Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Communications Plan for Semiconductor Systems, Inc Essay

Communications Plan for Semiconductor Systems, Inc - Essay Example The gravity of the situation is very much apparent, that there are three casualties from the substance. This involves death of three people, and should be taken extreme measures to make sure that the crisis will not happen again. Apart from the fatalities, the organization and the public will be concerned about the physiological effects of this chemical agent, that apart from the fatalities, long-term damage to the health of other employees may have resulted in it. The organization should make sure to address this concern as well. Another major concern for the organization, as well as the other stakeholders will be what the incident costs the business. Apart from the monetary costs that entails the incident--pay to the families of the fatalities, the medical check-ups of the people who have been exposed to the chemicals to ensure there are not long-term damage to their health, installation of new security systems and reinforcement of new security measures, payment for publicity costs, etc—there are non-monetary costs to organization as well. This can includes: psychological tension to employees with the prospect of unsafe environment—thus either decreasing morale, productivity, or may result in increase in turnover; damage to brand equity when the news leaks to the public which will result in loss in potential talents, decrease trust in suppliers, customers and other stakeholders, and potential capital flight from investors. Employees are the target public, who are most directly concerned with the incident. Because the safety of the work environment will be a factor in the employees’ morale, productivity—this tension should be first calmed among them. Because of this incident, there will be several versions of the story when it leaks out to the public. Therefore, it is crucial to address this brand crisis and address the reality of what has happened in order to clear out future misconceptions about it. This

Monday, October 28, 2019

The Grapes of Wrath and California History Essay Example for Free

The Grapes of Wrath and California History Essay I. The Joad Family is the main character in the novel of John Steinbeck entitled The Grapes of Wrath. The said novel was published in the spring of 1939 during the Great Depression. The Joads in the novel portrayed the migrants of California. From Collins and Steinbeck point of view, the migrants of California can be compared to â€Å"Jeffersonian yeomen† who aspire to gain their respective small farms. Jeffersonian Yeomen, historically, however, did not succeed in their goal. It was the farms owned and mange by the businessmen of San Francisco that ruled the rural economy of the state. Its big agricultural output was favored by the â€Å"goldrush† which permitted the growing of â€Å"cash crops† in the urban markets and the mining camps of San Francisco (David Igler Davis, 2002). It was in 1935 and 1939 when the great depression happened in California. The migrants came from Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma; the lower Plain states of the southwest. The number of migrants by that time was about 300,000. They were caked â€Å"Okies†. In the Grapes of Wrath, it was the Joads who migrated to California. The thirteen members of the family rode in one vehicle which includes even the grandparents and their grandchildren. Along the way the grandparents as well as the in-laws and uncles died. It was the fifty-year old Ma Joad who was left to lead the group in their journey. Tom Joad, son of Ma Joad and an ex-convict also played a significant role in the story. They join the thousands other migrants in their quest for better opportunities in California. II. In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joads migrated to California to seek for employment. They left the almost â€Å"perfect† and â€Å"peaceful† Weedpatch Camp because of the misfortunes that happened in their homeland. Dust storms occurred in Oklahoma and they had suffered financial crisis. Based on California history, the migration can be explained by several factors. The farms in Oklahoma and other states affected by the depression became unprofitable due to drought that happened in their land. There was low economic activity and widespread unemployment by that time. Tenant farmers were evicted by the landowners as a consequence of the New Deal Agricultural Adjustment (AAA). These programs had forbidden farmers to plant grain or cotton in exchange of cash. New Deal Programs inevitably had effects that went beyond the farm economy, through the recovery of the agricultural sector was the administration’s primary aim. Some agencies attempted to reorient the rural social structure, making it possible for laborers and tenants to live with dignity and even become landowners. Relief agencies operating in rural America improved public buildings and transportation facilities, hired unemployed people, maintained institutions, and enriched lives. And the New Deal undertook a revolutionary-and successful- effort to electrify the countryside. More federal activities were undertaken in response to the Dust Bowl, an ecological crisis that beset the Great Plains with especial severity. Government agencies promoted conservation, retired highly erodible acres from farming, resettled some victims on more viable lands, and provided sustenance for others (Danbom, 2006). The use of machinery which produces greater efficiency also contributed to the said eviction. Moreover, a big percentage of farmlands was destroyed by the great dust storms that occurred in the mid-1930s. Since then, poverty stroked Oklahoma. The Okies decided to move to California to be able to survive. They were encouraged by the â€Å"word-of-mouth campaign† by their friends and relatives. They were inspired by the information from other people that they could earn high salary in California by simply picking cotton and fruits. Moreover, transportation from Oklahoma to California was not a problem by that time (Orsi, 2001). III. The migrants moved to California because they believe that they will be able to find a brighter future there. Aside from the effect of the Great Depression in the life of the Okies, the mass migration was also brought by false advertising. In October 1929, the stock market of the United States fell and California was affected. This incident had caused California to suffer acutely because California oil shares which are the most active sectors in the 1920s had collapsed and many investors suffered. The depression also hit California but the economy recovered in the year 1934 and 1937 (Eymann 2004). It was then when California needed many laborers in the cotton fields. Indeed California offered high salary during those times when the number of cotton plantation in California was multiplied. A need for thousands of harvesters of crops had commenced especially in San Joaquin Valley. They had a problem of labor shortage not unemployment that is why high salary was offered to those Okies who were employed to pack meat, cement clay, railroad and even ice manufacturers. The salary that California offered was twenty to fifty percent higher than the salary of Okies in their homeland. Due to the nature of their work, the migrants had chosen to settle in one place with their children. IV. In the novel and in historical reality the migrants are hoping to find a better life in the fertile fields of California. They are expecting that when they reached â€Å"the promised land† they will be employed and earn high wages. They had believed that when they reach their destination, life will become easier. They will â€Å"simply† work in the cotton fields and harvest fruits and earn a big amount of money. They will raise their children there and all of them will not starve and will be able to gain bright future in California. They hoped to revitalize their wealth and recover their source of revenue on the land V. When they had reached their destination, they found themselves as victims there. Work was inadequate, salaries were small, and they were disliked, refuse to be accepted and suppressed by the residents. Their endeavors to upgrade their lives were branded as Communism, a system much disliked and feared by many Americans of the time. (John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath By Lee Cusick) Agricultural workers were not covered by Social Security, unemployment insurance, the minimum wage and the National Labor Relations Act. The New Deal was primarily a political response to the Depression, and unlike farm owners, the migrants had little political influence. While California Growers obtained federal price supports for some products, legally enforced marketing orders for others, and massive government expenditures for irrigation projects, migrant laborers received a small, poorly funded camp program that never got beyond the â€Å"demonstration† stage (Harvest of Gypsies). Grower satisfaction with the Okies was short-lived. The flood of migrants in 1937 had created an embarrassing oversupply of labor, and the squalor of their camps refelected on the industry. In 1938 it became apparent that the Okies were politically embarrassing as well. They were democrats, supported Culbert Olson, and displayed firm loyalty to the New Deal. They also disrupted the strong Republican hold on rural communities, a fact that led to the formation of the California Citizen’s association (CCA), which, like the Associated Farmers, fronted for banking, oil, railroad, real estate, and insurance interess allied with the agribusiness community. The CCA, detrmined to attack the New Deal and Olson through the migrants, launched a publicity campaign that, as Walter Stein has pointed out, went a long way toward creating a popular view of the Okie in California as â€Å"degenerate, degraded loser in the American struggle for survival. † Like migrants of the 1920s, nearly half settled in metropolitan areas, primarily Los Angeles, the Okies were quickly absorbed. The rest, however, turned north to the San Joaquin Valley where they sought work in the complex, industrialized agricultural system. Ineligible for relief for a year because they were new to the state, they accepted the low wages that the Mexican work force would not, and in a short time almost completely displaced the Mexicans as California’s harvest laborers. When the Okies became eligible for unemployment relief, the state relief administration under Gov. Meriam cut off relief payments if work was available in an agricultural harvest, forcing them into the old relief, harvest labor, relief cycle that essentially subsidized low farm wages. Important distinctions between the Okies and traditional harvest labor were not only that the migrants were white Anglo-Saxon Protestants but also that they sought permanence. They settled in Central Valley towns, sent their children to the local schools, and registered to vote. Their poverty could not be ignored. Living in shocking conditions in tent camps along irrigation ditches, they exposed the exploitation of farm labor in California’s peculiar agricultural system and became a highly visible burden in local communities, particularly in the San Joaquin Valley (The Great depression Chapter 21). A year later, the labor surplus of the Depression had been transformed into an extraordinary wartime shortage of workers. Migrants who were not subject to military service found well-paying jobs in California’s booming shipyards, aircraft factories and other defense plants. The Joads and their fellow Okies ultimately found economic salvation, not on the small farms they dreamed of owning, but in urban industry fueled by billion of federal defense dollars (Steinbeck, 1988). VI. The story of the migrants fit California History due to the efforts of Steinbeck and Collins who â€Å"actually lived† at California gathering information to capture â€Å"true scenarios† in California. Steinbeck stayed at Weedpatch Camp for several days, talking to residents, attending camp committee meetings and dances, and watching Collins tactfully promote his concept of limited and guided elf-government. Steinbeck and Collins travelled in the old bakery truck to nearby farms and ditch-side migrant settlements, and the author read the manager’s regular reports to the Resettlement Administration’s regional office in San Francisco. The reports, which included social and cultural observations on migrant life and individual anecdotes sometimes told in Okie dialect, were extraordinary documents. The News had already published excerpts from them, and Steinbeck eventually mined them for the material for The Grapes of Wrath. In 1936 he used them to get beneath the surface of migrant life, to understand the deep despair and hopelessness that poverty and homelessness had created (David Igler Davis, 2002). References: Danbom, D. B. (2006). Born in the Country: A History of Rural America Johns Hopkins University Press. David Igler, C. , Davis. (2002). The Human Tradition in California: Rowman Littlefield. Eymann, M. , , C. W. (2004). Whats Going On? : California and the Vietnam Era: University of California Press. Orsi, R. R. W. B. a. R. (2001). The Elusive Eden McGraw-Hill. Steinbeck, J. (1988). The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath Heyday Books.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

A Response to Hubbard’s essay Science, Facts, and Feminism :: Hubbard Scientific Men Females Essays

A Response to Hubbard’s essay Science, Facts, and Feminism In her essay "Science, Facts, and Feminism" Ruth Hubbard makes many claims in relating her opinions about the relationship between men and women in society as well as the role science plays in this relationship and the balance of power in the world. One of her claims states that "the pretense that science is objective, apolitical and value-neutral is profoundly political because it obscures the political role that science and technology play in underwriting the existing distribution of power in society." In essence, she is saying that it is ridiculous to claim that science is an objective look at the world around us because science is constantly affected by society and the political establishment. I agree that it is impossible to claim that science is in every way separate from politics and power because those types of people who created the political world also created the scientific world to supplement and support it. For example, the government, a political and power establishment , created the Manhattan Project and put a huge amount of funding into a scientific project that produced the atomic bomb. Hubbard disagrees with the idea that science is immune to power and politics. To think that science is neutral one must assume that the scientist is able to remove himself from the test subject and the surroundings and simply observe without affecting the test in any way. In reality this is impossible. The scientist must design the test, perform it, and be prepared to fix it if it does not address the problem he has posed. Because human beings are imperfect, the tests are also imperfect. As a result, the conclusion the scientist reaches is no longer objective, but influenced by the type of results he is expecting. Furthermore, to think that science is immune to the power establishment, one must assume that it is in no way affected by government or companies with money to spend. This, like the assumption that science is neutral, is also incorrect. In order for a scientist to be funded in his research, he must submit proposals to those power establishments that have money. These powerful companies and governments will only fund those projects they deem important to their interests and goals. In this way, science is extremely political in its effort to obtain money and support because it must please those power establishments who are, by nature, political.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Mind Control Essay

Have you ever walked around a shopping mall intending to go to only one store, yet two hours later you’re still in the mall and you haven’t walked into the only store you planned to go into? What pulled you into the other stores? You were just walking down and all of a sudden you smelled a whiff of some good scent, so you walk into Abercrombie and Fitch. The smell hooked you in and then you began looking at clothes and the time just got the best of you and your money. Abercrombie and Fitch used a form of mind control to hook you in and get you to walk into their store and then buy their product. Today we will discuss the topic of mind control, how it affects us as students today, and how the media shapes our ideals and values with mind control. Mind control is defined in psychology as Social Influence. Social influence occurs every minute of every day. It’s the many ways in which people can manipulate other people’s perspectives beliefs and ethics. For instance, The Compliance Method is intent to make a shift in a person’s behavior, not in his perspective or belief. This is one of the biggest advertising campaigns that are being used so successfully today. It’s the â€Å"Just do it† approach. Persuasion, on the other hand, aims for a change in attitude, or â€Å"Do it because it will make you feel Blissful, Healthy, or prosperous.† Whereas the Education Method (which is called the propaganda method if you don’t believe what is being taught.) attempts to alter a distortion in a person’s beliefs, saying something along the lines of â€Å"Do it because you know it’s the right thing to do.† A common way that millions of people get brainwashed as young adults is as being students. Grading, humiliation, favoritism and other techniques, are used in most school systems to punish and reward certain behaviors and ideas. An abundance amount of kids learn in school for example, that t hey are secondary, stupid, inadequate, untalented , and failures thanks to absentmindedness or intended brainwashing done by teachers, who are commonly themselves brainwashed. Students furthermore learn not to be creative, not to question authority, not to be individuals or do things that differ from the mainstream way. Subconsciously they dread the disciplinary action and humiliation that came when they were in school years before. This is mainly the reason many adults  are afraid to ask their questions and thereafter never learn new things. This condition affects thousands worldwide and limits adult intellectual growth. Perhaps the most powerful, yet the least recognized form of brainwashing is in the media. The media affects our thought patterns, expectations, priorities and relationships. The advertising industry influences parents by making them feel that they can buy their children’s love. They accomplish this through linking love and guilt with the purchase of products. Instead of being a good parent, they minimize they’re guilt by buying their kid the newest product on the market. Parents spend approximately 16 hours a week with their children; while they’re children spend about 40 hours a week on any sort of media. This shocking statistic shows just exactly what is most influential in a child’s life. The media especially preys on kids and teens under the age of 24, because this is when they’re brains are most impressionable. You’ve probably noticed many teenagers imitating the dress and even the speech patterns of the rich and famous. Take the Kardashian’s for example, how many girls do you see trying to talk like Kim or look like Kyle? Isn’t it scary how easily influenced we are by what’s going on around us? Brainwashing happens every minute of every day. Whether it’s from the constant media were always hooked into, our upbringing or just the society we are living in today. Now that we are aware of what’s going on around us, we can make sure we agree with what is being fed to us and not just â€Å"do it† because were told it will make us feel a certain way, because it’s the right thing to do, or just do it because everyone else is.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Pie Chart

Presentation Notes Cameron, highlighted in blue are things that need to be added to the powerpoint. Slide 1 – Landing Page (Sarah) †¢   UFC graphics Logo Slogan †¢   Consulting Firm Name & Slogan – †¢   Group Members Slide 2 – Background (Sarah) †¢   Ultimate Fighting Championship ® (UFC ®), started in 1993 as a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) organization. †¢ In 2001 UFC was purchased by Zuffa and restructured MMA into a highly organized and controlled combat sport †¢ Response to the UFC brand of MMA has been tremendous, resulting in a growing fan base that has developed steadily through the years.Slide 3- Background (Sarah) †¢   UFC is the worldwide benchmark for Fight Entertainment industry †¢   They lead the global mixed martial arts industry with 90% of market share Insert graphic here of MMA market share Slide 4- Market Share (Sarah) Insert PPV Breakdown chart here ADD PIE CHART HERE * UFC has de clined in PPV market share (within the fight entertainment industry) from 57% in 2010 to 51% in 2011. What to say: Slide 2: Background The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was created in 1993 as a medium to display multiple forms of martial arts and classify the most effective fighting style in a real life fight.Mainstream exposure damaged consumer perception of the product due to the violent and â€Å"no-rules† nature of the sport; and as exposure languished, so did profits. The company struggled to gain television exposure and found itself competing with professional wrestling, which is staged fighting, and traditional fighting programming such as boxing and martial arts tournaments. However, by 2003, UFC came under new management who wanted to change the strategic course of the company. Management saw the opportunity to rebrand itself from a sport to a sports entertainment organization categorized as â€Å"fighting†.It installed a new set of rules – elimi nating hair pulling, head butting, groin strikes and other dangerous maneuvers from the matches. Zuffa the parent company of UFC has given consumers an innovative option for fight entertainment. UFC blends the athleticism of boxing and mixed martial arts, the production value and character creation of professional wrestling, along with the drama of reality television into one unique product. Response to UFC has been very successful and fan base has been consistently growing for the past several years.Slide 3: Background The results have been very visible. UFC has now become a billion dollar empire that reaps profits from PPV, merchandise, and live events. It has grown progressively and through acquisitions it has become the industry leader and benchmark in the fight entertainment industry. By 2009, it was estimated that the UFC had captured 90% market share of mixed-martial arts entertainment. Slide 4: Market Share Even though UFC holds the majority of the MMA market share it barely contributes over half when talking about the PPV industry.Like the term â€Å"pay-per-view† suggest, you pay to view an event whether it be a live event or movie. Live events are segmented into more narrow of categories such as concerts, professional sports and college sports. UFC is listed under MMA PPV, which is considered as a fight entertainment, a sub-category of professional sports. In 2010 UFC held strong with having 57% of the market share of PPV in the fight entertainment industry. However one year later in 2011 it dropped to only having 51% of the PPV market share within the fight entertainment industry.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Act One Plot Summary of Pygmalion

Act One Plot Summary of Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw wrote over forty plays during the course long life of 94 years. Pygmalion, written in 1913, became his most famous work. Check out our article on Shaws biography to learn more about his life and literature. Quick Synopsis Its the tale of a conceited professor of linguistics, Henry Higgins, and the brash, incorrigible young woman named Eliza Doolittle. Higgins sees the cockney girl as a great challenge. Can she learn to speak like a refined English lady? Higgins endeavors to transform Eliza in his own image, and he gets much more than he ever bargained for. Pygmalion in Greek Mythology The title of the play is derived from ancient Greece. According to Greek Mythology, Pygmalion was a sculptor who created a beautiful statue of a woman. The gods grant the artist a wish by making the sculpture come to life. The main character in Shaws play is not a sculptor; however, he does become enamored with his own creation. Plot Summary of Act One Professor Henry Higgins wanders the streets of London, absorbing the local color and studying the various dialects those around him. A crowd of people huddle together, due to the sudden downpour of rain. A wealthy woman tells her adult son, Freddy to hail a taxi. He complains but obeys, bumping into a young woman selling flowers: Eliza Doolittle. She asks a man to buy flowers from her. He declines, but gives her spare change, for charitys sake. Another man warns Eliza that she should be careful; a stranger has been writing down every word she has been saying. The stranger is Prof. Henry Higgins who reveals his shorthand notes. She is distressed, thinking that she is in trouble. Henry rebukes her: HIGGINS: Dont be ridiculous. Whos hurting you, you silly girl? The crowd gives Higgins a hard time when they realize he is a gentleman instead of a policeman. At first, the citizens are quite concerned about the poor flower girl. Eliza expresses her distress (and reveals the nature of the crowd) in the following quote and subsequent stage direction: ELIZA: I aint done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman. Ive a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb. (Hysterically) Im a respectable girl: so help me, I never spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower off me. (General hubbub, mostly sympathetic to the flower girl, but deprecating her excessive sensibility. Cries of Dont start hollerin. Whos hurting you? Nobodys going to touch you. Whats the good of fussing? Steady on. Easy, easy, etc., come from the elderly staid spectators, who pat her comfortingly. Less patient ones bid her shut her head, or ask her roughly what is wrong with her. (...) The flower girl, distraught and mobbed, breaks through them to the gentleman, crying mildly.) Oh, sir, dont let him charge me. You dunno what it means to me. Theyll take away my character and drive me on the streets for speaking to gentlemen. Prof. Higgins listens to peoples accents and cleverly recognizes where they are from and where they have been. The crowd is both impressed and perturbed at his uncanny abilities. The rain stops and the crowd disperses. Colonel Pickering, the man who gave Doolittle spare change, is intrigued by Higgins. The professor explains that he can identify a persons origins based solely on phonetics, the science of speech. Meanwhile, Eliza is still nearby, sulking and muttering to herself. Higgins complains that the flower girls speech is an insult to the majestic English language. Yet he also boasts that he is so skilled in phonetics that he could train her to speak like royalty. Pickering reveals his name, explaining that he has written a book on Indian dialects. By coincidence, Higgins had been hoping to meet the distinguished Colonel, just as Col. Pickering had been hoping to meet Higgins. Delighted by their chance encounter, Higgins insists that Pickering stay at his home. Before they leave, Eliza begs them to buy some of her flowers. Higgins drops a large amount of coins into her basket, amazing the young woman who very likely has never paid so much. She celebrates by taking a taxi cab home. Freddy, the wealthy young man who originally hailed the taxi says Well, Im dashed, in response to the flower girls confident attitude.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Research Paper Format

Research Paper Format Research Paper Format Carter M. McCutchan Ms. Kemmerle Freshman English Period 3 18 April 2014 Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby It is imperative that Icefall, recipient of an Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, by Matthew J. Kirby be required reading for 9th grade students because of the striking imagery, atypical setting, engulfing plot and bold and dynamic characters it has to offer. In Icefall Matthew J. Kirby employs sharp mental images and senses to appeal to a wide variety of audiences. According to School Library Journal, â€Å"In a page-turning climax†¦ the ensuing battle and survival scenes are vividly portrayed, and characters fight back with the epic heroism of gods. Solveig is an empathetic heroine and Hake, the hulky berserker war chief, is also a well-developed and (eventually) endearing character.† Brilliant imagery and striking scenery are also called out on Booklist when it states â€Å"The episodic plot and atmospheric setting make this a challenging title to narrate.† It is evident from these reviews that Icefall has a well-described, vibrant setting and is has a thrilling and unexpected plot. It is essential to a child’s learning for them to understand the importance of a good setting and descriptive imagery. Good setting must appeal to the senses and describe the scene well. For a book to be deemed good literature, it must possess a vibrant description of setting to help place the reader into the setting described in the book. The plot must not only contain events that are not foreshadowed in the book and must be eventful so as not to bore the reader. Multiple reviews are available on Icefall from various companies. Publishers Weekly says â€Å"Kirby turns in a claustrophobic, thought-provoking coming-of-age adventure that shows a young woman growing into her own, while demonstrating the power of myth and legend. Kirby’s attention to detail and stark descriptions make this an effective mood piece. Readers may be drawn in by the promise of action, which Kirby certainly fulfills, but they’ll be left contemplating the power of the pen versus the sword- or rather the story versus the war hammer.† It can be interpreted from this review that the book has elements of both mystery and adventure. Solveig learns a lesson in the book to find what she is good at rather than being judged on an uncontrollable trait. As indicated in the passage above, it highlights â€Å"Kirby’s attention to detail and stark description make this an effective mood piece.† Most of this description and detail is towards setting, creating a descriptive setting that almost feels real. Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books says â€Å"Kirby masterfully interweaves the familiar aspects of Solveig’s coming of age with a taut, compelling mystery and survival story that fans of both fantasy and historical fiction will find utterly appealing. . . There’s an arctic bite that permeates even the most mundane of scenes, making the ominous setting a character in its own right, while the inclusion of several Nordic myths complete the icy picture. Readers will be left thinking about this one long after the chill has left their bones.† Kirkus Reviews reads, â€Å"The chilly, claustrophobic, ancient setting is vividly created, and the sense of impending doom generates a gripping suspense overarching the developing- and deteriorating- relationships among the group, marking Kirby (The Clockwork Three, 2010) as a strong emerging novelist. Recommend this one to teens who crave a good mystery set in an icily different time and place.† You can easily tell from this evaluation of the book that it is sufficiently challenging for high school students, as Kirkus clearly recommends the book to teens in the last line of the review. Words in these reviews such as ominous, claustrophobic, and vivid offer an idea as to how the book’s setting is well-described, uses a broad variety of vocabulary and vivid imagery. Nancy Farmer, a Newbery Award-winning author says â€Å"Against an authentic backdrop