Developing Humanoid Robot Animations in Motion Capture

Developing Humanoid Robot Animations in Motion Capture Introduction (Chapter 1) This research describes the framework in which the different human movements have been taken from motion capture and that information is animated which sets the direction to study the digital character models and its locomotion in the virtual environment. It also gives feasible approach in understanding of walking gait patterns in that environment. This framework also leads to the study issues related to safety engineering. Overview Analysis of human locomotion and its research area have changed since it began form the cave drawings of the Paleolithic Era. The motive for human locomotion studies at early stages were driven by the need to carry on by resourcefully moving from place to place, dodging from predators and hunting for food (Alexander, 2000). Modern-day human locomotion studies have added to a wide range of applications ranging from military use, sport, ergonomics, and health care. In locomotion studies, according to (Hall, 1991) the term biomechanicsbecame accepted during the early 1970s as the internationally recognized descriptor of the field of area concerned with the mechanical study of living organism. In sport, human locomotion studies are made to extend the restrictions of an athlete when even the minimum improvement in performance is pursued eagerly (J. A. , 1984). However, the development of human locomotion studies remains reliant on the improvement of new tools for observation. According to (Alexander, 2000) lately, instrumentation and computer technology have grant opportunities for the improvement of the study of human locomotion. (J. A. , 1984). Illustrate frequent techniques for measuring motion and mentioned the co-ordinate analyzer (motion capture device) as a major advance in movement study. According to (Furniss, 2000) Motion capture or mocap was initially created for military use earlier than it was modified into the entertainment industry since the mid 1980.s. (Dyer, 1995) define motion capture as measuring an objects location and direction in physical space, then recording that sequence into a computer usable form. According to(Micheal, 2003) ; (Suddha Basu, 2005) motion capture is the fastest way to produce rich, realistic animation data. (James F OBrien, 2000) illustrate that Mocap can also be useful in several additional fields such as music, fine art dance, sign language, motion recognition, rehabilitation with medicine, biomechanics, special effects for live-action films and computer animation of all types as well as in defense and athletic analysis/training. There are basically three types of motion capture sys tems accessible such as mechanical, electromagnetic and optical based system. All three systems go through the same basic process shown in figure. The first step is the input where the movement of live actors either human or animal is recorded using various method depending on the type of the motion capture system used. Next, the information is processed to identify the corresponding markers of the live actor and then transferred into virtual space using specialized computer software. Finally the output is where the information is translated into a 3D trajectory computer data that contains translation and rotation information known as motion capture file. Motivation Producing realistic character animation remains one of the great challenges in computer graphics. At present, there are three methods by which this animation can be produced. The first one is key framing, in which the animator gives important key poses for the character at specific frames. A second one uses physical simulation to drive the characters motion its results are good, due to lack of control its difficult to use and its costly and with characters its not much successful. The last one is motion capture, has been widely used to animate characters. It uses sensors placed on person and collects the data that describes their motion however they are performing the desired motion. As the technology for motion capture has improved and the cost decreased, the interest in using this approach for character animation has also increased. The main challenge that an animator is confronted with is to generate character animation with a realistic appearance. As humanoid robot renovation is a popular research area since it can be used in various applications to understand the emerging field of robotics and other digital animation fields. Currently most of the methods work for controlled environments and human pose reconstruction to recognize humanoid robots is a popular research area since it can be used in various applications. Motion capture and motion synthesis are expensive and time consuming tasks for articulated figures, such as humans. Human pose view based on computer vision principles is inexpensive and widely applicable approach. In computer vision literature the term human motion capture is usually used in connection with large scale body analysis ignoring the fingers, hands and the facial muscles, which is the case in this research. The motion capture is fairly involved to calculate a 3D skeletal representation of the motion of satisfactory value to be functional for animation. The animation generation is an application of motion capture where the required accuracy is not as high as in some other applications, such as medicine (Ferrier, June 2002) Problem Context 1) Even though motion capture is applied into so many fields by creating physically perfect motions, it has a few significant weaknesses. According to (Lee, MCML: Mocap, 2004) firstly, it has low flexibility, secondly the captured data can have different data formats depending on the motion capture system which was employed and thirdly, commercially available motion capture libraries are difficult to use as they often include hundreds of examples. (Shih-Pin Chao, 2003) States that motion capture sessions are not only costly but also a labor intensive process thus, promotes the usability of the motion data. 2) In the field of animation and gaming industry, it is common that motion information are captured to be used for a particular project or stored in a mocapdata. This data can either be used as the whole range of motion sequence or as part of a motion synthesis. In sport science, mocap data is used for analyzing and perfecting the sequencing mechanics of premier athletes, as well as monitoring the recovery progress of physical therapies. This simply means that a vast collection of motion capture data models are limited for different sets. Currently, motion data are often stored in small clips to allow for easy hand sequencing for describing the behavior (Jernej Barbic, 2004) (Tanco L. M., 2000). However, according to (Lee, MCML: Mocap, 2004) (Morales, 2001) (Tanco L. M., 2000) a motion capturedata models lack interoperability. This calls for an immediate need for tools that synchronize these datasets (Feng Liu, 2003). 3) In light of the recent course of interest in virtual environment applications, much research has been devoted to solving the problems of manipulating humans in 3-D simulated worlds, and especially to human locomotion. However, most of the animation approaches based on these studies can only generate limited approach lacking the locomotion capabilities for example walking their application in virtual environments are inevitably limited. Project Objective The objective of this project is to create a framework taken from motion capture data techniques which can set the direction to study 3D articulated figures and the humanoid robot locomotion in the virtual environment by understanding walking gait patterns in human. This framework also leads to the study issues related to safety engineering. The other objective of this project is to capture, process, and examine the locomotion feasibility in virtual environment and analyze different tasks in virtual environment. In system overview diagram all the different steps has been described it starts from mocaop suit that is on the subject and then its data of random movement has been taken into computer and motion analysis is done. After motion analysis its been retargeted and with avatar model the final output scene has been created. Then with software development kit feasible program has been created to deal with different information of that scene. Project Scope To capture the human motion from the motion capture technology and using the captured data to animate the different motions and then refining the animated data. By using the technology called motion builder we can simulate and study the effects of walk and fall in the virtual environment.   After mapping the captured data in the animated character which is called digital humanoid robot an application is build to study the nature of the animated scene which is called an enhanced framework. The other technology is used is called mathematica which is used for studying the factors in mathematical terms because the human motion builder is a simulation technology and mathematica is a dynamic solver engine. So it will lead towards the study of digital humanoid robot of walking and falling in virtual environments on some assumptions. Outline This part outlines the in general structure of the thesis, and a short explanation for each chapter: Chapter 1: deals with Introduction, scope and objective with problem context. Chapter 2: Introduces human motion capture techniques and different work in animation of human walking in virtual environment and gives a summary of the related work in this area. Chapter 3: deals with the system structure which describes the hardware and the software technologies involved in the research and also illustrate the frame work model and this model help exploit the behavior of humanoid which sets up the framework. Chapter 4: describes the framework analysis based on the study of articulated animation models in virtual environment and walking gait patters with Bezier curve algorithm. Chapter 5: mention all the techniques that have been extracted from different softwares and how its used to set up the whole framework and evaluates results which are categorized in three phases the application which represents coordinate system and structure, walking gait patters by using Bezier curve and the falling effect by visual aid. Chapter 6: is the conclusion that summarizes the outcome of the project, and discusses the future works. Conclusion This chapter describes the introduction of motion capture and how it will be utilized to improve the study of human locomotion. The project scope and objectives are elaborated and listed down in this chapter. Literature Review (Chapter 2) Motion capture system   Motion capture is an attractive way of creating the motion parameters for computer animation. It can provide the realistic motion parameters. It permits an actor and a director to work together to create a desired pose, that may be difficult to describe with enough specificity to have an animator recreate manually (Ferrier, June 2002). The application areas of motion capture techniques can be summarized as follows (Perales, 2001): Virtual reality: interactive virtual environments, games, virtual studios, character animation, film, advertising Smart surveillance systems: access control, parking lots, supermarkets, vending machines, traffic. Advanced user interfaces: advanced user interfaces. Motion analysis and synthesis: annotations of videos, personalized training, clinical studies of medicine. Understanding the working of humanoid robot has been always on study of human locomotion.   This literature review discusses human motion control techniques, motion capture techniques in general and advance, non-vision based motion capture techniques, vision-based motion capture techniques with and without markers and other enhanced techniques which are covered in details for which the framework can be understood easily. Properties of Tracking Systems This section lists properties of tracking systems and discusses the relationships between the various properties. Accuracy Accuracy can be defined as the agreement between the measured results from tracking technologies and the actual position of the object, and because the true value is unknown the tracking technologies can only be evaluated with relative accuracy. For one tracking system, the accuracy is limited by the principle and affected by the noise/interferences from the environment. The sources of noises are depending on the tracking technology we use. For different tracking principles, the influencing factors are different. For example, for optical motion tracking, the interference is lighting and AC current; for magnetic, ferrous objects distort the magnetic field and cause errors. If the model or the mechanism of the noise is quantitatively known, it is a systematic error and can be compensated by post-treatment after tracking or eliminated by pre-filtering before tracking. Robustness Robustness defines the systems ability to continue to function in adverse conditions or with missing or incorrect measurements. Some systems make assumptions about the surrounding environment during operation. Also, a system may be unable to take a measurement at a particular time. Related to the robustness is repeatability in the reported data. If the reported values are consistent over time and over operating conditions and environment, then measuring the accuracy (or the lack thereof) is possible, and corrective algorithms can be applied. Tracking range The range is the space in which the system can measure sufficient and accurate data for the application. For some systems, the range can be reduced by noises from the environment or be limited by the hardware of the system itself. For example, magnetic system cannot track accurate data when the tracked object is at the margin of the magnetic field due to the inhomogeneous distribution of the field. Tracking speed Tracking speed is the frequency at which the measurement system can obtain the updated tracking data. There are two significant numbers for the system, one is update rate and the other one is latency. Update rate is the frequency at which the tracking system generates the tracking data; latency describes the delay between tracking data has been generated and the host computer receives the data in real-time mode. Hardware The hardware means the physical realization of the components of the tracking system. It includes the number of components, and the size and weight of those components, especially those that the user is required to carry (or wear). Some systems may have a significant amount of hardware that must be set up in the environment, although it may need no further attention from the user once in position. Ideally, the application would like to give the user complete freedom of movement. Some devices tether the user to a fixed object. Some systems may have a heavy or unwieldy device which the user must manipulate in order to move. Some devices have a tendency to pull the user back to a â€Å"resting position† for the device. The hardware also determines the biggest part of the costs and therefore is very often a decisive factor for the choice of the applied motion tracking system Non-vision Based Motion Capture In non-vision based systems, sensors are attached to the human body to collect movement information. Some of them have a small sensing footprint that they can detect small changes such as finger or toe movement (Hu, A survey human movement tracking and stroke rehabilitation, 1996). Each kind of sensor has advantages and limitations (Hu, A survey human movement tracking and stroke rehabilitation, 1997). Advantages of magnetic trackers: real-time data output can provide immediate feedback no post processing is required they are less expensive than optical systems no occlusion problem is observed multiple performers are possible Disadvantages of magnetic trackers: the trackers are sensitivity to metal objects cables restricts the performers they provide lower sampling rate than some optical systems the marker configurations are difficult to change Advantages of electromechanical body suits: they are less expensive than optical and magnetic systems real-time data is possible no occlusion problem is observed multiple performers are possible Disadvantages of electromechanical body suits: they provide lower sampling rate they are difficult to use due to the amount of hardware configuration of sensors is fixed Vision-Based Motion Capture with Markers In 1973, Johansson explored his famous Moving Light Display (MLD) psychological experiment to perceive biological motion (Johansson). In the experiment, small reflective markers are attached to the joints of the human performers. When the patterns of the movements are observed, the integration of the signals coming from the markers resulted in recognition of actions. Although the method faces the challenges such as errors, non-robustness and expensive computation due to environmental constraints, mutual occlusion and complicated processing, many marker based tracking systems are available in the market. This is a technique that uses optical sensors, e.g. cameras, to track human movements, which are captured by placing markers upon the human body. Human skeleton is a highly articulated structure and moves in three-dimension. For this reason, each body part continuously moves in and out of occlusion from the view of the cameras, resulting in inconsistent and unreliable motion data of t he human body. One major drawback of using optical sensors and markers, they cannot sense joint rotation accurately. This is a major drawback in representing a real 3D model (Hu, A survey human movement tracking and stroke rehabilitation, 1997). Optical systems have advantages and limitations (Perales, 2001). Advantages of optical systems are as follows: they are more accurate larger number of markers are possible no cables restricts the performers they produces more samples per second Disadvantages of optical systems: they require post-processing they are expensive (between 100, 000 and 250, 000) occlusion is a problem in these systems environment of the capturing must be away from yellow light and reflective noise Vision-Based Motion Capture without Markers As a less restrictive motion capture technique, markerless-based systems are capable of overcoming the mutual occlusion problem as they are only concerned about boundaries or features on human bodies. This is an active and promising but also challenging research area in the last decade. The research with respect to this area is still ongoing (Hu, A survey human movement tracking and stroke rehabilitation, 1996). The markerless-based motion capture technique exploits external sensors like cameras to track the movement of the human body. A camera can be of a resolution of a million pixels. This is one of the main reasons that optical sensors attracted peoples attention. However, such vision-based techniques require intensive computational power (Bryson, 1993). As a commonly used framework, 2D motion tracking only concerns the human movement in an image plane, although sometimes people intend to project a 3D structure into its image plane for processing purposes. This approach can be c atalogued with and without explicit shape models (Hu, A survey human movement tracking and stroke rehabilitation, 1996). The creation of motion capture data from a single video stream seems like a plausible idea. People are able to watch a video and understand the motion, but clearly, the computing the human motion parameters from a video stream are a challenging task (Ferrier, June 2002). Vision-based motion capture techniques usually include initialization and tracking steps. Initialization A system starts its operation with correct interpretation of the current scene. The initialization requires camera calibration, adaptation to scene characteristics and model initialization. Camera calibration is defined as parameters that are required for translating a point in a 3D scene to its position in the image. Some systems find initial pose and increment it from frame to frame whereas in other systems the user specifies the pose in every single frame. Some systems have special initialization phase where the start pose is found automatically whereas in others the same algorithm is used both for initialization and pose estimation (Granum, 2001). Tracking Tracking phase extracts specific information, either low level, such as edges, or high level, such as head and hands. Tracking consists of three parts (Granum, 2001): Figure-ground segmentation: the human figure is extracted from the rest of the image. Representation: segmented images are converted to another presentation to reduce the amount of information. Tracking over time: how the subject should be tracked from frame to frame. Mechanical Mechanical measurement is the oldest form of location; rulers and tape measures provide a simple method of locating one item with reference to another. More sophisticated mechanical techniques have been developed. Nowadays measurements of the angles of the body joints with potentiometers or shaft encoders combined with knowledge of the dimensions of the rigid components allow accurate calculations of the position of different body parts.(Beresford, 2005) Today mechanical position tracking devices can be separated into body-based and ground-based systems. Body based systems are those which are mounted on, or carried on, the body of the user and are used to sense either the relative positions of various parts of the users body or the position of an instrument relative to a fixed point on the users body. Body-based systems are typically used to determine either the users joint angles for reproduction of their body in the synthetic environment, or to determine the position of the users hand or foot, relative to some point on the users body. Since the body based systems are used to determine the relative position between two of the users body parts, the devices must somehow be attached to the users body. This particular issue has raised many questions: How is the device attached to the body in a way which will minimize relative motion between the attachment and the soft body part? How are the joints of the device aligned with the users joints to minimize the difference in the centers of rotation? Some other problems associated with body-b ased tracking systems are specifically caused by the device being attached to the users body. These systems are typically very obtrusive and encumbering and therefore do not allow the user complete freedom of movement. Body-based systems are, however, quite accurate and do not experience problems like measurement drift (the tendency of the devices output to change over time with no change in the sensed quantity), interference from external electromagnetic signals or metallic devices in the vicinity, or shadowing (loss of sight of the tracked object due to physical interference of another object)(Frey, 1996). Ground based systems are not carried by the user but are mounted on some fixed surface (i.e. the users desk or the floor) and are used to sense the position of an implement relative to that fixed surface. Ground-based systems are typically used to determine the position and orientation of an implement manipulated by the user relative to some fixed point which is not on the users body. Like body-based mechanical systems, they are very accurate and are not plagued by measurement drift errors, interference or shadowing. Ground-based systems do suffer from one thing which the body-based systems do not: They confine the user to work within the space allowed by the device. Usually this means that the user is confined to work in a space the size of a large desk. If the application does not require the user to move around much throughout the task (i.e. the user remains seated), this is not considered as a problem. Mechanical tracking systems are the best choice for force-feedback (haptic) devices since they are rigidly mounted to either the user or a fixed object. Haptic devices are used to allow the user a sense of touch. The user can feel surfaces in the synthetic environment or feel the weight of an object. The device can apply forces to the users body so that the user can experience a sense of exertion. Mechanical tracking systems also typically have low latencies (the time required to receive useful information about a sensed quantity) and high update rates (the rate at which the system can provide useful information). Therefore these systems have found good commercial niche as measurement devices and hand tracking systems. Advantages high update rate low latency accurate No blocking problem, no interference from environment  · best choice for force feedback Disadvantages Restricted movement from mounted device Acoustic Acoustic tracking systems utilize high frequency sound waves to track objects by either the triangulation of several receivers (time-of-flight method) or by measuring the signals phase difference between transmitter and receiver (phase-coherence method). Generally the user carries the transmitter, and a series of sensors around the room determine the linear distance to the transmitter. Some systems have the user carry a receiver and listen to a series of transmitters positioned around the volume. The time-of-flight method of acoustic tracking uses the speed of sound through air to calculate the distance between the transmitter of an acoustic pulse and the receiver of that pulse. The use of one transmitter on a tracked object and a minimum of three receivers at stationary positions in the vicinity allow an acoustic system to determine the relative position of the object via triangulation. This method limits the number of objects tracked by the system to one. An alternative method has been devised in which several transmitters are mounted at stationary positions in the room and each object being tracked is fitted with a receiver. Using this method, the positions of numerous objects may be determined simultaneously. Note that the use of one transmitter (or one receiver) attached to an object can resolve only position. The use of two transmitter (receiver) sets with the same object can be used to determine the position and orientation (6 DOF) of the object. The desire to track mo re than just the position of an object suggests that the second method (multiple stationary transmitters with body mounted receivers) may be preferable. The other method of acoustic tracking is the phase-coherent tracking. It may be used to achieve better accuracies than the time-of-flight method. The system does this by sensing the signal phase difference between the signal sent by the transmitter and that detected by the receiver. If the object being tracked moves farther than one-half of the signal wavelength in any direction during the period of one update, errors will result in the position determination. Since phase coherent tracking is an incremental form of position determination, small errors in position determination will result in larger errors over time (drift errors), which may be the reason why only few phase-coherent systems have been implemented successfully. Some problems associated with both acoustic tracking methods result from the line-of-sight required between transmitter and receiver. This line of sight requirement obviously plagues the devices with shadowing problems. It also limits their effective tracking range, although they have better tracking ranges than electromagnetic systems. Unlike electromagnetic systems, they do not suffer from metallic interference, but they are susceptible to interference caused by ambient noise sources, by reflections of the acoustic signals from hard surfaces, and environmental interference (e.g. temperature variations). Advantages Very high freedom of movement Cheap Disadvantages Line-of-sight problems Either high range or high accuracy (not both!) Environmental interference (e.g. temperature variations, other noise sources) Drift errors (phase-coherent) High latency, low update rates Magnetic Electromagnetic tracking systems are currently the most widely used systems for human body tracking applications. They employ the use of artificially-generated electromagnetic fields to induce voltages in detectors attached to the tracked object. A fixed transmitter and the sensors consist of three coils mounted in mutually orthogonal directions. The sensors range in size, but tend to be around a few cubic centimeters. The transmitters range in size with the power of the field they are expected to generate, and range from several cubic inches to a cubic foot. There are four magnetic fields that have to be measured: the environmental field (including the Earths magnetic field), and three orthogonal fields in the transmitters coordinate directions in figure. Each of these fields is measured in the sensors three coordinate dimensions for a total of twelve measurements of each sensor. From this information, the position and orientation of the sensor with respect to the transmitter can be computed. These tracking systems are robust, fast, and fairly inexpensive and can be used to track numerous objects (body parts) with acceptable position and orientation accuracies (on the order of 0.1 inches and 0.5 degrees). Unlike electric fields, magnetic fields are unaffected by the presence or absence of human bodies and other non-metallic objects in the environment. This offers a tremendous opportunity, because it enables magnetic trackers to overcome the line-of-sight requirement that plagues acoustic, optical, and externally connected mechanical tracking systems. On the other hand, the magnetic systems suffer from sensitivity to background magnetic fields and interference caused by ferrous metal devices in the vicinity, and therefore is inaccurate in practical environments. Due to this and the limited range of the generated magnetic field, the magnetic tracking systems are restricted to a small special area. Advantages High update rates Very low latency High robustness No shadowing Rather cheap Acceptable accuracy in artificial environment Disadvantages High sensitivity to background magnetic fields Inaccurate in practical environments due to interference caused by ferrous metal devices Low range of the magnetic field and Tracking scope is low due to cable Inertial An internal sensor contains three gyroscopes, to determine the angular rate, and three accelerometers, to determine linear acceleration. Originally, they were mounted to orthogonal axes on a gimbaled platform, as it can be seen in figure. After removing the effect of gravity from the vertical accelerometer, the data has to be double-integrated to provide a measure of the offset between initialization and the current position. In fact, this combination of sensors has been used successfully for inertial navigatio

Essay example --

Obama Administration proposed what is called Comprehensive Immigration Reform. It is composed of six sections aimed at fixing the current immigration system. It includes enhanced border enforcement, interior enforcement and the most controversial section; an amnesty program to legalize undocumented immigrants. In other words, it creates a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants that is fair and feasible. Many argue that even though Comprehensive Immigration Reform is good for America because it addresses important issues like creating a committee to adopt the number of visas available to changing economic times, preventing people from working without permits and creating programs aimed at helping immigrants adjust to life in America. Yet it rewards violators of current U.S. laws who entered the country illegally, and those who entered the country legally but overstayed their visas. Opponents of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform proposal claim that immigrants have a neg ative impact on the economy; overwhelming social services of many states, and posing a threat to American workers as a result of big corporations exploiting immigrants with low wages and poor working conditions. With the recent economic downturn and the severe recession that hit the U.S, many individuals blame immigrants for their economic misfortune and lack of employment. For both the opponents and proponents of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Proposal, for the millions of the undocumented immigrants and their families, and lawmakers; immigration has become an emotional political issue. Despite the resistance of many, America should embrace comprehensive immigration reform. The current immigration system is separating families, and devastating w... ...e private sector to find new growth opportunities and create new jobs. Furthermore, America always has been, and always will be a country of immigrants. Despite that rich tradition, Congress has not updated the country’s immigration policies in three decades. However, Congress now has an opportunity to fix the immigration system and improve the economic well-being of all Americans. Failure to address the issue will have severe consequences for America’s future and well-being, and that is why how America reforms the immigration system will determine its future. The current immigration system is outdated, broken, and reveals that Comprehensive Immigration Reform is urgently needed, and is good for America’s workers and the economy. Despite the claims, complaints and the resistance of many, Americans should welcome, accept and support Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

The Role of Perception in Corporate Decision Making

Here is an office scenario wherein two senior executives are observing an employee who is a potential candidate for promotion:   At certain times, they both see the said employee just sitting on his chair, lounging, even minutes before the end of office hours.   Often chancing upon the employee during his idle time, Senior Executive A may see this as laziness on the employee’s part.   Senior Executive B views the situation, having kept track of prompt and quality reports done by the employee, as the employee being a fast worker who gets the job easily done and right, not as somebody who is just loafing around. This is the fundamental nature of perception.   Senior Executive B saw the employee’s circumstances in another approach from that of Senior Executive A’s.   Even though they both examined the same situation, each one had a different view on it.   The outcome of this observation shall depend upon how the executives had perceived the candidate’s performance.   This is an illustration of how perception plays a part in making decisions on a work setting.   The employee’s likelihood of getting promoted relies on others’ diverse insights. Perception Perception has a role when it comes to decision making on many business situations.   It can impact an organization’s behavior.   Also depending on every person’s background, traits, knowledge, and many other factors, perception can also shape ethical or moral decisions. Definition What is perception?   â€Å"Perception is the process we use to make sense out of our environment by selecting, organizing, and interpreting information from the environment† (Daft, 1997, p. 786). People have varied outlooks on a particular situation in his/her own way.   â€Å"Perception depends not only on the physical stimuli but also on the stimuli’s relation to the surrounding field and on conditions within the individual.   The key word in the definition of perception is individual† (Kotler, 2000, p.173). Impact on Organizational Behavior Because of the different perceptions each individual has on a working atmosphere, it is a necessity for managers to have a profound knowledge of anticipating diversity between the different levels within their organization.   For example:   If a manager only sees his/her staff as a means to an end, just a functioning machine in getting the job done, like without incentives or further trainings, etc., with this kind of perception that the employees may get, how would the employees react to it? There might be a number of them who would not think of it as an issue because they themselves may also only see their work as a means itself to meeting their own needs, financially speaking of earning a salary.   For some, they would like to be recognized and given value as employees, being humanely treated and could perceive their employers as insensitive to both their professional growth and personal welfare. In this case, when this type of perception prevails, it could possibly lead to a chain reaction amongst the employees.   A possible impact could be that the organizational behavior (employees’ performance) is not being concerned about their company’s productivity since the management itself does not look after their issues. How a person perceives others can greatly or minimally impact an organization either in a negative or positive way because people would act in response to it. Another citable circumstance in an office setting with regards to perception and its impact on behavior is rumors.   For instance, there is a new employee who was highly  recommended by an officer of the company.   Some may right away see this as special treatment being given on the said employee.   While others actually get facts and can see  exceptional work being done on the new employee’s part.   Yet, with a number of gossip mongers existing on a work environment, they are going to talk about misleading details.   Now with those who may be unaware of what is actually going on, just basing the events on hearsay, they might perhaps bear some resentment on management or even give it a shot themselves on apple polishing. â€Å"Individual perceptual awareness varies widely.   Recognizing the difference between what is perceived and what is real is a key element in diagnosing a situation† (Daft, 1997,p. 787). Using Perceptive ‘Shortcuts’ Every now and then, several business matters call for immediate decisions.   Some may resort to using perceptive ‘shortcuts’ when judging others.   Positive effects may include a decision being done without delay and can move on to attend to other business matters at hand.   This could result to increase in productivity.   Negative effects consist of hastiness in judgment.   Without studying all the facts and details, one fails to take into account everything that needs to be considered which may be leaving out a factor that could have brought out a different turn of events. The Real World Before a decision is made in real world organizations, an issue is addressed by gathering necessary data or a proposal is prepared for a project they will undertake.   There is an open discussion in order to reach a consensus of opinion (i.e. meeting).   Advantages and disadvantages are weighed out (e.g. project to be considered, acquisition of office equipment).   Strengths and weaknesses are pointed out (e.g. hiring of an applicant, promotion  among ranks).   A good management first makes a thorough study then arrives at a more solid decision this way than in making hasty assessments. Ethical/Moral Decisions How we see things are based on several factors.   People’s views are different because each one has his/her own distinctive background.   What values and beliefs a person has can influence an ethical or moral decision he or she makes.   For example:   A sales agent who proposes to a Human Resources Head the availment of a pension plan for the company’s employees, is also suggesting a share in the commission that he would give to the HR Head when he approves the proposal. If the HR Head perception of the agent’s offer is lucrative to his own pocket and does not see it as harmful to their corporation, viewing the agent’s approach as a normal sales tactic, then this shapes the moral decision he is about to make.   Clearly, this is against business ethics, undisclosed behind-the-scenes negotiations.   The employees, who are not aware of what had transpired between the sales agent and their HR Head, would naturally perceive the outlay in pension plan as a benefit for them.   Now if it was a different matter all together, with an honest HR Head who believes in hard work to earn a living, may see the sales agent as a dubious character and perhaps would choose not to deal with that agent anymore. â€Å"Perception in itself does not always lead to an accurate picture of the environment† (Daft, 1997, p. 562). References Daft, R. L. (1997).   Management.   Pennsylvania:   The Dryden Press. Kotler, P. (2000).   Marketing Management.   New Jersey:   Prentice-Hall, Inc.            

Machiavellian Folly in The Prince Essay - 1696 Words

Machiavellian Folly in The Prince In the annals of history, many individuals have contributed great works of literature, waxing philosophically on the meaning of life, death, and love. Niccolo Machiavelli wrote not on love or life, but on power: How to capture it, how to consolidate it, and how to defend it against all comers. His work has been talked about and dissected to the extent that his subject matter and methods have earned their own moniker: Machiavellian. Nonetheless, this great philosophers works did not meet with unanimous approval. His own student, Thomas Hobbes, presented a very different account of politics. This essay offers a Hobbesian critique of some of Machiavellis arguments, focusing in and around†¦show more content†¦2 Humans, according to Machiavelli, are not the morally grounded beings the Bible espouses them to be. He writes in The Prince: For one can say this generally of men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, pretenders and dissemblers, evaders of danger, eager for gain .3 Clearly, Machiavelli argues that man is precarious - a being of dubious morals and selfish desires. Hobbes agreed with this analysis, and took it one step further. According to Hobbes, all mankind has a restless and perpetual desire for power, which ceaseth only with death4. Moreover, man can never be satisfied with the power he has. Hobbes writes: ... [man] cannot assure the power and the means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more [power]. Mans first need is to provide security for himself. Past experience and reason dictate that he will do this by any means necessary - even if it means killing everyone around him. Critics argue that Hobbes and Machiavelli are too pessimistic; but they would both beg to differ. To both Hobbes and Machiavelli, Aristotelian virtue is a deception; it can never be reached. Men do not want to be good; they want to lie, they want to cheat, and they want to kill. To expect otherwise would be contrary to their hostile nature. To both Hobbes and Machiavelli, political analysis must begin by identifying the human being for what he really is - a self-interested, self-seekingShow MoreRelatedSimilarities Between Machiavelli And Socrates1544 Words   |  7 Pageswould likely see in the Prince a selfish ruler, while Machiavelli would see in Socrates a dangerous idealist whose ideas would lead to instability and the death of the state in which these ideas were implemented. Machiavelli’s philosophy of the Prince would not satisfy Socrates because instead of focusing on right action, the Prince is encouraged to put political expediency and self-preservation above all else. In addition, the type of political system that Machiavelli’s Prince would lead to almostRead MoreRenaissance: Impact on English Literature1723 Words   |  7 Pagescentury, leaving the Middle English of Chaucer behind.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Among the prose-writers the chief exponents of the Renaissance are Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. Erasmus’ Praise of Folly and Mores Utopia show how the English scholars of the time were imbued with the spirit of the classical Renaissance. Praise of Folly gives the best expression in literature of the attack that the  Oxford  reformers like Linacre, Colet and Lyly were making upon medieval system. It is like a song of victory for theRead MoreEssay about Renaissance Figures2969 Words   |  12 Pagesdismissed, and briefly imprisoned and tortured. He then retired to his country estate, where he wrote on politics. His most famous work, The Prince (1532), describes the means by which a leader may gain and maintain power. His ideal prince is an amoral and calculating tyrant capable of unifying Italy. Despite the ruthless connotation of the term Machiavellian, such works as the Discourses (1531) and the History of Florence (1532) express republican principles. Machiavelli also wrote poemsRead MoreOrganizational Behaviour Analysis28615 Words   |  115 PagesORGANISATIONAL ANALYSIS: Notes and essays for the workshop to be held on 15th - 16th Novemeber 2007 at The Marriot Hotel Slough Berkshire SL3 8PT Dr. Lesley Prince, C.Psychol., AFBPsS University of Birmingham November 2007  © Dr. Lesley Prince 2007. Organisational Analysis: Notes and Essays Page i Page ii Please do not attempt to eat these notes. CONTENTS Introduction to the Workshop Topics And Themes The Nature and Scope of Organisation Theory Levels of Analysis The Metaphorical