement and prejudice of the trade and commerce of his Majestys subjects, by occasioning confusion in dealings, and lessening credit in the said colonies or plantations: for remedy whereof, may it please your most excellent Majesty, that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the Kings most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That from and after the first day of September, one thousand seven h undred and sixty four, no act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, in any of his Majestys colonies or plantations in America, shall be made, for creating or issuing any paper bills, or bills of credit of any kind or denomination whatsoever, declaring such paper bills, or bills of credit, to be legal tender in payment of any bargains, contracts, debts, dues, or demands whatsoever; and every clause or provision which shall hereafter be inserted in any act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, contrary to this act, shall be null and void.

Marketing Mangement 3 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Marketing Mangement 3 - Essay Example Habitual: This book can be sold to people who like reading about their hobbies, that is cooking and gardening. For this segment, the book can be sold at original price with little more gardening or cooking tips added, so that these people won't think about buying the low price edition of the product. This segment can be effective reached by through advertising on TV channels which caters to the needs of these types of individuals, magazines or any other means which may reach them. Geographic: This book will be more effective for people living in these geographical areas where natural factors are conducive for farming or gardening. These people can be effectively reached by holding certain PR activities where they are told that their land is quite fertile and the book may help them well. Unemployed: This book will touch the aspirations of unemployed people as they have limited income to feed their family. This book will guide them of the techniques of feeding their families on low income and they will be attracted towards the book. This segment can be effectively reached by advertising in job search centers, job search magazine etc.

Noncoercive paraphillias Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Noncoercive paraphillias - Essay Example When the item is not present it likely leads to erectile dysfunction. This must be causing distress in the individual’s life to be diagnosed. This disorder tends to start in adolescence and is usually chronic (DSM, 2000). This disorder involves cross dressing. Usually it is a male dressing in women’s clothing. While dressed as a woman he usually masturbates imagining himself as both partners in the sex act. This is not to be confused with a gender identity disorder. These individual prefer heterosexual relationships when they are not cross dressing. Generally the desire to cross dress diminishes with age or it may turn into gender dysphoria (2000). Sexual Masochism involved an individual being humiliated, beaten, bound or made to suffer in some while during sexual intercourse or masturbation. This is all done to the paraphiliac either by himself or by having a partner help perform the acts. One very dangerous behavior involved in this is hypoxyphilia which is depriving them self of oxygen with can and has caused death (2000) Sadism is when the paraphiliac derives sexual excitement form the psychological or physical suffering of a victim. Some individual with paraphilia are bothered by their sadistic fantasies which may happen during sexual activities but they do not act upon. These fantasies generally involve having complete control over their victim. At times a masochist and a sadist may join in consenting behaviors. Some can, however, perpetrate these fantasies upon others and when that happens they generally do not stop until caught (Weinstein & Rosen, 2004). It is thought that this behavior is related to childhood experience. It may also be related to a neruopsychosociological need for heightened arousal. It may be an escape from rigidly controlled everyday roles, a punishment for sexual activity or guilt relief. Domination in known to relieve feelings of inadequacy

Comparative Study of Advanced Classification Methods

Comparative Study of Advanced Classification Methods CHAPTER 7 TESTING AND RESULTS 7.0 Introduction to Software Testing Software testing is the process of executing a program or system with the intent of finding errors or termed as bugs or, it involves any activity aimed at evaluating an attribute or capability of programming system and determining that it meets its required results. Software bugs will almost always exist in any software module with moderate size: not because programmers are careless or irresponsible, but because the complexity of software is generally intractable and humans have only limited ability to manage complexity. It is also true that for any complex systems, design defects can never be completely ruled out. 7.2 Testing Process The basic goal of the software development process is to produce data that has no errors or very few errors. In an effort to detect errors soon after they are introduced, each phase ends with a verification activity such as review. However, most of these verification activities in the early phases of software development are based on human evaluation and cannot detect all errors. The testing process starts with a test plan. The test plan specifies all the test cases required. Then the test unit is executed with the test cases. Reports are produced and analyzed. When testing of some unit complete, these tested units can be combined with other untested modules to form new test units. Testing of any units involves the following: Plan test cases Execute test cases and Evaluate the result of the testing 7.3 Development of Test Cases A test case in software engineering is a set of conditions or variables under which a tester will determine whether an application or software system is correctly working or not. The mechanism for determining whether a software program or system has passed or failed such a test is known as a test oracle. Test Cases follow certain format, given as follows: Test case id: Every test case has an identifier uniquely associated with certain format. This id is used to track the test case in the system upon execution. Similar test case id is used in defining test script. Test case Description: Every test case has a description, which describes what functionality of software to be tested. Test Category: Test category defines business test case category like functional tests, negative test, accessibility test usually these are associated with test case id. Expected result and the actual result: These are implemented within respective API. As the testing is done for the web application, actual result will be available within the web page. Pass/fail: Result of the test case is either pass or fail. Validation occurs based on expected and actual result. If expected and actual results are same then test case passes or else failure occurs in test cases. 7.4 Testing of Application Software The various testing done on application software is as follows. Integration Testing 7.4.1 Integration Testing In this phase of software testing individual software modules are combined and tested as a group. The purpose of integration testing is to verify functional, performance and reliability requirements placed on major design items. These â€Å"design items†, i.e. assemblages (or unit group of units), are exercised through their interfaces using black box testing, success and error cases being simulated via appropriate parameter and data inputs. Simulated usage of shared data areas and inter process communication is tested and individual subsystems are exercised through their input interface. Test cases are constructed to test that all components within assemblages interact correctly, for example across procedure calls or process activations, and this is done after testing individual modules, i.e. unit testing. The overall idea is a â€Å"building block† approach, in which verified assemblages are added to a verified base which is then used to support the integration testing of further assemblages, In this approach, all or most of the developed modules are coupled together to form a complete software system or major part of the system and then used for integration testing. Integration testing is a systematic technique for constructing the program structure while at the same time conducting test to uncover errors associated with interfacing. The objective is to take unit-tested modules and build a program structure that has been dictated by design. The top-down approach to integration testing requires the highest-level modules be tested and integrated first. This allows high-level logic and data flow to be tested early in the process and it tends to minimize the need for drivers. The bottom-up approach requires the lowest-level units be tested and integrated first. These units are frequently referred to as utility modules. By using this approach, utility modules are tested early in the development process and the need for stubs is minimized. The third approach, sometimes referred to as the umbrella approach, requires testing along functional data and control-flow paths. First, the inputs for functions are integrated in the bottom-up pattern. 7.4.1.1 Test Cases for Support Vector Machine Support Vector Machine is tested for the attributes which fall only on positive side of hyperplane, attributes which fall only on negative side of hyperplane, attributes which fall on both positive and negative side of hyperplane and the attributes which fall on the hyperplane. The expected results match with the actual results. Table 7.1: Test Cases for Support Vector Machine 7.4.1.2 Test Cases for Naive Bayes Classifier Naive Bayes Classifier is tested for the attributes which belongs to only class ‘1’, attributes which belongs to only class ‘-1’, attributes which belongs to both class ‘1’ and class ‘-1’. The expected results match with the actual results. Table 7.2 Test Cases for Naive Bayes Classifier 7.5 Testing Results of Case Studies A particular example of something used or analyzed in order to depict a thesis or principle. It is a documented study of real life situation or of an imaginary scenario. 7.5.1 Problem Statement: Haberman Dataset Haberman data set contains cases from the University of Chicagos Billings Hospital on the survival of patients who had undergone surgery for breast cancer. The task is to determine if the patient survived 5 years or longer (positive) or if the patient died within 5 year (negative). @relation haberman @attribute Age integer [30, 83] @attribute Year integer [58, 69] @attribute Positive integer [0, 52] @attribute Survival {positive, negative} @inputs Age, Year, Positive @outputs Survival Training SetTest Set Weight vector and gamma w =0.09910.07750.2813 gamma = 0.3742 Predicted Class label of test set Confusion matrix of the classifier True Positive(TP)=8.000000False Negative(FN)=27.000000 False Positive(FP)=8.000000True Negative(TN)=110.000000 AUC of Classifier = 0.517792 Accuracy of classifier = 77.124183Error rate of classifier = 22.875817 F_score=31.372549Precision=50.0Recall=22.857143Specificity=93.220339 Confusion Matrix for SVM Fig 7.1: Bar chart of SVM for various Performance Metric Predicted Class Label of Naive Bayes Classifier True Positive(TP)=10.000000False Negative(FN)=25.000000 False Positive(FP)=11.000000True Negative(TN)=107.000000 AUC of Classifier = 0.5202 Accuracy of Classifier =76.4706Error Rate of Classifier = 23.5294 F_score=35.7143Precision=47.6191Recall=28.5714Specificity=90.678 Confusion Matrix for NBC Fig 7.2: Bar Chart of NBC for various Performance Metric Tab 7.3: Comparison of SVM and NBC for various Performance Metric Fig 7.3: Bar Chart for Comparison of SVM and NBC 7.5.2 Titanic Data set The titanic dataset gives the values of four attributes. The attributes are social class (first class, second class, third class, and crew member), age (adult or child), sex, and whether or not the person survived. @relation titanic @attribute Class real[-1.87,0.965] @attribute Age real[-0.228,4.38] @attribute Sex real[-1.92,0.521] @attribute Survived {-1.0,1.0} @inputs Class, Age, Sex @outputs Survived Training SetTest Set w = -0.10250.0431 -0.3983 gamma = 0.3141 Predicted Class label of test set confusion matrix of the classifier True Positive(TP)=154.000000False Negative(FN)=181.000000 False Positive(FP)=64.000000True Negative(TN)=701.000000 AUC of Classifier=0.426392 Accuracy of classifier in test set is=77.727273 Error rate of classifier in test set is=22.272727 F_score=55.696203precision=70.642202Recall=45.970149specificity=91.633987 Confusion Matrix for SVM Fig 7.4 Bar chart of SVM for various Performance Metric Predicted Class label of Naive Bayes Classifier True Positive(TP)=197.000000False Negative(FN)=138.000000 False Positive(FP)=148.000000True Negative(TN)=617.000000 AUC of Classifier = 0.4782 Accuracy of Classifier = 74Error Rate of Classifier = 26 F_Score = 57.9412Precision = 57.1015Recall = 58.806Specificity = 80.6536 Confusion Matrix for NBC Fig 7.5 Bar chart of NBC for various Performance Metric Tab 7.4: Comparison of SVM and NBC for various Performance Metric Fig 7.6 Bar Chart for Comparison of SVM and NBC Department of CSE, RNSIT2014-15Page 1

Team Based Organizations Essay -- GCSE Business Management

Team Based Organizations Introduction A team is a small group of people with complementary skills who work actively together to achieve a common purpose for which they hold themselves collectively accountable. In today’s society, there can be several different factors that are associated for a group of people to become a high performance team. For a team to achieve great performance, and deliver real benefits to the organization, they have to be able to distinguish their strengths and weaknesses. All teams need members who believe in team goals and are motivated to work with others actively to accomplish important tasks. A commitment to teamwork is found in the willingness of every member to listen and respond constructively to views expressed by others. High performance team has to give others the benefit of the doubt, provide support, and recognize the interests and achievements of others. These things are very essential for a team to be a high performance team in today’s competitive and changing business environment. High Performance Teams It takes a lot of work for a group of people to become a high performance team. High performance teams have special characteristics that allow them to excel at teamwork and achieve special performance advantages. A team that is going to be a high performance team has to consist of strong core values that help guide their attitudes and behaviors in directions consistent with the team’s purpose. Another thing that a high performance teams do is to turn general sense of purpose into specific performance objectives. Whereas a shared sense of purpose gives general direction to a team, commitment to specific performance results makes this purpose truly meaningful. Moreover, members of high performance teams should have the right mix of skills, including technical skills, problem solving and decision making skills, and interpersonal skills. Lastly, anyone can easily ague that for a team to be a high performance team they have to be creative. In the new workplace, teams must use their creativity to assist organizations in continuous improvement of operations and in continuous development of new products, services, and markets. Diversity Climate Improving the diversity climate of an organization is through the implementation of teams. To conceive a better perspective of how diversity climate applies to organizing... ...s the group can gain from the complementarities among the skills of its members. Second, different skills of team members have to be relevant to one another. For example, complimenting someone may not occur, if the skills of one team member are not relevant to the productivity of a teammate. Third, good communication is necessary for any team members to perform the relevant joint tasks and engage in a knowledgeable process to be productive Conclusion Teams are the major forces behind today’s revolutionary changes in organizations. Team based organizations are becoming the management system of the future in today’s competitive business environment. To be a high performance team the proper skills need to be present. When it regards to teams being diverse, one must take into consideration the differences and use them to their advantage. In order to be able to successful run a business, there needs to be the distinction of what group of people is qualified and capable of doing what is right for the organization to succeed. References Katherine C. Naff, Richard C. Thompson. The Impact of Teams on the Climate for diversity in Government. http://www.hf.faa.gov. July 10, 2005.

Australian Identity: I Was Only Nineteen Analysis Essay

The text I have chosen to analyse in this written review is called ‘I Was Only Nineteen’, but also goes by the names ‘Only Nineteen’ and ‘A Walk in the Light Green’. It was composed by John Schumann, the lead singer/songwriter of the folk group Redgum. This examination will focus on topics such as the poetic techniques used, how Australian identity is portrayed, the effect the text has on the reader and my opinions. I Was Only Nineteen tells the story of an Australian digger’s experiences preparing for, fighting in, and reflecting upon the Vietnam War as an old man, psychologically and physically damaged from the chemical defoliant Agent Orange. Although it may seem like a long time ago – the war ended in mid 1975 – the scars it left behind will never fade. John Schumann uses numerous poetic devices throughout his hit song. The most frequently used techniques include rhyme (as is the same for most lyrical songs), repetition, rhetorical questions and multitudes of colloquialisms. Many of the mentioned techniques – as well as others in the song – provided the reader/listener with an opportunity to think about the theme of Australian identity. The colloquialisms applied to this ballad allow the reader to associate and relate to their own lifestyles in Australia. â€Å"Drinking tinnies†  ¬Ã¢â‚¬â€œ an Australian vernacular term meaning ‘drinking cans of beer’ – connects with the stereotypically casual attitudes of pub attendees Down Under. Schumann’s broad Australian accent for the entirety of this piece also expresses a feeling of Australia. Schumann makes a habit of mentioning genuine Australian and Vietnamese locations. â€Å"Puckapunyal†, â€Å"Canungra†, â€Å"Shoalwater†, â€Å"Townsville†, â€Å"Nui Dat† and â€Å"Vung Tau† are some of the several places noted in this song. By citing factual towns/cities, Schumann creates yet another bond with the audience, as most members would have heard of at least one of these before. The rhetorical questions used in this have Australian aspects to them. Schumann quotes â€Å"the Channel Seven chopper chills me to my feet†, Channel Seven being a very well known Australian television channel. By bringing up well known Australian icons and brands, the author involves himself with the audience. Although subtle, Australians can also relate to the line â€Å"Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon†. This particular sentence describes the historical event in which humankind first set foot on the moon: â€Å"kicked the moon†. This is an allusion that many Aussies – especially those who watched the 1969 moonwalk on their TVs – would understand and could pertain to. Through the use of poetic devices, the author has successfully encouraged the audience to explore their thoughts on Australian identity and to reflect on our nation’s history. Second paragraph: The language and tone of ‘I Was Only Nineteen’ is solemn and reflective of the past. John Schumann has used various types of vocabulary to show this. Schumann’s wording of this text is well planned and thoroughly thought out. Sentences in this piece frequently begin with ‘And’, implying that the author is not yet done telling his story. In a way it symbolises that the pain of the war never ended, it is still continuing on. The chorus line â€Å"God help me, I was only nineteen† is a fundamental part of this song. It expresses the innocence and childhood that was lost by thousands of involuntary Australian soldiers during the war. This exact line is repeated four times throughout the song. On one occasion it is slightly changed to â€Å"God help me, he was going home in June†. This change, although only minor, adds more emotional significance to the statement whilst still continuing on the idea of lost innocence. Repetition of the same word (also known as anaphora) generates a sense of emotion and draws the reader/listener in – waiting for the next addition to the story. The phrase â€Å"an Asian orange sunset through the scrub† has double meaning, the obvious one being the colour of the sky at that point in time. But when more research is conducted, it becomes evident that it could also be hinting at ‘Agent Orange’, one of the herbicides/defoliants used by the US military during the war. It killed the foliage of the Vietnamese forests so as to prevent the Viet Cong from taking cover in the trees. Approximately 1 million people – including Australians – are disabled or have health issues due to Agent Orange. The theme of mateship and strong loyalty is also evident. Schumann says that he can still â€Å"see† and â€Å"hear Frankie†, implying that although Frankie lost his life, he will never be forgotten. â€Å"But you wouldn’t let your mates down ‘til they had you dusted off† also speaks of the fondness the author had for his fellow soldiers, dusted off being the military term for medical evacuation of wounded via helicopter. Again, Australian identity comes into play: the characteristic of utter loyalty hat Australians are renowned for. On the whole, the vocabulary used in this song carries with it a wide range of emotional value and deeper meanings (these aspects become especially evident when the text is explored and broken down). The structure of this song is constantly that of a quatrain. The rhyming scheme follows no specific pattern, but commonly exists in the form of ABAB and AAAA. A notably identifiable characteristic of this piece is the way the story is set out. The majority of the paragraphs feature a diverse location and emotion of the crowd. The opening stanza states that â€Å"Mum and Dad and Denny saw the passing out parade at Puckapunyal†. The setting of this verse is Puckapunyal and addresses the family members of the protagonist. The tempo is moderately slow and the feeling in the atmosphere is one of speculation for the unknown future to come, but also apprehension – â€Å"It was a long march from cadets† and a slight amount of self-doubt. In the second verse, the cadence speeds up and a sense of excitement begins to build. The thought of being amidst the action of the Vietnam War becomes very real and very near. This verse is the debut of the chorus line â€Å"God help me, I was only nineteen† – an appropriate time, due to the nigh possibility of death. â€Å"Townsville lined the footpaths as we marched down to the quay† mentions the Queensland city and its inhabitants. There are many other examples of this throughout the song, including Vung Tau and the maturity with which it is spoken of (in the third verse), the Vietnamese jungle and the living with the fear that â€Å"each step could mean your last one on two legs† (stanzas five and six) and back home in Australia, reflecting on the war and its events (eight and nine). The author has purposely made the shortest lines (6-7 words and 8-9 syllables) the most powerful. â€Å"It was a war within yourself† – one of the shortest lines – metaphorically describes how the overwhelming sensations of the war threatened at every moment to take over your soul. There are nine stanzas, each consisting of four lines. Although it may not seem like it, this layout is actually for a reason. The song Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin contains long verses, sometimes as long as nine lines, which creates a flowing story and often doesn’t give the audience a chance to consider the impact of the lyrics. However, I Was Only Nineteen, with its four line verses, permits the readers and listeners to reflect and contemplate the meaning and poignancy of the stanza in the pause that follows. The flatness and monotony of Schumann in the song mirrors the futility and fatalistic attitudes of the Vietnam soldiers. They were well known for their ‘live every day as if it were your last’ approach on life. Many combatants, as young as fourteen (this was an illegal age and they used false documents) had no plans for the future, apart from having fun whilst they were still living. To many Australian citizens back then – and still now, the Vietnam War was pointless. Some say it wasn’t worth more than six million lives (civilian and military) just to stop North Vietnam’s communisation from taking over, others say otherwise. Although we will never truly known what it was like, Schumann’s writing allows us as readers/listeners to experience a smidgen of what it would have been like. Schumann has evidently spent time assembling the superlatively set-out structure, as this greatly impacted on his audience, including myself. After studying this text, I have developed a much greater and more profound respect for the Vietnam veterans. It isn’t spoken of much – not compared to the World Wars. These men and women were following instructions and it is not individuals who are to be blamed for the millions of casualties. Schumann has brilliantly yet terrifyingly depicted the horrors of war and the suffering endured by veterans for years – even decades after the fall of Saigon. His use of assorted poetic devices, intelligent and well-planned vocabulary and meaningful structure pave the way for a sure masterpiece.