Education was only for young people Essay

In the past people thought that education was only for young people. Now, it is believed that education is for a person’s whole life. Do you agree? State with you own experience and specific details. Education is an indispensable part in a person’s life. It illuminates human knowledge and culture, improving the development of science and technology. Education is not only for young people, it should be proceeding in people’s whole life. Children begin to receive education at an early age in the kindergarten, where they could learn some basic knowledge about our nature and acquire some living skills. When they go to primary schools and secondary schools, they study mathematics, language, physics and other subjects, which are fundamental and essential for their further study and education. When they go to university, they can study the subjects which they are interested in, making preparation for their future career. University is a place where most learned people carry out research and study. There students have seas of knowledge and skills to learn. But university education is not the terminal of a person’s study life. For one reason, our society is developing at an amazing speed along with the improvement of science and technology. If people stop studying after graduation from university, they can not keep abreast with the steps of social development and easy to be eliminated in the fierce competition. Take the development of IT as an example. The dazzling information technologies come to the fore every day. If a person does not learn the latest knowledge, they would not be able to develop new technology and products. Therefore, a person should learn new knowledge for the whole life. As the saying goes, â€Å"Never too late to learn†. To fit in with the development of society, a person must study during his or her whole life. Otherwise, he or she will lag far behind the others.

Accident Report

INCIDENT REPORT INSTRUCTIONS Northwestern University ? Vice President for Research ? University Safety Committees ? Office for Research Safety ***A sample completed form is appended to these instructions. *** When to Submit an Incident report An incident report must be delivered to the Office for Research Safety within five days of the incident. Reports are reviewed by the Chemical and Biological Safety Committee, or the Radiation Safety Committee. ? An incident is defined as any unplanned and unwanted event that occurred during the performance of work activities and that resulted in or could have led to injury or material damage to property.Incident repercussions range from minor (e. g. , a broken mercury thermometer) to significant (e. g. , a 5-gallon bottle of sulfuric acid dropped in a heavy-traffic hallway). ? An Incident Report is appropriate for â€Å"near misses,† incidents not resulting in personal harm or property damage, but which might have, under slightly differen t circumstances. ? The Incident Report requires responses from (I) the person involved, (II) any witnesses to the incident, and (III) the Principal Investigator/Supervisor. Attach additional pages if necessary to complete the report.Reports that are not signed by the PI/supervisor will be returned for completion. The committees require input from the supervisor. See completed Example following the instructions. ? Commonly, there are multiple causes in any given incident—all of which should be identified. Provide a complete and detailed response to each question, making a serious attempt to identify all â€Å"root cause(s). † The contributing factors were probably evident, but overlooked or unrecognized previously. These factors become more distinctly identifiable in light of the specifics of the incident A well-planned work process will include multiple layers of safeguards.Once causes are identified at all levels, consider safeguards and procedures that might be chang ed to prevent future incidents. . ? This report is not intended to assign blame; it should be used as a tool to foster recommendations for procedural improvement. A well-prepared report will identify all work systems that need to be redesigned to compensate for foreseeable human errors. Information gleaned from these reports will also be used to improve safety policies. ? The Incident Report is required for all incidents, and must be submitted to theOffice for Research Safety within 5 business days of the incident. Delaying may result results in lost or forgotten details. Your department will be contacted by the Office for Research Safety if an incident report is not received promptly. Incident Response ? Please refer to the Emergency Response Training Fact Sheet Section 6. 3. 4 of Chemical and Biological Safety in Laboratories for definitions of incidental spills you can clean up yourself versus major spills that require assistance, either by ORS or an outside agency. When in doubt , contact ORS for help.Both types of spill require an incident report. ? Emergency Phone Numbers and procedures may be found in your department emergency evacuation plan, your Safety Desk Book, your Employee Safety Handbook, or the Office for Research Safety web page: http://www. research. northwestern. edu/research/ors/emerg/index. htm The Incident Report Form is located at http://www. research. northwestern. edu/research/ORS/online_forms. htm under Laboratory Safety Forms. Incident Report Instructions and Sample Updated 4/18/2007 INCIDENT REPORT SAMPLE Northwestern University ? Vice President for Research ?University Safety Committees ? Office for Research Safety ***Instructions on when and how to complete this form may be found at http://www. research. northwestern. edu/research/ORS/online_forms. htm under Laboratory Safety Forms. *** Hint: Save this file to your computer, complete your section, email a copy to the next person for their part, and when all information has been ent ered, printed, and signed by the Principal Investigator, return it to Tech, NG-71 . I. Report by person involved Name: __Josephine Doe____________ Department: ___Chemistry_________DatePrepared: December 20, 2007__ How long at this job? _3 wks______Position/Title (e. g. , Grad Student, Technician, Post-doc) ___Graduate Student___ Location of Incident: ___Tech G222_________Date/time of incident: _December 18, 2007_ / Principal Investigator/Supervisor: ___Frank Nobel_________________________ 7:30 am_____ A. Describe how the incident occurred. 1. Explain the operation in which you were involved. What were you doing before the incident occurred? What was your goal? What were you doing at the time the incident occurred? What were the conditions of your work?Is this a routine operation? I was washing a volumetric flask. I added a mixture of acid (hydrochloric and nitric) to the flask, a procedure typical in our lab. I was holding the flask and swirling the acid along the inner walls. 2. De scribe the incident in detail. What happened? A reaction occurred inside the flask. I had capped it to prevent spillage. A pressure build-up blew the cap off the flask and sprayed acid on my face. In shock, I dropped the flask on the bench and it shattered, spilling acid on the surface. 3. Describe the sequence of events that followed the incident.How did you respond? I ran to the eyewash at the sink and rinsed my face for approx. 15 minutes, holding my eyes open with my hands. I called UP and requested emergency assistance. Paramedics arrived about 10 minutes after that. 4. Describe any equipment, machinery, or instruments in use at the time of the incident and their potential contribution to the incident. No equipment involved. B. Did you sustain any injuries? What were they? How were they treated? Did you require medical care? Describe the severity of the injury. Page 2 of 5 PagesLimited burns to my face on my forehead and eyelids. I was taken to the emergency room where my face was rinsed again and treated with topical antibiotic cream. I will have to avoid sunlight for a week since I sustained a second-degree burn. C. Was there any property loss or damage? Please elaborate. The flask was broken. The acid permanently stained the work surface. Acid was sprayed as far as 20 feet from the spill site. ORS cleaned the acid contamination. The lab was closed the next morning after the spill because no one could work in the area while ORS decontaminated it.D. Safety Rules and Procedures. 1. Was the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) necessary during the given operation? Was the PPE worn? What did it consist of? I was wearing a lab coat and nitrile gloves but no eye protection. I should have been wearing safety glasses. 2. What type of training did you receive prior to engaging in this operation? Was the training adequate? What did it consist of? I received ORS general safety training when I entered the program my first year. No training since then. Also, n o training in my lab as to specific procedures.I believe I should have annual refresher training. 3. Are there any specific safety rules which apply to this procedure? Were they followed? Are they adequate? No specific rules established for cleaning of glassware. There are rules regarding PPE. Safety glasses are required and I will wear them from now on. 4. Other comments. I was working alone in the lab. I won’t do that again since I could have used help in locating the eyewash. E. Causal Factors 1. What do you perceive to be the causal factors behind this incident?This could include: inadequate management oversight; lack of appropriate safety policy; proper equipment not used, required, or supplied; etc. Lack of a standardized procedure. An adverse reaction between the acid and contaminants was never addressed in training so I didn’t realize it could occur and how to adequately handle the situation. 2. What are your recommendations for preventing recurrence? Better aw areness (training) about the reactions that can occur between chemicals. II. Other Individuals Involved/Witnesses where applicable 1. Name: __None____________________ Position_____________________ _A. Description of Incident – Where were you and what were you doing when the incident occurred? What did you see? Page 3 of 5 Pages Incident Report Instructions and Sample Updated 4/18/2007 B. Additional comments or observations. 2. Name: __________________________ Position_____________________ _ A. Description of Incident – Where were you and what were you doing when the incident occurred? What did you see? B. Additional comments or observations. III. Report by Principal Investigator/Supervisor A. How and when did you learn of the incident? I received a phone call from the student the next day.B. Contributing/Mitigating Factors – What do you perceive to be the causal factors behind this incident? This could include inadequate management oversight; lack of appropriate safety policy; improper procedure; proper equipment not used, required, or supplied; etc. There was a reaction between the acid and an organic contaminant in the glassware. The flask should not have een capped. The capping caused a pressure build-up to occur in the vessel. The student did not consider the possibility since we had not discussed glassware cleaning procedures. C. Immediate corrective action taken.The use of acids for cleaning glassware will be closely evaluated to determine when a less hazardous cleaning agent can be used. To limit the potential for reaction, we will ensure that any gross organic contamination is removed by thorough rinsing and scraping before use of acid. Acid will be restricted to cleaning of trace contamination. When lab personnel clean with acids, regular venting will be performed to prevent pressure build-up. Also, the procedure will be done in a chemical fume hood, utilizing the horizontal sash as a physical barrier against sprays and splashes.D . Additional remediation efforts to prevent future recurrence (and expected date of implementation). We will schedule an in-house training class to review the cleaning procedures and other lab safety policies, especially the rules about wearing of PPE and working alone. Page 4 of 5 Pages E. Comments The student was working an 11-hour day. Fatigue may have been a factor. Workdays will be limited to 10 hours at the most. Principal Investigator/Supervisor Signature: ____________________________________ Page 5 of 5 Pages

QI Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

QI - Essay Example Considering this, the numbers in the spreadsheets were added to get the percentage of menus picked up by 100 units. This method was the appropriate one because it facilitated the computation of percentages using an easy formula. The breakdown of the menus and the floors required a unit that ensured the percentages provided the correct outcome that would give the accurate pickup. However, some challenges emerged during the entire calculation of the menu pickup project. These challenges were later rectified by having a menu pickup policy for diet technicians in order to increase the percentages. By using the original excel document of the menu pickups, highlighting was essential for the determination of the unusual or improper pickup units. For instance, highlighted in yellow were the menu p/u averages that consisted of items by Thumas, Danielle and Aaron. The results indicate that the pickup menus changed during the days, but had a constant Monti unit of 2 in the entire project. Similarly, the employees, namely Josie, Kristen, Sebastian and Eguono also registered different menu p/u percentages. This is because the menus picked up produced separate menus printed, giving different percentages. The perceived reason for this difference was due to maybe the employees taking lunch breaks at different intervals. It is also apparent that the employees took long hours choosing the menus pickups with others going for the ones with fewer complexities. Each worker failed to have their menu pickups when required to because of the difference in time intervals taken for breaks. Some workers were good with sticking to their programs, while others were logged off at most of the times. This caused the delays and differences in the percentages, which also resulted in the different averages at each level. For instance, the averages established by Dawn, Thumas and Sebastan were higher compared to the ones by Melisa, Angela and

OUR CLASSIFICATION AND DIVISION ESSAY Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

OUR CLASSIFICATION AND DIVISION - Essay Example ustomer, who opts to purchase a product because it is the best one to be found from the perspective of price or value and because they have had positive experiences with it. The third category is the neutral customer, who has had a mixture of negative and positive experiences with products and comes forward to purchase a product somewhat reluctantly, prepared for a negative experience. The fourth category is the tolerating customer. This customer does not enjoy a product or service but only buys it out of necessity, hence they rarely talk positively about the product. The last category is the critical customer, who has mostly had so many negative experiences with products or services that s/he tries to sabotage the business by spreading negative feedback about products and services. While all churchgoers purportedly are religious, there is a wide range of difference in the manner in which they express their religious beliefs and they may be divided into four primary categories. One category is the evangelistic church goer, who is so involved with religion that s/he insists on trying to convert everyone else. This person attends church with a fanatical devotion and works hard to persuade or push others into religion and church as well. The next category of church goer is the Sunday churchgoer, who turns up at church regularly on Sundays but does not venture anywhere near church the rest of the week. A third group is the big occasion churchgoer, or in other words, those who go to church only during Christmas or easter. Another category is the sporadic churchgoer, who is irregular and attends church sporadically. The last category is the rare church goer who only attends church once in a blue moon. A first date could initially be divided into two main categories, i.e, the rookie and the experienced person on a first date. The rookie is generally a teenager who is experiencing the very first date of his or her life and in rare instances, it may also be an adult

How art embodies cultural identity (Aztec Vs.New nations of the US) Essay

How art embodies cultural identity (Aztec Vs.New nations of the US) - Essay Example nited States, which is predominantly Christianity, at times forbids artistic expression of the religion (Hollingsworth, 2004, p341) and at others is often limited to Renaissance-style depictions of Bible stories with a heavy focus on the central character, Jesus Christ. Most art in the United States is of no obvious religious character. One of the most famous examples of Aztec sculpture is known as the calendar stone, which depicts the sun god surrounded by bands that depict various days and eras. This stone shows the seamless integration between art, religion and daily life, because it is at once a piece of art, a depiction of a deity and a useful object. The carving of the central sun god is created in typical Aztec style, having a close relationship with that found in the Phonecian culture and representing the intricate relationship between man and nature (Miller, 1986, p205). There are many more examples of Aztec sculpture which feature depictions of a sun god, and countless stone carvings depicting aspects of the religion. Conversely, it is fairly difficult to find one such shining example of religious sculpture which has originated in the new nation of the US. Religious sculpture in the United States is often commisioned for use outside religious buildings. One such example is known as the King of Kings, a 62 foot tall statue of Jesus that adorns the entrance of a megachurch in Ohio. The artistic value of this sculpture has been debated (Williamson, 2004, p89) although the Aztec calendar stone was also probably of questionable artistic value to those who used it as a ceremonial basin (Morà ¡n & History, 2007, p157). However, whether the King of Kings is considered art or not, the main value this had (until it was hit by lightening in 2010) was to adorn the baptismal pool and depict the central character of Christianity. It had no additional usage, highlighting the distance between religion, art and everyday life in the new nation of the United

Strategic Marketing Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Strategic Marketing - Case Study Example A brand is also considered to be a trademark or a product line. It is a distinctive name, which addresses, or identifies, a product, service, or a manufacturer. People purchase a certain brand in order to acquire a distinctive category and to show ownership of the brand that they favour. Companies must develop a marketing strategy. This process consists of coming up with a foundation (a basis) in which to work from. By creating a marketing strategy, companies can create an identity. This identity will be the trademark that used repeatedly in all communications in order for the company logo and message to be known by others. A company's brand, or otherwise known as a trademark or logo/motto, helps to differentiate the company from others and to provide uniqueness. It is suggest that there are four marketing constituents that must be considered and understood when creating a marketing strategy. The marketing components offer the foundation and basis for the brand strategy. The four components are as follow (Developing Your Brand Strategy, To begin developing a marketing strategy, a company must first define its brand. Defining a brand creates a framework or foundation for every other factor to build on. Adidas' marketing strategy was to focus on the rapidly growing sector of sports and retail. The company does not market sports but markets through sports. Although the two are quite similar and connected by the use of sponsors, marketing through sports involves employing communications in the communication process. An example is to market through an even such as the World Cup. This works tremendously as organisers of the event usually allow only one sports company to represent them (i.e., the official sponsor of the World Cup). Other companies are doing the same thing by incorporating Adidas into their marketing strategy. Even companies that typically do not have anything to do with sports are incorporating Adidas in delivering their brand. An example of this is when Mastercard, which has nothing to do with sports and athletics, uses Adidas in their commercials and other avenues of marketing because it recognises the powerful effects that television and football has on the public. (Hare, 1999.) Adidas also delivers the message that a sport product can also be an everyday consumer product. Sportswear is as fashionable as it is function-able. Branding is extremely important for Adidas as they market to the retail sectors. Polo shirts, track suits (or warm-up suits), and trainers are amongst the products that are popular with households. Knowing the target market is very crucial in determining the brand and all the steps that are required in doing so. A company's target market comprises of the people, which the company wishes to gain the attention and business of. Adidas defines their target market by characteristics such as psychographic, demographic, and geographic. With each target market, the marketing strategies change a

Social network and project management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Social network and project management - Essay Example Working on team projects of this type is a new experience for most of the students and the maturity of their thinking skills has advanced in important ways. Social Networking Systems (SNS), such as Facebook, are wildly popular in today’s world. This popularity and the availability of many interaction features in SNS suggest that they could offer new and powerful possibilities for technology-enhanced education. The study done specifically examined the potential for a social media platform called Ning, in providing helpful mechanisms for student teams to employ for communicating, collaborating and cooperating while undergoing major itinerary project and it all came out positive and so beneficial. The members involved in this kind of project teams can vary widely in terms of dimensions such as age, gender and cultural background even though highly diverse teams face special problems such as leadership structure, mutual respect, motivation and open discussion in conducting their project management activities. Social media brings knowledge democratization, and falling application costs bring a proliferation of application and content. This results in fragmentation that drives corporations and not-for profits seek out leadership to make use of their intangible assets and reuse their knowledge and expertise to evolve and remain competitive. The following are some of the discovered roles knowledge professionals are most likely to play in this rapidly evolving environment: Managing initiatives focusing on content and collaboration, supporting innovation and change, Identifying new methods to streamline processes and procedures throughout the organization. New academic programmers incorporating social media while focusing on project management and leadership, specifically as they relate to enterprise-wide information and knowledge, are

Understand the scope of marketing communications Assignment

Understand the scope of marketing communications - Assignment Example Effective communication plays a vital role in advertising and promotion because it provides ways to convey message to the target audience. Communication is a process between two or more parties, one provides information and other receives information. The aim of marketing communication is to provide relevant information to the buyers and influence their buying behaviour. In advertising and promotional campaigns marketing communication process works dynamically and by using effective advertising and promotional strategies organisations strengthen their businesses and products. Communication is considered as lifeblood of the organisation, which means without communication no organisation can survive. The communication process that is used by business organisations to market their products and services is known as marketing communication, organisations adopt effective communication strategies to endorse a product, service or organisation whit the objective to increase sale. In advertising and promotion organisations communicate message to relevant audience through various channels such as television, internet, radio, print (publications), and word of mouth. In today’s world marketing communication has significant impact on people’s life because it influences day to day life of people in different manner. The media of marketing communication use different ways to interact with people and influence their life through effective communication. The success of marketing communication depends on its ability to influence people buying behaviour through promotion and advertising. Organisations use marketing communication techniques to compete with competitors and reached to potential customers to sell their products and services (Madhavaram, Badrinarayanan, & McDonald, 2005). American Marketing Association define marketing as an organisational function, consists on different activities for creating, communicating, and delivering value to

The Formation Of Gender Identity Essay Example for Free

The Formation Of Gender Identity Essay The debate over the factors affecting the formation of gender identity has more than a 100-year history, whereas the professional evidence-based level of the debate has been represented since the 1950s. In the Western sociology and psychology, gender identification is composed of a number of aspects, including perception of one’s gender roles, social identity and self-perception in general. The present paper is designed to address the role of biological, social and psychological factors in gender identity-shaping. In fact (Ellison, 2000), human behavior greatly depends upon hormonal secretion, as it is widely known that adrenaline is released when the brain receives a message about certain environmental threats and results in anxious and uneasy behavior, whereas   endorphins are released during exercise and result in a positive inspiration and sociability. Female sex hormones derive from ovaries and include progesterone and estrogens (mainly 17-beta-estradioll), whereas the major male hormone, testosterone, is produced by the testes. These chemicals are responsible for the formation of secondary sex characteristics and determine behaviors, attributed to the specific gender role. Masculinity in terms of gender identity is normally associated with assertiveness, self-control and aggression, provided by testosterone (Ellison, 2000), whereas femininity is conceptualized as compliance to dependence, interest in care about others and comfort creation. Byne and Parsons (1993), the followers of the classic model, indicate in their theoretical research of biological and neurobiological conditioning of   gender identification that a person’s gender is determined during conception, but the fetus begins to develop sex organs only at the 6th week of pregnancy.   Therefore, the developing testes or ovaries might begin hormonal secretion â€Å"off schedule†, which affects the development of the neural network of the brain and results in the person’s inability to accept their biological sex and the sense of gender dysphoria. Dittmann (1990) states that girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, the disease that refers to the overproduction of androgens, are more committed to the masculine roles like violent games, inclination to leadership in peer groups, willingness to increase physical strength, and are more likely to fell to certain degree uncomfortable in their female body, as the scholar notes that a number of teenage girls are unwilling to accept their physical development and differentiation. Similarly, boys with the Turner syndrome that refers to the excessive release of female hormones tend to de-valuate their biological sex (Tiefer, 1992). It needs to be noted that the evolution of sexuality in childhood is associated mostly with sex role games and self-observation:   â€Å"Children this age are very curious about bodies – their own and other peoples. They are trying on roles and behaviors† (Haffner and Needleman, 2001, p.41). At this stage, children experience a gradual transition from unconsciousness to awareness of their sexuality, so Dittmann holds that parents, aware of the child’s hormonal disease, can diplomatically interfere then and assist children in developing a superstructure of gender roles over their biological sex. One of the most interesting approaches to gender identity is biological psychology. On the one hand, Sharpe (2003) writes that the brain structures, which refer to communication (listening and speech) and emotions or empathy are notably better developed in females , whereas the male brain is hard-wired for system construction and perception/analysis of visual information. However, Haffner and Needleman (2001) write that infancy is characterized by the active synaptogenesis, or the strengthening of neural connections, to great extent dependent upon the environment. As the researchers write, â€Å"the development is on the one hand genetically determined, but the formation and pruning of synapses are controlled by the environment† (Haffner and Needleman, 2001, p.46). As a result, parental taboos upon sex role games and the lack of gender-sensitive childrearing (neutral treatment of infants and pre-school boys and girls as sexless) that stabilize the synaptic connections between neurons in the specific brain structures (e.g. the growth of hippocampus in boys playing spatial memory games) might   bring in the future a misperception of one’s biological sex up to the manifestation of androgyny   in the later adolescence (sporadic display of male and female behavioral patterns). Furthermore, it is important to take into consideration the cognitive and moral development of 3-5-year-old children as discussed by Paiget (Haffner and Needleman, 2001) who alleges that this period is characterized by the first sparkles of self-awareness and the reflex-based belief in the relationship between â€Å"naughtiness† and punishment. Hence it is quite easy to cause an imbalance in the child’s sex and gender awareness through imposing excessively stringent moral restrictions upon the child’s behavior. The dominant social psychological approach to gender role taking is Bem’s comprehensive gender schema theory that stresses the meaning of environmental factors. In 1971, I created the Bem Sex Role Inventory to measure how well the person fits into their traditional gender role by characterizing their personality as masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated† (Bem, 1981, p. 355). The scholar believes that under the ever-lasting influence of the environment and broader cultural context the person carefully sorts all behaviors into the categories of masculinity and femininity and then employs them with relation to the cultural and social context. However, a substantial gender identity collapse might occur when professional values and desire for equality in career opportunities begin to interfere with gender beliefs; for instance, female leaders and executives recognize they are â€Å"tomboyish† and excessively committed to the masculine behaviors in non-wo rkplace settings (Bem, 1981, p. 356). To sum up, gender identity is rather a social construct than a set of biological, namely hormonal determinants. As a result, increasingly more specialists in neuroscience consent to the fact that the degree of consistency between biological sex and upbringing determine the formation of gender identity in the future (Dittmann, 1990; Haffner and Needleman, 2001) . For instance, the paper has incorporated the article showing the effect of parental guidance and the degree of progress in the cognitive and moral areas on the stability of synaptic connections in young children. Similarly, hormonal secretion is not pre-planned before the birth, but might occur under the specific social and psychological conditions (e.g. girls with anorexia nervosa are rather androgynous in demeanor than feminine and suffer from the deficiency of estrogens). Thus, the environmental factors might reinforce the inborn somatic substrates referring to the aspects of gender identity or result in their alteration, increasing or decreasing the person’s responsiveness to the neural impulses, which drive sex-related behaviors. Reference list Bem, S. (1981). Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing. Psychological Review, 88, 354-364. Byne, W. and Parsons, B. (1993). Human Sexual Orientation: the Biologic Theories Reappraised.   Archives of General Psychiatry, 50 (3), 228-239. Dittmann, B. (1990). Congenital adrenal hyperplasia. I: Gender-related behavior and attitudes in female patients and sisters. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 15, 401-420. Ellison, C. (2000). Human Sexual Response. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger. Haffner, D. and   Needleman, R. (2001).   Childhood sex play and synaptogenesis. The Family Journal, 11: 39-50. Sharpe, R. (2003). Adult Sexuality. The Family Journal, 11: 420-426. Tiefer, L. (1992). Historical, scientific, clinical and feminist criticisms of â€Å"the Human Sexual Response Cycle† mode. Annual Review of Sex Research, 2: 1-23.

Jonathan Franzen - the Discomfort Zone Essay Example for Free

Jonathan Franzen the Discomfort Zone Essay A personal History analysts of one mans identity by V Jonathan Franzens The Discomfort Zone is essentially a collection of Franzens essays published in The New Yorker that deal with problems, life time experiences, both social and emotional aspect of the authors life. This essay will focus mainly on Franzens effectual attempt to create a self portrait and at the same time make it legible and comprehensive in a way that anyone could cope with the problems and experiences he had during his maturation. The book contains six essays : House for Sale, Two Ponies, Then Joy Breaks Through, Centrally Located, The Foreing Language and My Bird Problem which are written in an autobiographical, chronological way that enables the reader to follow his life from childhood, adolescence to his maturation. In the firts section of the book, entitled House for Sale, Jonathan returns to his family home in St. Louis after his mothers death, in attempt to sell the house wher he spent most of his life. Here is where Franzen shows his witty and humorous mind, regardless of how serious and grevious the situtaion is : I went through the house and stripped the family photos out of every room. Id been looking forward to do this almost as much as to my drink. My mother had been too attached to the formality of her living room and dining room to clutter them with snaphots, but elsewhere each wndowsill and each table-top was an eddy in which inexpensively framed photos had accumulated. (4) He compares his mothers house to a novel which she continuously reorganized and rearranged throughout the years. When talking about his mothers lifetime struggle to keep everything inside and outside the house in order, he feels the melancholy nd dissatisfaction with the way things ended. On one hand he wanted the house to be sold and even disliked it , but on the other, as he says : ? Id outgrown the novel Id once been so happy to live in, and how little I even cared about the final sale price. (25) Franzen also managed to fit some of his political an social ideas and opinions in this section. He talks about the social situation in America during his childhood which was shaped by the idea that the middle working class would always feel the debt to its society. He revises both liberal and conservative political concept of the time eing and puts himself in the ?middle: heavy, skinlike, pulp smelling masses that reglued themselves to my fathers work boots, there was nothing but my family and house and church and school and work. (15) In Two Ponies we follow the life of Jonathan as a 10 year old boy and his reflections on both family life and current social situations around him. The opening part of this section actually provides a hint about the relationships inside the Franzen family. He was growing up alongside his two brothers, Tom and Bob, whom he appreciated and respected infinitely. According to Jonathan, Tom is a true representative of the social epidemic of that era, a rebellious adolescent who ran away from home in a search for his own identity: ? Late adolescents in suburbs like ours had suddenly gone berserk, running away to other cities to have sex and not ot go to college, ingesting every substance they could get.. For a while, the parents were so frightened and so ashamed that each family, especilly mine, quarantined itself and suffered by itself Toms bed, neatly made, was the bed of a kid carried off by the epidemic. (32) In spite of being a child, Jonathan is able to provide comfort to his mother in times she felt sadness and shame because of Toms leaving. He is therefore unconciously building up his emotional strength and at the same time bonding with his mother like never before. The insatiable obsession with Charles M. Schulzs ?Peanut Treasury is peculiar at times. As he lives a life of an extremely excellent student, he almost always and at all occasions compares his neighborhood, school, friends, family with the ?Peanuts. In his fantasy and in his dreams he became a part of that comic strip. In The Washington Post review Birds on the Brain A novelist exposes his life as a nerd, Bob Ivry wrote : ?ln that unsettled season, Franzen sought solace in a private, intense relationship with Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang. The grownup Franzen can see why his pre-teen mint-me would identify so obsessively, and the reason is no less heartbreaking for its ordinariness: Nobody grows up, or apart, in a comic strip. Charlie Brown represents an on going inspiration for Franzen. The world as he knew it was shaped by the ideas from the very character. Many of his school activities esemble a lot to the stories in ?Peanut Treasury, such as the spelling bee, where he actually found out he was very much competitive and enjoyed exposing his great knowledge and his ?geek spirit to others. Our brains are like cartoonists and cartoons are like our brains, simplifying and exaggerating, subordinating facial detail to abstract comic concepts. (40) Jonathan loves comic books and cartoons just as much as any other child his age, but unlike others, in search of another, better reality, he ?sticks around a lot more than others, weirdly up till end of his adolescent years. It is in this section that Franzen mentiones the ?C omfort Zone , the thermostat mother and him. Then Joy Breaks Through is one of the interesting parts of the book where Jonathan is in his adolescent years and is resisting the common teenage temptations. Jonathan joins a group of young people called ?Fellowship which was sponsored by the First Congregational Church. During a weekend retreat with the ?Fellowship the children are engaged in different activities typicall for such camping trips, but are also allured by various temptations (drugs, alcohol,sex etc) which are obviously forbidden. However, all Jonathan concernes about is how to avoid ?Social Death and not having to face the embarasement in case someone found his mothers letter where she addressed him as ?Dearest Jonathan.

Business Report: SimVenture

Business Report: SimVenture This report is based on the engagement with SimVenture a business simulation which allows us as a team to setup and run our virtual company and learn about business and being an entrepreneur. This report evaluates team performance and decision making within the perspective of results achieved in the simulation at the end of three virtual years. This report also reflects the use of relevant entrepreneurial theories into practise while making decisions in the business and clearly stating the financial achievements at the end of it. The report takes you through the initial six months of the business in details where the crucial strategies were developed; thereafter the illustration is only on a half yearly basis. A question with many answers is that what drives people to turn into entrepreneurs to begin companies? Frequently we as individuals are not completely sure ourselves, and the answers to the questions are apt to change over time as our perception keeps changing. The reasons can be divided into two broad categories. First, the reactive reasons being things those are objectionable about working for others. They are the negatives that push us out. And secondly, the active reasons being things that are attractive about having our own business. They are positives that pull us out. Starting a new company is an immense challenge and to those with entrepreneurial impulse, it is very appealing (Kurtako et al, 2001). The attributes that a successful entrepreneur should possess while the start-up of a business is a competitive mind-set, one in which flexibility, speed, innovation, and strategic leadership are valued highly. With this mind set, firms can identify and completely exploit opportunit ies that emerge in a new competitive landscape. These opportunities surface primarily because of the disequilibrium that is created by continuous change. More specifically, although uncertainty and disequilibrium often result in seemingly hostile and intensely rivalrous conditions, these conditions may simultaneously yield significant product driven growth opportunities. Through effective entrepreneurial leadership, growth firms can adapt their behaviours and exploit such opportunities (Kurtako et al, 2001). It is interesting to see the differences between mind-set of an Entrepreneur, Manager and a Bureaucrat from the self explanatory Fig 1. Scenarios and assumptions at the beginning of the game Prior to the beginning of our business, we assumed to have a finance of  £10,000 for start up. The business was supposed to commence with a one man show by our virtual entrepreneur, who had already been working for 40 hours a week in another business. But as a team we had decided each individual to take the decision making responsibility of a particular department, with me being the one in charge of marketing. We initially decided to get our entrepreneur working part time for this new venture at a monthly salary of 500 £. He had been selling computers to friends and families for the past few years and always had a knack towards technology and assembling computers. Having only one sales order in hand for the first month, our entrepreneur intended to begin his business from home so as to maintain his costs as low as possible. At this stage the aspects which are of utmost concern are that he has limited knowledge in sales, marketing and about his local competitors. Our new business was inspired by the venture development stages, namely: New Venture Development, Start-Up Activities, Growth, Business Stabilization, and Innovation (Kurtako et al, 2001). Of these five stages the first stage consisted of activities associated to initial formulation of the venture, which has been mentioned above. The stages into which our business activities over the 3 years of simulation could be split into are Start-Up Activities and Growth. Start-Up Activities Stage The Start-Up Activity encompasses the foundation work needed in searching for capital, carrying marketing activities, taking up competitor analysis and developing effective entrepreneurial skills. This stage is typified by strategic and operational planning steps designed to identify the firms competitive advantage and uncover funding sources. With the availability of limited skills and working hours, in the first month we decided to outsource our firms competitor analysis and market research activities to specialized external agencies, the primary intention behind outsourcing being to get expert and skilled services efficiently. A legal advisor had been hired to specify the terms of a customer contract, not only keeping in mind the benefits of detailing the scope of work and means and methods of payment, but also with a future view to gain trust from prospective clients (a contract can also be seen as a marketing tool) and establishing a strong relationship with them while negotiati ng the terms of the contract. Other major customer awareness activities of the first month were to publish a press release for the launch of the company; joining a business networking group; and creating a standard website, designed and supported in-house to balance time and expenses of our working entrepreneur. Apart from these we had planned to take up a book based writing skills training course for our virtual entrepreneur, to provide him with the expertise of business communications which most small business owners lack in. And we planned to invest on a distributor research, because it is difficult and very expensive to reach a market with many customers with a directly employed sales force. Moreover distributors by and large aim to win business on sales rather than technical services. And our core competence being technical expertise we decided to use distributors to enhance our sales, although they bought products from us at a lower rate. After evaluating the suppliers on the criteria of their prices and flexibility to pay on account, we decided to choose ProSupply as our supplier because of its 60 days credit offering, at an additional expense of 0.5 £ per component. Apart from the legal liabilities of a limited company to maintain accurate information on its financial transaction which includes sales, purchases, income and payments by an organization, book keeping assists any entrepreneur to maintain the business on top of its competition by easily watching how the business is performing. Thus having a small scale start up business we decided to keep this particular activity in house. The second month of our business started on a positive note as we received two grants disbursed by the government,  £500 each: one was for training and the other was for research activities to be conducted. Although we had invested time on the application process for this funding, as a new company with limited finances this allowance was much needed to us. We also happened to receive our customer research report, following which we decided to choose our target customers to be Corporation. This decision was completely based on a few factors from our customer research report: market size, order size, order frequency and typical price. These four factors provided us inputs to calculate the average orders generated per year and the probable sales for each segment. Analysing our market research report (Fig 3) closely we noticed that there were much similarities in the product preferences sections of Corporations and ICT Businesses and both customers catered to a similar typical price ra nge of  £630-680. This made us decide to build a product with preferences that would suffice both the customer segments providing each one of them differentiation on certain product attributes. Referring to Porters generic strategies framework, we were serving a narrow market which demanded product uniqueness, thus we decided to use a differentiation focus strategy to increase our market share rapidly. Also a firm using a differentiation focus strategy enjoys a high level of customer loyalty which discourages other firms to compete directly. Analysing the competition and market report together, we designed our product offering to cater for both the target segments with the following attributes: extreme features, good quality, extreme performance, good style. Thus the product was differentiated for the Corporations with extreme performance, where they had demanded only for a good performance, and for the ICT Businesses with good quality and good style, where they had demanded for above average quality and above average style only. The unit cost of the product was  £452.62 and it was priced to the customers at  £679 initially, which was pretty high as compared to what our competitors were offering. I individually thought for market penetration a lower price was required. The marketing activities for this month were placing an advert in a local newspaper and joining a business community network where we could make our target customers aware of our unique selling points. Apart from this we spent our entrepreneurs remaining time in negotiating contracts with our distributors, namely: Norman, Harton Brothers, Rad, and Aztak, and manufacturing three product units in-house anticipating the future demand. We negotiated with our distributors in terms of size of orders per month, price of each unit of product and the methods of payments. The rationale behind choosing three of them as our distributors was because Normans had the maximum share in ICT Businesses followed by Solo Businesses and Corporations, Harton Brothers had 20% share in ICT Businesses and Rad captured 30%market share for ICT and Solo Businesses. Although Aztak held very little market share with ICT Businesses or Corporations but we still went with them, which I personally feel might not have been an appropriate move. Since at the end of the previous month, the number of enquiries were too low to sustain our business, thus the third month was very crucial for us where we had to take our strategic moves very carefully. Therefore we intended to hire a consultant to carry on a customer research, which we thought would help us find the reason behind the low number of enquiries. Along with a lucky break which resulted in good publicity for our company in the local media, this month we planned to go for a direct marketing campaign with 3000 basic leads bought as a database and promotional materials being designed in house. In the remaining time we planned manufacturing 9 products for future sales. On the fourth month of our business, we received the customer research results which provided us with the statistics of what our customers thought about our product and how did they hear about us. We used this information to fine tune our product design, work out the best marketing approach and get the price right with respect to our competitors. We understood that previously we had set up a very high price for our product to maximise short term profits, which was the reason for us to receive lower number of enquiries which hardly turned into orders. As quoted by Dolgui and Proth (2010), High price is accepted if it agrees with the value of the product perceived by the customers, otherwise such a strategy leads to commercial failure. While a low price can lead to a commercial success depending on the number of clients attracted by the product, but a low margin should be compensated by a higher number of items sold. Moreover with a high or a low price strategy the image of the items s old by the company is somewhat frozen and a long term price expectation is established, which can reduce the flexibility of the decision-making system. Thus justifying the aforesaid analysis we had to set the unit price of our product neither too high nor too low, at  £660, while we were operating in a range where customers were ready to pay from  £630- £680. On the marketing front we managed to attend the monthly business club meeting and exhibit ourselves at the Business2Business matters along with a direct marketing campaign to 3000 leads. Since by now our entrepreneur was overdoing his hours every month which was gradually making him tired, thus we decided to increase his part time working hours to 51 hrs a week and increasing his salary by  £100 to keep him happy. This was the fifth month of our business where we already had sales of 4 products from our last month and another new order for 4 products to be sold this month. The business was gradually taking its pace, but there were financial hurdles in front of us. Due to lack of cash in our account we were unable to pay our suppliers on time. The options we had to borrow money were either through bank loans or friends and family or overdraft or by selling equity. We thought the most viable option we had was to take a loan of  £50,000 for three years at an interest rate of 13% from the bank. Our monthly instalment to the bank summed up to  £1684.70 for three years which was lesser than our monthly estimated profit after selling units to distributors (refer Appendix 1). I individually thought we should have taken our first loan from friends and family instead of a bank because the interest rate was only 5.25%. Eventually in the next month we could have taken a bank loan. There was a business exhibition which was supposed to be held in the month of February, the next year. Having considered the fact that such events would provide us a platform to bring our product in front of the targeted customers and make them aware of it, we booked a place for our entrepreneur in this event, bearing in mind that Corporations were our primary target segment. Apart from this we also booked two more exhibitions for our entrepreneur to attend during the next month. One was an exhibition at New Ventures and the other was at Sparks. We heavily started relying on exhibitions primarily as a mean of marketing and advertisement for our business. We had a very clear marketing plan as a start-up company, which was the process of determining a comprehensive approach to the creation of customers. For developing this plan, the following elements were critical to us: Marketing research: determining who the customers were, what they want and how they buy. Sales research: promoting and distributing products according to market research finding. Sales forecasting: coordinating personal judgement with reliable personal information. Marketing plan: formulating plan for achieving long term marketing and sales goal. Evaluation: identifying and assessing deviations from marketing plans. (Kuratko and Hodgetts, 2007) As a marketing mix (refer Fig 5) for our Product offering we were having a strategy of focus differentiation to targeting only two business client segments. Our Price was set neither too high nor too low and was rationalized by setting it to  £660. We Placed our product through distribution channels, direct and indirect selling and also had a retail shop in place from the sixth month. And for Promotion we used individual communication channels like word of mouth, networking, public relations and direct marketing, and mass communication channels like exhibition, website and advertising. The sixth month was a fortune turner for us when we received 9 orders for the next month. Anticipating this huge number of orders, we already had been manufacturing products from the previous few months, even though at times we didnt have a single order to deliver. Our application for bank loan had been approved and we were able to successfully raise  £50,000 to clear all our pending bills. Having the right communication and marketing skills because of our previous training in the relevant departments this month we decided to create a small advert in-house, for a trade magazine. Since our business was growing bigger, this was the time when we had to decide relocating to a retail unit from the next month which was 100 sq. ft and  £208 of rent per month. Also convenience is an issue for most shoppers, whether its business or individual shoppers, and so sales location can have a major bearing on sales performance. Since we were only operating in a B2B environment we developed the fo llowing business model (refer Fig 6) where our products were reached to our customers either buy the distributors (which gave us less profit but large number of sales) or through our retail shop (which gave us higher profit but lesser number of sales). Because of the sudden rise in sales, hereafter we had to follow a model where most of our manufacturing had to be outsources and the remaining was to be built in-house. This month onwards we transited from the Start-Up Activities stage to the Growth Stage of our business. Growth Stage The Growth stage often requires major changes in entrepreneurial strategies, which is reformulated because of competition and other marketing forces (Kurtako et al, 2001). Thus now onwards our primary focus became the management of various departments involved in our business including the various stakeholders: direct customers, distributors, suppliers etc. The planning of operations was a major part of our start up venture. From the self explanatory Fig 7, we had adopted the bottom-up and the market requirements perspectives to design our operational strategy. The bottom-up view of operations strategy was to see strategic decision making as an accumulation of practical experiences. After all, our business would find it difficult to invent strategies in a total vacuum. Our ideas were formed from our previous months experience of dealing with customers, suppliers and their own processes. These were strategic ideas which emerged over time as our organisation begun to understand the realities of the situation. The market requirements perspective begun from the commonsense notion that our operations strategy should reflect what our business was trying to do in its markets. Our competitors competed in different ways; some competed primarily on cost, others on the excellence of their products or services, others on high levels of customer ser vice, others on customising their products and services to individual customer needs, and so on. Our operations function therefore had to respond to this by providing the capabilities which allowed us perform in an appropriate manner to satisfy the requirements of our market (Slack et al, 2007). After the initial breakthrough in the sixth month of our business, the next six months were more or less running at a constant pace, with 7-9 orders every month on an average. We did have to improve our product design based on the Customer Research results and by comparing our offerings with that of our competitors. We attended a marketing exhibition and carried out marketing campaigns with other sales activities almost every month to keep our enquiries and order numbers high. Apart from that, instead of failing to cater to our increased order rate every month, we kept manufacturing products by primarily outsourcing the major bulk of it at ( £452.62+ £80)  £432.62 per unit and partially building it in-house. By the end of the first year our business had again dried up in cash, thus making us unable to pay suppliers on time. It was time to consider a funding option again to cater to our growing business needs. As overwork was making our entrepreneur tired, this affected the sche duled tasks being incomplete in few of the months during this span of six months. We had the option of recruiting an employee for our business which I individually thought as the wisest option, but as a group we thought it wouldnt have been affordable for our entrepreneur in terms of time and money to opt for a new employee at this stage of our business. Thus we increased his part-time working hours and paid him a larger salary, doing our best to keep him happy and motivated. Previously and in future we not only did motivate him with only extrinsic factors like money but also encouraged him with intrinsic motivational factors like relevant training in various departments, namely: Production, writing skills, design and development, basic finance, business management, IT, communications skills, marketing and sales which helped him build a entrepreneurial identity of his own (enhancing his business qualities as an entrepreneur). In the first six months of the second year our main focus was to look out for the most feasible source of finance to our business. With the various options available in simventure, a bank loan of  £30,000 was the most viable option, which got approved within a span of three months. There was a noticeable increase in number of orders, the average being around 11 orders monthly, but on a couple of occasions the count had spiked to 16 and 17 orders which resulted in generating cash inflow for our business in the later months. During this period we also realised that the insufficiency of cash in our account was due to the fact that some of our customers did not clear their bills on time. Thus we had to take on the Credit Control strategy to closely observe all our customers who owed us money. A process was implemented which adhered to three steps. The first step was to send our customers a written reminder to clear their dues. If this didnt work the second step was to give them a phone call in the same regards. And if the first two steps failed then the final step was to take a legal action against the defaulter by hiring a third party agency who charged us 20% of the recovered money. In this process we had to compromise on shedding off a part of our profits rather than agonising our suppliers by failing to pay them on time, which could have lead to termination of our contract with them. During the last six months of our second year we had an average of 13 orders which was more than before. There had also been a dip in orders to 9 in number during the month of November and December. During this period we also decided to hire a few resources (namely: Premium Equipments, Premium Furniture, Premium Tools, Premium Transport) for our retail space to cater to the smooth running of the business as we were constantly growing. The marketing, advertising and sales activities were more or less similar to the previous half of the year, with our entrepreneur planning to attend more number of exhibitions for ICT Businesses apart from Corporations. The first six months of the third year saw a little decrease in orders, with the average being 11 orders a month. Because of this our entrepreneur had more time than the previous six months, which he decided to invest in an aggressive marketing campaign to create a base for the last six months of the third year of our business. He had also suffered from illness for 5 days during this period. The last six months of our third year was the span in our business where we received the most number of orders, the highest being 19 in the month of August. Our business had an added advantage, i.e. the economy became stronger resulting in rising of customers confidence in us. With Net Assets of  £240,077.47, Fig 8 depicts the financial health of our business at the end of the third year. And Fig 9 highlights the sales vs. Profit for the 3 years showing that although there had been continuous increase in sales over the three years, but the profit maximization was only achieved in the 2nd year of our business. This is because of the fact that with the increase in cost of sales in the third year of our business we didnt increase the product price, which resulted in decrease of profit margins, when compared to the previous year. Conclusion Throughout the span of this report we have been focussing on the competitive and entrepreneurial mindset of a start-up business owner, by recognizing and exploiting the opportunities that came across. We have been discussing about the entrepreneurs engagement in key areas of strategy, marketing, operations, finance and HR which enhanced the performance of our organization. The critical evaluation of decisions taken over the three years span of our business has given us an understanding of how differently various obstacle could be tackled. We begun from the star-up activity stage of a business simulation and happened to reach the growth stage in our business, by developing and nurturing our abilities as an entrepreneur while taking vital decisions at various junctures across the span of three years of entrepreneurship. Appendix 1 Distributor Order size Price / unit Fixed cost / unit Overhead Cost* Profit / unit Cost of total sale Profit per month per distributor Normans 10  £599  £452.62  £90  £56.38  £5,426.20  £563.80 Harton Bros 15  £594  £452.62  £90  £51.38  £8,139.30  £770.70 Aztek 5  £604  £452.62  £90  £61.38  £2,713.10  £306.90 Rad 25  £589  £452.62  £90  £46.38  £13,565.50  £1,159.50 Total 55  £2,386  £1,810.48  £360  £215.52  £29,844.10  £2,800.90 *Note: Overhead cost is estimated by adding Manufacturing cost (i.e.  £80 for any order above 25 units) and miscellaneous cost ( i.e.  £10 kept as a margin) Table : Distributor Analysis Source: Adopted from SimVenture

Cigars :: essays research papers

Cigars There are signs everywhere that cigars are becoming popular again. For example, you can't pass a magazine stand without seeing two or three new magazines glorifying the subject, and restaurants all over the country are devoting entire nights to "smoke dinners." So why is the cigarette still considered offensive and is generally scorned by all? This seems strange since cigars and cigarettes have so many things in common: both are made of tobacco, both are rolled into tube-like shapes, and both are smoked. However, it must be the differences that make the cigar so much more popular. Cigars are made from better quality tobaccos, cigars are hand rolled, and cigars have a more pleasing aroma. Both cigars and cigarettes are constructed of tobacco, but the care used in raising fine cigar tobacco is second to none. Only the finest leaves of the plant are selected. The drying and fermenting process is long (nine months for filler leaves and up to two years for wrapper leaves) and closely watched. Cigarette tobacco is grown for quantity; not necessarily for quality. No regard is given to the aroma and smoke of the different types of tobacco. The only type of tobacco grown is fast-maturing strains they can get to the market quickly. Careful and attentive raising is non existent. The leaves are quickly dried and thrown into boxes for shipment to the rolling factory. Fine cigars are hand rolled, whereas all cigarettes are machine rolled. Including the type and quality of the leaf, rolling is the ultimate judge of whether a cigar is good or bad. Cigar companies go to great pains to be sure they hire only the best "Torcedores" (cigar rollers). If a cigar is underfilled it will burn hot and harsh; if it is overfilled it is "Plugged" and will not draw. To be sure that the cigars are of the best quality, one out of ten is inspected (that's two out of each box). On the other hand, cigarette tobacco is first jammed into cutting machines where the leaves are shredded. Second, they go into the rolling machines where the shreds are perfectly measured out, rolled, and wrapped in paper. The only humans who come in contact with the tobacco, at this point, are the monitors who sweep up the debris and add it back to the hopper. Since machines are doing the work, there is very little quality control. Only one out of a thousand is checked (that's one cigarette out of fifty packs). Cigar smoke is savored and appreciated, while cigarette smoke is considered nasty and smelly.

Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Issues - AIDS, Isn’t it Time We Demand Action? :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

AIDS – Isn’t it Time We Demand Action? There are 42 million people living with AIDS worldwide. 950,000 are in the United States. New cases exceed 5 million every year. More than 28 million people die from AIDS each year. Within 10 years there will be 40 million orphans in Africa due to AIDS, and more than one-third of heavily affected countries have no strategies to deal with them. AIDS is now the fourth leading cause of death globally, and the leading cause of death in Africa (â€Å"AIDS at 20†). The plague that’s killed 22 million isn’t done with us yet. While we hunt for a vaccine, people continue to die—from AIDS or the drugs intended to treat it (â€Å"AIDS at 20†). â€Å"AIDS is not only killing the sick, but also crushing the healthy. There are two kinds of people here, the infected and the affected† (Kristof, â€Å"As Millions Die†). Though there are various excuses regarding AIDS funding, political stances, and the debate of whether or not Africa is ready to receive treatment, the fact remains that AIDS cannot sit on the backburner anymore: action needs to be taken now. FUNDING First, the question of funding; the cost of drugs has been a major issue in the treatment of AIDS. The estimated spending on AIDS prevention, care, and support in low and middle income countries in 2003 is $4.7 billion, while the estimated dollars needed to address AIDS care, prevention and support in low and middle income countries is $6.5 billion in 2003 alone, with an additional $10.5 billion in 2005 and $15 billion in 2007 (Avert). In part because of those inadequate funds, many countries will not meet basic goals like rapidly expanding AIDS prevention and care expected to them by 2005. Perhaps if America wasn’t spending an extra 87 billion dollars on futile efforts in Iraq, they would have more money to spend on the dying. â€Å"If pockets had been opened earlier, millions of lives would have been saved† (â€Å"Slowly, the Virus is Being Fought†). POLITICS There are also many various political stances regarding AIDS; President Bush pledged $15 billion for AIDS in African countries and the Caribbean over the next five years. But instead of $3 billion for the first year, he backtracked to just $2 billion (Kristof, â€Å"Prudery†). And instead of using existing channels to help, Bush created a new bureaucracy.

Inhumanity in Night Essay

Elie Wiesel’s Night is about what the Holocaust did, not just to the Jews, but also by extension, to humanity. People all over the world were devastated by this atrocious act, and there are still people today who have not overcome the effects. One example of the heinous acts of the Germans that stands out occurs at the end of the war, when Wiesel and the rest of the camp of Buna are being forced to transfer to Gleiwitz. This transfer is a long, arduous, and tiring journey for all who are involved. The weather is painfully cold, and snow fell heavily; the distance was greater than most people today will even dream of walking. The huge mass of people is often forced to run, and if one collapses, is injured, or simply can no longer bear the pain, they are shot or trampled without pity. An image that secures itself in Wiesel’s memory is that of the Rabbi Eliahou’s son leaving the Rabbi for dead. The father and son are running together when the father begins to grow t ired. As the Rabbi falls farther and farther behind his son, his son runs on, pretending not to see what is happening to his father. This spectacle causes Wiesel to think of what he would do if his father ever became as weak as the Rabbi did. He decides that he would never leave his father, even if staying with him would be the cause of his death. The German forces are so adept at breaking the spirits of the Jews that we can see the effects throughout Wiesel’s novel. Wiesel’s faith in God, above all other things, is strong at the onset of the novel, but grows weaker as it goes on. We see this when Wiesel’s father politely asks the gypsy where the lavoratories are. Not only does the gypsy not grace his father with a response, but he also delivers a blow to his head that sent him to the floor. Wiesel watches the entire exhibition, but does not even blink. He realizes that nothing, not even his faith in God, can save him from the physical punishment that would await him if he tried to counterattack the gypsy. If the gypsy’s attack had come just one day earlier, Wiesel probably would have struck back. However, the spiritual beating by the Germans had already begun. The incident that perhaps has the greatest effect on Wiesel is the hanging of the pipel. He is a young boy with an â€Å"innocent face† who is condemned to death because he is involved in a conspiracy that results in the destruction of a German building. When the time for the hanging approaches, the Lagerkapo refuses to kick out the chair, so SS officers are  assigned to do it. Unlike the necks of those he is hanged with, the young boy’s neck does not break when he falls, and he suffers for over half an hour. The suffering of the child is comparable to the suffering endured by many Jews during the Holocaust. He fought for his life, at times even seeing a bit of hope, only to be destroyed in the end. The Jews struggled for everything they had, from their possessions at the beginning, to their lives at the end. The result, however, was the same. At the end of the war, Wiesel looks into the mirror, and says he saw a â€Å"corpse.† This â€Å"corpse† is Wiesel’s body, but it has been robbed of its soul. This is similar to the loss suffered by people all over the world. Those not directly killed during the Holocaust were still alive physically, but their mind and spirit had long been dead. By the end of the w ar, Wiesel loses all of his faith in God and his fellow man, and this is the most difficult obstacle to overcome when he is released.

The Crucible Character Analysis

In the play ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller, the author uses characters from the 17th century witch-hunts to show the corruption behind McCarthyism. The play was published in 1953, a time when McCarthyism was actively affecting and contributing to society. The book is filled with false accusations during 1692, in order to relate to the time period it was released. In the play, the character Abigail Williams is in love with John Proctor, a married man, who she had an affair with. Abigail tries to win John over by using witchcraft.When she is caught by her uncle, Reverend Parris she is afraid of being punished, so she blames their slave, Tituba. This accusation sparks a time of fear and accusation of witches in Salem. When the witch-hunt begins, Abigail realizes that she can use her lies to gain power in Salem. She thinks she can use this power to get rid of John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, and that when Elizabeth is gone John will love her. Abigail is driven by fear and envy, and her corrupt decisions lead to the downfall of Salem society.Abigail Williams is a seventeen-year-old orphan, who lives with her uncle, Rev. Parris. Abigail was fired from her job as a servant by Goody Proctor because she had an affair with John Proctor. She believes that her affair with John Proctor is true love and that the only thing standing between them is his wife. Abigail states in Act 1, â€Å"I have something better than hope, I think! † (Miller 22) because she believes that John has made a promise to her by breaking of chastity for her, that he loves her.Her envy of Elizabeth leads to her making very bad decisions. These decisions cause Abigail to be afraid of being convicted of witchcraft, so she accuses others, making them scapegoats for her wrong-doings. When Abigail and the other girls go dancing in the woods Abigail tries to drink a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife. When they are caught dancing she forces all the girls to lie about what ha ppened. She puts the blame on Tituba. They continue to make accusations against people in Salem.â€Å"I saw Goody Sibber with the Devil! †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ â€Å"I saw Alice Barrow with the Devil! †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ â€Å"I saw Goody Hawkins with the Devil! †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ (48) People are hanging because of the girls’ false claims. Abigail then tries to get Elizabeth hanged for witchcraft but Elizabeth is allowed to live because she is pregnant. By the end of the play, Abigail tries to flee with John but his refusal to leave with her finally makes her realize that he will never love her. After this, she only has fear left as a motivator.She flees with Mercy Lewis on a boat with all of Rev. Parris’ money. John is hanged because he refuses to give up his name. â€Å"The legend has it that Abigail turned up later as a prostitute. †(146) Although most of her actions caused pain for others, it did eventually lead to her own downfall. â€Å"Elizabeth Proctor married again, four years after Proctor’s death. †(126) It is ironic that the person Abigail set out to hurt the most was one of the few people who went on to live a better life.Since Abigail is motivated by envy and fear, her decision to fuel the witch-hunt creates tragedy by the end of the play. Everything she does causes John’s death as well as the hanging of countless others, the innocent people of Salem. This play really captures the effects of false accusations and theocracy when given power. The witch-hunts, like McCarthyism caused suffering for many without any proof or reason. Abigail proves an example of the consequences when power is given to things that cannot be proven, unsupported theories. The Crucible Character Analysis In the play ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller, the author uses characters from the 17th century witch-hunts to show the corruption behind McCarthyism. The play was published in 1953, a time when McCarthyism was actively affecting and contributing to society. The book is filled with false accusations during 1692, in order to relate to the time period it was released. In the play, the character Abigail Williams is in love with John Proctor, a married man, who she had an affair with. Abigail tries to win John over by using witchcraft.When she is caught by her uncle, Reverend Parris she is afraid of being punished, so she blames their slave, Tituba. This accusation sparks a time of fear and accusation of witches in Salem. When the witch-hunt begins, Abigail realizes that she can use her lies to gain power in Salem. She thinks she can use this power to get rid of John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, and that when Elizabeth is gone John will love her. Abigail is driven by fear and envy, and her corrupt decisions lead to the downfall of Salem society.Abigail Williams is a seventeen-year-old orphan, who lives with her uncle, Rev. Parris. Abigail was fired from her job as a servant by Goody Proctor because she had an affair with John Proctor. She believes that her affair with John Proctor is true love and that the only thing standing between them is his wife. Abigail states in Act 1, â€Å"I have something better than hope, I think! † (Miller 22) because she believes that John has made a promise to her by breaking of chastity for her, that he loves her.Her envy of Elizabeth leads to her making very bad decisions. These decisions cause Abigail to be afraid of being convicted of witchcraft, so she accuses others, making them scapegoats for her wrong-doings. When Abigail and the other girls go dancing in the woods Abigail tries to drink a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife. When they are caught dancing she forces all the girls to lie about what ha ppened. She puts the blame on Tituba. They continue to make accusations against people in Salem.â€Å"I saw Goody Sibber with the Devil! †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ â€Å"I saw Alice Barrow with the Devil! †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ â€Å"I saw Goody Hawkins with the Devil! †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ (48) People are hanging because of the girls’ false claims. Abigail then tries to get Elizabeth hanged for witchcraft but Elizabeth is allowed to live because she is pregnant. By the end of the play, Abigail tries to flee with John but his refusal to leave with her finally makes her realize that he will never love her. After this, she only has fear left as a motivator.She flees with Mercy Lewis on a boat with all of Rev. Parris’ money. John is hanged because he refuses to give up his name. â€Å"The legend has it that Abigail turned up later as a prostitute. †(146) Although most of her actions caused pain for others, it did eventually lead to her own downfall. â€Å"Elizabeth Proctor married again, four years after Proctor’s death. †(126) It is ironic that the person Abigail set out to hurt the most was one of the few people who went on to live a better life.Since Abigail is motivated by envy and fear, her decision to fuel the witch-hunt creates tragedy by the end of the play. Everything she does causes John’s death as well as the hanging of countless others, the innocent people of Salem. This play really captures the effects of false accusations and theocracy when given power. The witch-hunts, like McCarthyism caused suffering for many without any proof or reason. Abigail proves an example of the consequences when power is given to things that cannot be proven, unsupported theories.

Philosophical thinking Essay

There are many forms of philosophical thinking that humans tend to immerse themselves into. Sometimes, even the realm of self idolatry can be a subject of one’s happiness in pursuit of his own idea of what is satisfactory. In a more conventional identification of this act, vanity can become an obsession and may induce certain effects to one’s character. According to Wikipedia, vanity is a form of self gratification with regards to one’s belief about his or her attractiveness and abilities. Most of the time, people with this philosophy tend to excessively compliment themselves without entertaining any forms of negative perception from the people around them. In religious perspectives, vanity is a form of idolatry to oneself in which a person may become too overwhelmed with his characteristics that he tends to ignore any other beings superior than what he is supposed to be, bypassing the concept of god. In modern times, vanity can be easily spotted and may be identified to almost all societies in the world. One may identify a vain person by simply observing the way he acts with regards to how he projects himself to the public. For example, a person may always need to do make up retouching, consistently apply perfumes and even always engage in small acts of looking for runs and protruding fibers out of his clothes. In some cases, vanity can also be identified not only in physical perspectives but also in one’s philosophy. Vain people tend to always tell self proclaimed abilities about how they can handle situations which seem to be a problem for others. With such acts, some people may even interpret them as a form of arrogance. It would be a fulfilling experience if someone will tell you compliments about how you look and praise what you can do, but the aim to always look forward for this reactions from people can become an obsession and may lead to vanity. Works Cited Wikipedia. November 7 2007. Vanity. Wikipedia-The Free Encyclopedia. November 19, 2007 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Vanity.

Stoichiometry Questions and Answers

Concordant titer values would allow for precise results. Repeat the experiment with fresh/new equipment so identify whether there are any inherent faults in the equipment. D) Water, to ensure all of the Noah is sitting at the bottom of the conical flask. Water itself does not affect the number of moles of acetic acid in the flask, which is what reacts with the acetic acid in the vinegar. 4. A) Burette b) – rinsed with distilled water first to remove any impurities. Passed water through the tap as well. – then rinsed with solution to be transferred I. E. Acetic acid solution.Again, rinsed through the tap as well. – filled up the burette (with a funnel at the top) to the appropriate volume. Measured the volume at which the bottom of the meniscus was and recorded this as the initial value. C) Concordant titer values are 22. 30 and 22. 40 ml Average titer d) Mann_ + 0. 0750 M = 22. 35 ml UH+ fee+ Mrs.+ +UH 25. 0 ml = 0. 0250 L V = 22. 35 ml = 0. 02235 L Inman- = C. V = 0. 0750 x 0. 0250 = 0. 00188 mol Neff+,t-lemon- = 5/1 5 x nerving- = 5 x 0. 00188 mol = 0. 00938 mol 0. 00938/0. 02235 = 0. 419 M (3 SF) 5. NO + UH -+ NH (a) ann. M = 1. 0 / 28. 02 = 0. 036 mol (2 s. ) CUFF+ NH M = 1. 0 / 2. 016 = 0. 50 mol ann. : NH mixed = 1 : 14 = 0. 036 : 0. 50 Given reacting ann. : NH NO is the limiting reagent H2O is the excess reactant (b) Using ann. = 0. 036 mol ann. / ann.=2/1 ann. = 2/1 x ann. = 2 x 0. 036 = 0. 071 mol Therefore, ranch = 0. 071 x 17. 034 = 1. 2 gees. F. ) 6. 4 AAA + 302 (a) anal = m/ M = 20. 0 / 26. 98 = 0. 741 mol (3 s. F. ) 2 AWAY non = 20. 0 / 32. 00 = 0. 625 mol = 0. 741 : 0. 625 = 1. 2 : 1 = 3. 6 : 3 Given reacting anal : non =4:3 AAA is the limiting reagent 02 is the excess reactant (b) Using anal = 0. 741 mol Manama / anal = 2/4 Manama = 2/Exxon 0. X 0. 741 = 0. 371 mol Manama = n x M = 0. 071 x . 96 = 37. 8 g (3 s. F. ) 7. 2 AAA + CUSCUS = 8. 09 / 26. 98 = 0. 300 mol (3 s. F. ) incurs = c. V = 2. 00 x 0. 0750 = 0. 150 mol anal : incurs mixed = 0. 300 : 0. 150 Given reacting anal : incurs Cuscus is the limiting reagent AAA is the excess reactant = 0. 300-0. 100 3 cue Determine the number of moles of AAA reacted by using mole ratios I. E. anal anal = 2/xx incurs = 2/3 x 0. 150 = 0. 100 mol Therefore anal (excess) : incurs = 0. 200 mol (b) using incurs UNC / incurs = 3/3 UNC = incurs Mac = n x M = 0. 150X63. 55 = 9. 53 g (2 s. F. )

Business Plan Of Slice Bakery Management Essay

Business Plan Of Slice Bakery Management Essay Introduction Slice Bakery and Juices is a start up juice and bakery retail establishment located in down town Nairobi. Slice bakers expects to catch the interest of a regular loyal customer base with its wide variety of fresh juices and freshly baked cakes and bread. Slice Bakery and Juices plans to construct a strong market position in the city due to the partners’ industry experience in the area. The establishment aims to offer its services and products at a reasonably competitive price to meet the demand of the middle and high area residents and tourists. The Company Slice Bakery and Juices is incorporated in the city of Nairobi. It is equally owned and managed by its three partners. Mr. David Williams has extensive experience in marketing, sales and management and was the vice chairman of Eveready Batteries and Harper foods. Mr. Arnold Mwangi is experienced in finance and administration and was previously the chief financial officer with both Luigi’s Cafà © and Wi lly Pastries. Mrs. Felicia Wanjiku is a well respected pastry chef with vast knowledge and experience in the field, she formerly worked at Lagoon beach resort in the Kenyan coast as the head pastry chef. The organization intends to hire 2 full time pastry cooks and four part time baristas to serve customers and perform the day to day operations. Products and Services Slice Bakery and Juices offers a vast range of freshly made fruit and vegetable juice varieties that are brought into the city from various parts of the continent. The company caters to all of its customers by serving each of them a carefully made drink that is specifically tailored to the customers order. The bakery side of the company provides a wide array of freshly prepared bread and cake varieties at all times during business hours. Ten to twelve moderately sized batches of assorted bread and cakes are prepared during the day to assure the availability of freshly baked products at all times. The Market The Fresh ju ice industry in Nairobi has recently experienced very fast growth. The worm equatorial temperature in Nairobi stimulates the regular consumption of cool drinks. Slice Bakery and Juices wants to establish a large regular customer base and it will achieve this by concentrating its marketing and business on local residents, which will be the organizations target market. This will create a healthy, stable revenue base that will ensure the stability of Slice Bakery. In addition tourists are expected to comprise aproximately25% of the total revenue collected. Good visibility and competitive products and services are crucial in order to capture this segment of the market. Financial Considerations Slice Bakery and Juices is expected to raise $90,000 of its own capital and to borrow $110,000 guaranteed by the National Bank of Kenya s a ten year loan. The company anticipates sales of around $485,000 in the first year, $570,000 in the second year and $660,000 in the third year. The organizatio n should break even by the fourth month of business as it steadily increases its revenue. Profits for this period are anticipated to be approximately $12,000 in year one, $31,000 by year two and $48,000 by year three. Slice bakers does not expect cash flow problems

Language Development Methods for Secondary and Middle Schools Essay

Language Development Methods for Secondary and Middle Schools - Essay Example It presents a comparative study of about the effectiveness of the programs and services offered, key strategies implemented, significant organizational features, as well offers an insight into the challenges faced during the process. As a teacher / educator / student teacher, at the ____________ school, California; I had the opportunity to visit and observe the various programs and services offered by the school to an Elementary class and students of eight grade SDAIE class, which requires and implements both, special education as well as education in English as a second language. With most of the children identified as developmentally handicapped, and coming from non English speaking backgrounds, I was delighted to know that a majority of them responded well to the customary greetings â€Å"Good Morning, Teacher†. I observed that students of the Eight grade, displayed an impressive understanding of the language and had excellent expressive and receptive skills in the English language. Their oral and written abilities were more or less similar to those of their English speaking counterparts with the same form of disabilities. I remember a particular incident – of my interaction with one of the Span ish students called ------------------, who was a first generation American, who spoke fluent Spanish at home, lived in a predominantly Spanish speaking community of California, but interacted in manageable / fluent (choose as appropriate) English with his English babysitter / housemaid (choose as appropriate). ----xyz--------, age ----, another such student spoke fluent Spanish as his/her mother tongue, and learnt English at age 6, displayed adequate reading and writing skills in the secondary language. From these observations, I can safely conclude that the degree of proficiency and expertise in the second language i.e., English, was found to be similar to that of their primary language i.e., Spanish, especially when the secondary language was needed for day to

Discuss financial implications of medical errors related to healthcare Essay

Discuss financial implications of medical errors related to healthcare management - Essay Example Besides, over a million people die every year as a direct result of medical errors. In addition to this, another 57,000 die due to the lack of quality in the hospitals. Medical errors, besides being cause of distress to patients as well as their relatives and raising ethical issues also amount to heavy financial implications on the hospitals. The costs which related to the medical errors are very high. Statistics show that this cost is in excess of 37.6 billion every year. On the other hand, there are also huge expenditures, which are being incurred in the long run as a result of medical errors. Though in many cases medical errors do not lead to the death of people, many entail in handicaps that will harshly impede the person’s skill to work and to carry on productive and vigorous life. Thus, on many occasions the medical errors result in personal loss to the patients taking treatment in hospitals. From the point of view of hospital management, such errors entail on compensation claims and they will have to spend huge sums on litigations. Medical errors can occur due to a variety of reasons. Sometimes these happen due to â€Å"communication problems as misspelled words or illegible handwriting, whereas surgical errors are often related to unclear or misinterpreted diagnostic images† (Medical Errors: Introdu ction and Definitions, 2011, para. 8). The study of healthcare financial management is both rewarding and necessary because the medical errors have implications for both personal and professional behavior. In the healthcare environment today, financial implications play a significant role in delivering treatment to the patients. When medical errors occur, it becomes the responsibility of the hospital to meet the treatment expenditures of the victim as well as they are further obliged to pay compensation and litigation expenses to claimants. The financial implications of medical errors, however, are focused on the overall difficulty for the

Statutory Interpretation - The Process of a Bill to an Act of Essay

Statutory Interpretation - The Process of a Bill to an Act of Parliament - Essay Example The defendant was, on May 11, 1963, actually within the boundaries of the station, and when within the boundaries of the station, obstructed a member of Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force who was engaged, at the material time, on security duty at and in relation to the station. It was contended by the defendant that because the charge referred to obstruction at Marham in the vicinity of a prohibited place, namely, Marham Royal Air Force station, and the evidence for the prosecution dealt with obstruction which took place when he was actually in the prohibited place, there was no evidence to support the charge. It was contended by the prosecutor that the defendant, being actually within the boundaries of the station at the material time, was in the vicinity of a prohibited place within the meaning of the Act. ... They gave the defendant three months in which to pay the fine and in default of payment sentenced him to two months’ imprisonment†. BBC News, 1998. Reform of assault law, [online] Available at: [Accessed on 22 October 2011]: â€Å"Deliberately infecting someone with a disease is not a specific offence at the moment, although it may be possible to charge an offender under section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861. This section says that anyone who causes grievous bodily harm with intent to do so is guilty of an offence punishable with life imprisonment. Nearly 10 years ago, the government's law reform advisers put forward proposals for updating the 1861 Act. The government is now planning to go ahead with most of those reforms†. Caledonian Railway Co. v. North British Railway Co. (1881), 6 App.Cas. 114. – See in: http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924017175864/cu31924017175864_djvu.txt . Citation on page 114, in Cownie, Bradney, and Burton 2007) . Paragraph 3 (from above). Cownie, F., Bradney, A., and Burton, M., 2007. English legal system in context. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. - http://books.google.com/books?id=gs-HvA2DO60C&pg=PA335&dq=Cownie,+F.,+Bradney,+A.,+and+Burton,+M.,+2007.+English+legal+system+in+context.+4th+ed.&hl=ru&ei=ake8TtTJLbDS4QTp56iSBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false . Here the discussion on p.117 of the book is summarized, without any direct appropriation. Gifford, D.J., and Salter, J.R., 1996. How to understand an act of Parliament. London: Cavendish Publishing. -

International Finance Coursework Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

International Finance Coursework - Essay Example A firm therefore needs to keep the exchange rate risk at bay. Most firms do so by determining the specific type of exposure to risk, the hedging approach and they also find available instruments to deal with these currency risks. The international transactions the British Venture Capitalist is involved in, exposes them to exchange rate risk. They therefore have to plan in advance and take measures that will protect them against these risks to avoid incurring great losses. There are different types of risks or currency exposures the British Capitalist faces: Transaction risk or simply known as the cash ?ow risk deals with the effect of exchange rate changes position on transactional account exposure linked to receivable, or repatriation of dividends and payables. Any change in the currency exchange rate results in a transaction risk. Translation risk also known as balance sheet exchange rate risk shows the relationship of exchange rate change position to the valuation of a foreign sub ordinate firm and, in turn, to the consolidation of a foreign subordinate firm to the mother corporation’s balance sheet. ... There is a difference however in translation when it comes to the income statements. In the income statement translations are done at the usual exchange rate during the time period. In the case of balance sheets, translations are done at the predominant present exchange rate at the time of consolidation. Economic risk is the risk which reflects the risk to the firm’s value of future operating cash ?ows from exchange rate movements. It is concerned with the effect of exchange rate changes on revenues and operating expenses. The revenues in this case include domestic sales and exports whereas operating expenses include the domestic inputs and imports. This type of risk is normally applied to the current worth of future cash flow operations of a firm. Question (b) How to Measure Economic/Operating Exposure After de?ning the types of economic/operating exposure that a ?rm is exposed to, a crucial aspect of a ?rm’s exchange rate risk management decisions is the measurement o f economic/operating exposure. Measuring economic/operating exposure may seem to be challenging. Currently, the most commonly applied methodology is the value-at-risk (VaR) model. Generally, value at risk is de?ned as the highest loss for a given exposure over a given period of time with a certain percentage of con?dence. The VaR method can be useful in computing a range of types of risk, helping corporations in their risk management. Nevertheless, the VaR does not suggest what happens to the exposure for the (100 – z) % point of con?dence, i.e., the worst case scenario. The Value-at-Risk (VaR) calculation method of economic/operating exposure is applied by corporations to estimate the riskiness of a foreign exchange situation that culminates from a

EGT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

EGT - Essay Example Admittedly, the very first thing that is noticed about Chinese culture is the importance they give to relationships and connections. In other words, there is a term ‘Guanxi’ in Chinese that means ‘relationship’. Evidently, the Chinese give too much stress on having relationships based on trust and cooperation. In other words, for them, business promotion will not merely run on publicity but it will depend on developing trust and cooperation in China. Another sensitive area in business marketing in China is the personal pride. In this nation, humiliation; either private or public, has a seriously negative impact. However, in this nation, praising can do wonders even if done in moderation. It brings respect, loyalty and negotiations. Another important point is the use of ‘Keqi’, which means ‘courteous and refined behavior’. Generally, in China, exaggerated claims are often viewed with suspicion and disdain. On the other hand, modesty and humility always manage to win hearts easily, as they are recognized as the indications of truthfulness. One important point where contradiction can arise is the speed of negotiations. As Zhao (1991) points out, while Americans are known for their fast pace and the eagerness to get immediate result, Chinese believe in long term relationships and they generally dislike hurried transactions. Evidently, the American marketing strategy should aim first at developing trust and then at praising the Chinese culture in a way that does not arouse suspicion. Efforts to exaggerate the company’s credentials in the very beginning may not get the kind of response it can reasonably expect in the West. The second point of consideration is that the marketing and business negotiations should aim at the right person. Often, US marketing people engage in negotiations with people and finally realize that they were