Monday, September 30, 2019

A conflict of interest Essay

A conflict of interest is defined as a conflict between the professional or personal interests and needs of a health care provider and his or her professional responsibilities toward a patient or other consumer (financial gain based on a particular outcome or use of one drug rather than another). (Partners Healthcare states that â€Å"A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest.† Our textbook defines a conflict of interest as â€Å"when someone has multiple obligations that demand loyalty, and decisions based on these loyalties are different or in conflict† (Page 180) Partners Healthcare has an array of examples of conflicts of interest. Some being 1- â€Å"Receiving consulting fees from a company while performing clinical research on the company’s technology.† 2- â€Å"Accepting a gift from a vendor† and 3- â€Å"Participating in institutional purchasing decisions about products made by a company in which you hold stock.† — This presents a conflict that is always unacceptable. In order to minimize conflicts of interest in managed care the dual interests present in the relationships among MCOs, members and physicians has to first be acknowledged. This awareness permits avoiding or minimizing them. An ombudsman or consumer relations specialist can assist members can decrease conflicts of interest by assisting members and deal with their concerns. (Page 181) The role of a manager are expected to expectations: to focus on the welfare of those receiving care; maintain professional competence; maintain professional posture, holding paramount the interests of facility and residents; and meet the responsibilities to the public, profession, and colleagues. Managers must be aware and take steps to prevent or minimize potential or actual conflicts of interest. This could be through developing and maintaining high ethical standards in the profession, including searching out those who knowingly engage in conflicts of interest and educating those ignorant of them.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Failure Analysis Essay

Team D will analyze the organizations Samsung Electronics Company (SEC) and Research In Motion – Blackberry (RIM). The study will analyze in depth the success of Samsung and the failure of Blackberry. The paper analyzes how Samsung evolved into one of the largest conglomerates in the world during the past decade the demise of Blackberry and how the company failed. Vision and Mission Statement Samsung Vision Statement, The vision of SAMSUNG Electronics is â€Å"Leading the Digital Convergence Revolution† (Samsung, 2013, p. 1). Mission Statement â€Å"To experience the joy of advancing and applying technology for the benefit of the public† (Samsung, 2013, p. 1.). Established in 1938, Samsung has gone thru many changes. During its various changes, Samsung continues to modify its mission statement according to its own change and to new developments globally. â€Å"Economic contribution to the nation† â€Å", Priority to human resources† â€Å" Pursuit of rationalism† are slogans that represent important moments in Samsung’s history. The organization has grown from a national leader to a worldwide consumer leader. The constant fluctuation in the global economy, competition, and operations, Samsung transformed its mission statement in 1990. According to Samsung’s philosophy, â€Å"We will devote our human resources and technology to create superior products and services, thereby contributing to a better global society† (Samsung, 2013, p. 2.). The organizations attitude is a representation of its determination to contribute to the success of people globally. Key factors for Samsung is the dedication, creativity, and talent of its employees. The strong leadership and team support has made endless opportunities for new technology and achieving higher standard of living globally. Leadership at Samsung believe its success is due to its contribution to people worldwide and to the shared prosperity between national boundaries worldwide. This determines how they manage their  company. The objective for Samsung Electronics is to generate the future with its consumers. SEC can be considered as one of very few companies that â€Å"manage to go beyond mere imitation of global competitors, leverage resources, accelerate the pace of organizational learning and manage to attain seemingly impossible goals† ( Hamel and Prahalad, 1989). Vision and Mission Statement Blackberry vision statement, â€Å"Blackberry aims to be the premier center for management development excelling in developing managers of tomorrow; strengthening management capabilities and facilitating policy options to meet emerging challenges†. (Blackberry, 2013, p.1.). Mission statement, â€Å"To develop socially and professionally responsible and proactive managers and leaders with holistic perspectives and competencies.† (Blackberry, 2013, p.1.) In realizing the above vision and mission, RIM focuses on the following strategic areas: In 1994, Blackberry (RIM) was created. The organization is located in Waterloo, Ontario Canada. Other locations include Europe, United States, Mexico, and Asia Pacific. Blackberry lead the design, fabrication, distributor of its wireless solutions for the global cellular communications market. The creation of combined software, services, and support, Blackberry provided solutions for email, cell phone, SMS, MMS, Intranet, and Internet applications â€Å"The beauty of this device was that users could do all of these functions even as they were striding down the sidewalk, far from any desktop computer† (Kim, 2008). . The organization provided services for Civil Service, local governance, and the private sector. This enabled Blackberry to strengthen and develop into a strong financial, self-supported Institute. The downfall of Blackberry began on January 9, 2007, with the introduction of the iPhone. Apple sold a million iPhones the first week of its release, signaling the era of the smartphone. In a conference call on March 29, 2012 CEO Thorsten Heins stated, â€Å"It is now very clear to me that substantial change is what RIM needs,† (All Thing D, 2012, p. 1.). The CEO is creating something Blackberry has not had for a long time, a vision. . â€Å"We believe that BlackBerry cannot succeed if we try to be everybody’s darling and all things to all people†, (All Things D, 2012, p. 1.). It might be too late but  the organization will undertake a complete review analysis of the way the company operates. Leadership style, management, organizational structure, and culture Samsung Electronics is a worldwide organization with nearly 160,000 employees and operates in countries worldwide. Samsung is devoted to having a healthy organizational culture. It believes that ethical management is not only a tool for responding to the rapid changes in the global business environment, but also a vehicle for building trust with its various stakeholders, shareholders, customers, partners, employees, and local communities around the world. Samsung’s aim is to become one of the most ethical companies in the world that is respected by its stakeholders, Samsung Electronics continues to train its employees and operate monitoring systems, while practicing fair and transparent corporate management. Samsung has established a good and safe working environment for its personnel, this improves employee morale and productivity and commitment to the organization. Employees respect all workers despite the positions they have. Workers and leaders have a good relationship that allows both side to work together on workers grievances relating to their work environment. The relationships between the workers and leaders are interactive and workers grievances relating to their working environment and other labor related issues work well. Workers at Samsung will respect all workers despite the roles they play. CEO Kwon Oh Hyun is a commanding leader, almost militarist in leading. In South Korea, this style of leadership is very effective; unlike in the United States a commanding leader for a non-military organization would be ineffective. Kwon Oh Hyun is direct, takes tight control, very demanding, disciplined, and demands immediate compliance within the company, from top to bottom. It is difficult to recognize what leadership style is within Blackberry. What has brought Blackberry to its demise is not having a clear vision from its upper executives. Their leaders had no sense of direction to innovate the organization. Blackberry ten years ago was a leader in the cellular business. Customers who owned a blackberry phone felt important, celebrities, Wall Street investment bankers. Today Blackberry is at jeopardy on becoming obsolete. Blackberry made some critical mistakes, which put the organization in jeopardy. The organization  disregarded the iPhone until it was too late. Prior CEO Lazaridis â€Å"told his employees that no one would buy the iPhone because customers did not want a personal computer on their cell phones.† (Forbes, 2011, p. 2.) Blackberry promoted a culture of unwillingness and closed communication. Upper executives did not want to listen to ideas from below. Additionally, a critical mistake was waiting too long to innovate new products into their product line. Their current product line is a big dinosaur and still look much like their first phones. To further trouble Blackberry, two major outages occurred on April 2007 and again in February 2008, each outage lasted for a few days. Leading Organizational Change Team D would use the Kotter’s Eight Steps Detailed guidance for managing change. First major change is to establish a sense of urgency, in order to create a compelling reason for change. The compelling reason for change is to seek new ways of innovation. Keeping up with the global rapid change in the telecommunications, industry is vital. [Change process theories describe a typical pattern of events that occur from the beginning of a change to the end, and in some cases they describe how earlier changes affect subsequent changes. The theories may identify distinct phases in the process, stages in the reaction of individuals, or effects of repeated changes on people.] (Gary Yukl, 2013, p. 1.) In order to keep Blackberry competitive with the market, the organization must find new products to introduce into the market. Introducing a new lineup of products such as new cell phone models is vital for the company to compete with its competitors. The sense of urgency is creating and updating our products in time to keep up with the competition. The team would create a coalition between upper management to establish the new change for blackberry. The coalition between top executives would facilitate the introduction of the new strategy into our new business plan. A major priority for blackberry and its top executives is to create a clear vision for the upcoming change of the organization. The next hurdle is to widely open up communication barriers and simplify the communication between upper management on down. Blackberry will promote a culture of open communication and willingness for all its employees. The open communication will enable the organization to communicate the vision throughout the company. Good communication will help the organization with employees who resist change. Communication between upper management and employees will help give a clear vision of the change. Inadequate communication will give employees a sense of false information for example believe that change is not feasible, fear of personal failure, loss of status, and economic threat. The CEO will empower other managers to act on the vision by encouraging risk-taking and removing barriers to help solve problems. The new plan will take two years to implement. The action plan will include short-term goals that move blackberry toward the new vision. The change will allow upper management on down to consolidate improvement. All management reassess all changes to include analytical information, the consolidation improvements will allow the organization to make any necessary adjustments in the new programs. All management will have to lead by example and demonstrate the success of the cultural change. The new plan will reinforce the changes by demonstrating the relationship between the new behaviors. The leadership styles will be between transformational and visionary leadership. These leadership styles will inspire the conviction of the new vision and will give blackberry a clear direction to succeed in the new change. Transformational leadership will inspire and develop empowering focus on the new plan. Conclusion During significant change to a company’s structure and strategies, personnel can experience high levels of stress on the job. Prior to executing the strategies, organizations must empower employees to adopt the role of change and encourage them to take action to solve the problems that stresses them. A large piece of the puzzle is communication between upper management on down. Personnel need to feel that they are empowered during the phase of the change. Although few organizations fully acknowledge their role in helping employees, cope with change. Individual reactions to change your complex and most experts agree that people tend to be uncomfortable with change; employees do not want to depart from their comfort zone.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Littleton Manufacturing Case Study group paper Term

Littleton Manufacturing Case Study group - Term Paper Example These transformations alongside growing rivalry in the market had crucial impact on Littleton manufacturing via Brooks industries declining financial performance. In order to articulate the issue, the management of Littleton manufacturing was worried with articulating the underlying challenges that affected the corporation. The corporation after a series of boardroom talks reached a decision that was aimed at computing a human resources process improvement team-PIT, to underline the issues and second a curative course of action (Whiteside, 1994). Problems identified and their symptoms Grievances at distinct levels of the corporations firm surfaced over the concern of bad institutional communication at the company. With this as a manifestation of the institutional bottlenecks at the corporation, the management of the company sought help from students at an adjacent institution to examine the institutional communication at Littleton. The PIT panel gathered the outcome from the students and carried out an in-house scrutiny that established six essential problem areas that the corporation was to deal with. The first problem established was the deficiency of institutional concord at Littleton. The evident deficiency of institutional concord was perceived through the anxiety displayed by the employee who held to the fact that the production side got ignored over the newer ingredients side. The components side had newer technology and machines whilst the production side had obsolete and redundant machines that needed regular servicing even they never got replaced. The employees also cited the strict working environment in the production side of the firm in contrast to the ingredients side. The employees perceived the management of the components side as overly strict where that of the components side seems elastic and at ease. The employees cited the fact that the two sides of the firm seemed to have distinct management techniques (Whiteside, 1994). The second problem was pitiable view of the monitor’s duty. All levels of the plant got worried about the duty of the supervisors. The directors felt tangential, underappreciated and overworked. The directors had an incredible amount of paperwork, and this restricted the amount of time they had to cover up their levels. This, they supposed, amounted to laxity amid various employees who understood when the directors would come to the level to monitor them. The directors felt nonessential when it came to decision making. They supposed they just got from their seniors when it came to the process of decision making and got criticized when such decisions failed to deliver their expectations. The controllers were as well on morale because of the little support and resources they received from the senior managers. They supposed the senior directors never would support then if they embarked on their own decisions (Whiteside, 1994). The deficiency of uniformity in the enforcement of policies and measur es inside the distinct sides of the plant also got mentioned as a problem at Littleton. Grievances came up from the employees about the disparities inside the department and sides at the firm when imposing policies and measures. Proof of this occurred when the employees protested that various managers in the components side offered longer breaks in contrast to other managers in other departments. In the

Friday, September 27, 2019

Develop a social networking strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Develop a social networking strategy - Essay Example Social media marketing is the promotional activity through which the business targets the prospect or potential customers via various social media sites in order, to increase the sales, enhance the brand loyalty and accomplish the business goals. It is very different from the traditional marketing, where promotion is highly dependent on the high-traffic Media, such as print and television. Unlike traditional means marketing through social media sites does not requires any paid placement that are charged to the business, but requires the marketer to devise methods in which information can be presented, so that the target audiences can assign value to the offerings. A social media marketing plan can take various forms like creating page of Facebook, developing a blog that focuses on issues related to the business segment in which the organization is dealing, new tools like Foursquare and reward on returning to visit the store through virtual badges (Powell, Groves & Dimos, 2011). This study focuses on the social media as a marketing tool for Book Bunker. Figure 1 Source: (Roberts, 2002) Figure 2 Source: (Roberts, 2002) Social Media Social media includes online tools that allow people with similar interest to share information and learn from each other or network over an open process. The information that is found on these sites are referred to as user generated content, which signifies that any individual can post their comments or suggestion on these sites with almost no or minimal restriction. This type of user-supplied content can vary over a wide range starting from bookmarked links to written posts, photos, original music and videos. It can be unstructured as well, such as family photos on Facebook or in a very formal and detailed structure such as article on Wikipedia. A partial list of structures that are available for a social media site includes combination of blogs, forums, micro-blogs, video-sharing, photo-sharing, customer reviews, online publishing, social and professional networking, or any other traditional website that accepts post from online communities. The media has become a significant element in driving the page visits and views and some sort of social media feature is always available on web (Wankel, 2011). It should be noted that the veracity of the contents that are posted on the social media outlets are not scrutinized. This may acts as one of the defining characteristics. This in turn also signifies a broad spectrum of mankind. It can be dull or insightful, biased or balanced, too revealing or guarded and most significantly outrageously libelous and verifiably true. False or accurate, anything can be posted on the websites or any other online sources with either a malicious intention or with the best intention. This makes it important for the readers or the users of these contents to scrutinize the validity and importance of the material that they read (Zarrella, 2010; Newson, Houghton & Patten, 2009; Al-Deen & He ndricks, 2012). Utilization of social media There are huge variations of websites and social media applications, which makes it impossible to list

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Post-Confederation of Canada Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Post-Confederation of Canada - Essay Example Rowell-Sirois Commission (1937, report 1940) The famous great depression of 1930’s also affected Canada and it was due to the urgent need to address the economic challenges that faced the country that the Rowell-Sirois Commission was formed in 1937. The Commission was formed to devise permanent solutions that can prevent the country from experiencing another depression as it had been witnessed during the 1930s. The report, which the commission handed over to the government in 1940, is significant in the Canadian history since it is the report, which recommended that the federal government take full charge of workers’ pension scheme. Secondly, it is this report that made the federal government take full control of the unemployment insurance. Secondly, it recommended that the federal government create equalization payments and the disbursement of funds by the federal government to the provincial governments on a yearly basis. William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950) Willia m Lyon Mackenzie commonly referred to as Mackenzie King was Canada’s 10th Prime Minister and the longest serving Prime Minister in Canada’s history who served for 22 years between 1921 through to 1948. According to political analysts, Mackenzie King did not have typical personal attributes of a great leader especially when compared to the his peers during this era, however, he was able to serve as the longest Prime Minister because of the wide variety of skills that he possessed, which resonated with the needs that Canada had during his era. He is most significant to the Canadian history because during his tenure he laid the foundation of the Canadian welfare state. Person’s case (1929) Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Emily Murphy and Irene Parlby, (the famous 5s), presented a petition on 18th October 1927that requested the Governor General to issue a directive to the Supreme Court in order for them determine whether women had the right or if they were eligible to become Senator under the British North America Act. This is because up until that time, women were regarded as â€Å"persons† who could not hold public offices as Canada Senators. The ruling in this petition is significant to the Canadian history as it recognized women as persons who were eligible for appointment to the Canadian Senate and it set forth the establishment of various women rights. NAFTA (1994) The North American Free Trade Agreement is an agreement that was signed by the United States, Mexico, and Canada on 1st January, 1994 creating a trilateral trading block in North America. The agreement was signed by the three countries in order to boost investment and trading between the three countries by eliminating some of the trade barrier that had previously existed in the region. According to economists, this agreement is particularly important in the Canadian history as it enabled the country to trade more thus boosts its gross domestic p roduct and overall economic condition. Louis Riel As previously mentioned, Louis Riel spearheaded the establishment of the government for the Province of Manitoba, and it is further noted that he was also a key figure in the Canadian history since he was the political and spiritual leader of the Metis people of the Canadian prairies. Louis Riel is also significant in the Canadia

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Effect of screening mammography on breast cancer Research Paper

Effect of screening mammography on breast cancer - Research Paper Example This listing of alternative treatments, under the current legal system, must even include the risks and benefits of non-treatment (Marshall, 2005). Despite being clinical screenings, including annual screening mammography and other treatments, being named the most effective method for reducing mortality and detecting early cancers by the United States Preventative Services Task Force (Greco et al., 2009), there is great difficulty in determining the actual efficacy of the technique on mortality rates (Spencer et al., 2004). The difficulty lies in separating the effect of screening on the actual mortality rates of detected cancers versus its effect on the time of detection, what researchers refer to as the lead-time bias (Spencer et al., 2004). Also, any longitudinal study faces the issue that as medical science improves, long-term survival rates for cancer patients improves as well. The sample becomes contaminated as the researchers cannot separate survival due to better screening or due to better treatment (Marshall, 2005). ... d screening mammography is generally done routinely only for women, a perception of its effectiveness should be examined under Madeleine Leininger's theory of transcultural nursing. Women in and of themselves could be considered a cultural group, and they are also subject to high levels of pressures on their behavior due to their cultural environment. Cultural care requires making allowances for the age, ethnic background, and other personal background characteristics of a patient (Hammerschmidt, Zagonel, and Lenardt, 2007). Breast cancer screening effectiveness must be looked at through the eyes of the women in different cultures, generations, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and income brackets (Shyyan et al., 2006; Wujcik et al., 2009), as the usage of screening treatments by all of these women is integral to the success of any study. Research Methodology The determination of effectiveness requires quantitative analysis of numerical data. The literature research method should theref ore focus on finding such statistics, but also ensuring that such statistics are comparable. Data from different age groups, for example, should not be analyzed together without allowances for that variance. CINAHL was searched for articles that contained the phrases â€Å"breast cancer†, â€Å"screening mammography†, and â€Å"breast cancer mortality†. The search was limited to articles since 2001. Additionally, Google Scholar was used to locate articles and information about the Leininger theory of cultural care. All sources used are from peer-reviewed medical and nursing journals to ensure the quality of the research. Review of Literature Two major types of studies exist about screening mammography: attempts to determine, empirically, the success of screening techniques, and the general

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Data collection companies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Data collection companies - Essay Example This paper takes a stand that picking information of an individual from social websites without their permission is unethical. To defend this stand, this paper analyzes the impact of using unauthorized information that comes from social media. This paper also identifies a supporting argument in favor of using these types of information, and gives a counter argument against the argument. This paper has a conclusion, which is a summary of the main points that the paper addresses. Sharing personal information about an individual without their authorization can damage the reputation of the individual under consideration. For example, a data collecting company can peruse through the facebook profiles of certain individuals, and find information concerning their sexual habits. Sharing this information with other organizations without their consent is disastrous. An organization can use this information for or against the individual concerned (Partridge, 33) . Take an instance if the indivi dual is gay, and the information comes before anti-gay institutions. The impact of this action on the individual is damage to his or her reputation. Another reason as to why this process is unethical is that doubts might emanate on the accuracy of the information the data collection company provides. ... This aspect might lead to developing a policy by an organization that does not reflects the needs of the people whom it targets. Take an example where by the data collecting company has information about alcohol consumption habits amongst adults. If 70% of this information is inaccurate, an alcohol company relies on the information to market their products. Using this information will lead to a flop in the marketing campaigns and strategy of the alcohol company. It is important for data collection companies to fairly process the information they acquire from social sites in a professional and ethical manner. On this basis therefore, if a company wants to share an individual’s personal information, then they should seek the consent of the individual concerned. It is only fair for the person to have a chance of determining how an organization uses his personal data. However, other people disagree with my assertion that it is unethical for data collection companies to use the per sonal information of an individual derived from their social website pages. According to their argument, they denote that the information is already public, and therefore it is not a crime to sell such kind of information to organizations that want to use them (Partridge, 25). However, according to me, this argument is inaccurate and does not have facts to support it. This is because there are regulations that govern an individual when he or she opens an account with social sites. For instance, some of these sites guarantee that the information they post will not be used for commercial purposes without their permission. On this basis therefore, for a data company to

Monday, September 23, 2019

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

Lightning - Essay Example To begin with, lightning contains a massive amount of energy. If it strikes a tree or a house it can destroy it due to the massive transfer of heat. Lightning can heat the air around it to almost 20,000 degrees Celsius which is about three times the temperature of the sun. So much energy travels so quickly in a lightning strike that it creates a supersonic wave which normal people call thunder. Because light travels faster than the speed of sound you usually see the lightning before you hear the thunder on a stormy day.1 It is often said that electricity was discovered by Benjamin Franklin when he went to go fly a kite in a big storm. It is true that the idea of harnessing the power of electricity came to him at that time, though others had carried out similar observations and experiments in the past.2 Even though this helped our understanding of static electricity, not a lot of new information has been learnt about lightning in recent years, how to harness it or use it for human purposes. This is unfortunate. Because of global warming we need new ideas about how to generate energy without harming the environment. If scientists can learn more, we may be able to use lightning to save the planet. Rakov, Vladimir A. Lightning: Physics and Effects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano - Essay Example It was one of the earliest first-hand accounts of slavery, documenting the experiences of an immigrant to England and the tortures he suffers as a slave to white men. The identity that Equiano adopts in his work is that of a native of Essaka, a village near the river Niger that is located in modern day Nigeria. In the village, his father occupies a respectable position as an elder in the village. But Equiano is sold off to slave traders at the tender young age of ten and a half years. This is the first indictment against slavery, because in narrating his experiences in being exchanged among various owners, Equiano is also able to highlight the bitter travesty that had denied him his heritage as the son of a respectable village elder, stripping him of the respect that could potentially have been his, in exchange for an oppressive existence. Throughout his book, Equiano narrates several incidents to demonstrate how demeaning and oppressive the practice of slavery was. One of these was his arrival in Virginia where he was purchased by a Navy lieutenant named Pascal. One of the first things Pascal did upon buying Equiano was to change his name to Gustavus Vassa. Equiano resisted this name change and boldly demanded another name that he liked. But his master forced him to accept the name he had chosen by beating and shackling him until he agreed to do so. The name Gustavus Vassa was an uncommon choice and was not a name that Equiano particularly liked. Simon has offered the view that one of the reasons propelling Pascal to the choice of such a Latinized name could have been that the lieutenant had served on a ship with that name and therefore experienced a sentimental attachment to it (Schama, 161-162).

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Dna Digestion and Electrophoresis Essay Example for Free

Dna Digestion and Electrophoresis Essay In this experiment we will be doing a process called as DNA digestion or also known as restriction digest. A restriction digest is a procedure used in molecular biology to prepare DNA for analysis or other processing. It is sometimes termed DNA fragmentation, scientists Hartl and Jones describe it this way: This enzymatic technique can be used for cleaving DNA molecules at specific sites, ensuring that all DNA fragments that contain a particular sequence have the same size; furthermore, each fragment that contains the desired sequence has the sequence located at exactly the same position within the fragment. The cleavage method makes use of an important class of DNA-cleaving enzymes isolated primarily from bacteria. These enzymes are called restriction endonucleases or restriction enzymes, and they are able to cleave DNA molecules at the positions at which particular short sequences of bases are present. The resulting digested DNA is very often selectively amplified using PCR, making it more suitable for analytical techniques such as agarose gel electrophoresis, andchromatography. It is used in genetic fingerprinting, and RFLP analysis. [1] Just as mentioned above, for this experiment we will be using restriction enzymes. Restriction enzymes or restriction endonuclease are enzymes isolated from bacteria that recognize specific sequences in DNA and then cut the DNA to produce fragments, called restriction fragments. They play a very important role in the construction of recombinant DNA molecules, as is done in gene cloning experiments. [2] Restriction endonucleases such as EcoRI recognize specific palindromic sequences and cleave a phosphodiester bond on each strand at that sequence. After digestion with a restriction endonuclease the resulting DNA fragments can be separated by agarose gel electrophoresis and their size can be estimated. A restriction map is generated by using the fragment size data to determine the location of the specific endonuclease recognition sequences on the plasmid. Each restriction enzyme requires specific reaction conditions for optimum activity. One of the most important reaction conditions which varies between different restriction enzymes is the salt concentration. Enzyme buffers are specifically formulated to provide the salt concentration for optimal enzyme activity. It is important, therefore, that the correct buffer solution is used for a particular restriction enzyme. [3] For this experiment we also made use of agarose gel electrophoresis, which takes a lot of time. Electrophoresis may be the main technique for molecular separation in todays cell biology laboratory. In spite of the many physical arrangments for the apparatus, and regardless of the medium through which molecules are allowed to migrate, all electrophoretic separations depend upon the charge distribution of the molecules being separated. Electrophoresis can be one dimensional or two dimensional. One dimensional electrophoresis is used for most routine protein and nucleic acid separations. Two dimensional separation of proteins is used for finger printing , and when properly constructed can be extremely accurate in resolving all of the proteins present within a cell. The support medium for electrophoresis can be formed into a gel within a tube or it can be layered into flat sheets. The tubes are used for easy one dimensional separations, while the sheets have a larger surface area and are better for two- dimensional separations. In electrophoresis, proteins are separated on the basis of charge, and the charge of a protein can be either + or , depending upon the pH of the buffer. In normal operation, a column of gel is partitioned into three sections, known as the Separating or Running Gel, the Stacking Gel and the Sample Gel. The sample gel may be eliminated and the sample introduced via a dense non-convective medium such as sucrose. Electrodes are attached to the ends of the column and an electric current passed through the partitioned gels. If the electrodes are arranged in such a way that the upper bath is (cathode), while the lower bath is + (anode), and anions are allowed to flow toward the anode, the system is known as an anionic system. Flow in the opposite direction, with + cations flowing to the cathode is a cationic system. [4] 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_digest 2. http://www.phschool.com/science/biology_place/biocoach/red/intro.html 3. http://csm.jmu.edu/biology/courses/bio480_580/mblab/restrict.html 4. http://homepages.gac.edu/~cellab/chpts/chpt4/intro4.html

Friday, September 20, 2019

Analysis of Attribution Selection Techniques

Analysis of Attribution Selection Techniques ABSTRACT: From a large amount of data, the significant knowledge is discovered by means of applying the techniques and those techniques in the knowledge management process is known as Data mining techniques. For a specific domain, a form of knowledge discovery called data mining is necessary for solving the problems. The classes of unknown data are detected by the technique called classification. Neural networks, rule based, decision trees, Bayesian are the some of the existing methods used for the classification. It is necessary to filter the irrelevant attributes before applying any mining techniques. Embedded, Wrapper and filter techniques are various feature selection techniques used for the filtering. In this paper, we have discussed the attribute selection techniques like Fuzzy Rough SubSets Evaluation and Information Gain Subset Evaluation for selecting the attributes from the large number of attributes and for search methods like BestFirst Search is used for fuzzy rough subset evaluati on and Ranker method is applied for the Information gain evaluation. The decision tree classification techniques like ID3 and J48 algorithm are used for the classification. From this paper, the above techniques are analysed by the Heart Disease Dataset and generate the result and from the result we can conclude which technique will be best for the attribute selection. 1. INTRODUCTION: As the world grows in complexity, overwhelming us with the data it generates, data mining becomes the only hope for elucidating the patterns that underlie it. The manual process of data analysis becomes tedious as size of data grows and the number of dimensions increases, so the process of data analysis needs to be computerised. The term Knowledge Discovery from data (KDD) refers to the automated process of knowledge discovery from databases. The process of KDD is comprised of many steps namely data cleaning, data integration, data selection, data transformation, data mining, pattern evaluation and knowledge representation. Data mining is a step in the whole process of knowledge discovery which can be explained as a process of extracting or mining knowledge from large amounts of data. Data mining is a form of knowledge discovery essential for solving problems in a specific domain. Data mining can also be explained as the non trivial process that automatically collects the useful hidd en information from the data and is taken on as forms of rule, concept, pattern and so on. The knowledge extracted from data mining, allows the user to find interesting patterns and regularities deeply buried in the data to help in the process of decision making. The data mining tasks can be broadly classified in two categories: descriptive and predictive. Descriptive mining tasks characterize the general properties of the data in the database. Predictive mining tasks perform inference on the current data in order to make predictions. According to different goals, the mining task can be mainly divided into four types: class/concept description, association analysis, classification or prediction and clustering analysis. 2. LITERATURE SURVEY: Data available for mining is raw data. Data may be in different formats as it comes from different sources, it may consist of noisy data, irrelevant attributes, missing data etc. Data needs to be pre processed before applying any kind of data mining algorithm which is done using following steps: Data Integration – If the data to be mined comes from several different sources data needs to be integrated which involves removing inconsistencies in names of attributes or attribute value names between data sets of different sources . Data Cleaning –This step may involve detecting and correcting errors in the data, filling in missing values, etc. Discretization –When the data mining algorithm cannot cope with continuous attributes, discretization needs to be applied. This step consists of transforming a continuous attribute into a categorical attribute, taking only a few discrete values. Discretization often improves the comprehensibility of the discovered knowledge. Attribute Selection – not all attributes are relevant so for selecting a subset of attributes relevant for mining, among all original attributes, attribute selection is required. A Decision Tree Classifier consists of a decision tree generated on the basis of instances. The decision tree has two types of nodes: a) the root and the internal nodes, b) the leaf nodes. The root and the internal nodes are associated with attributes, leaf nodes are associated with classes. Basically, each non-leaf node has an outgoing branch for each possible value of the attribute associated with the node. To determine the class for a new instance using a decision tree, beginning with the root, successive internal nodes are visited until a leaf node is reached. At the root node and at each internal node, a test is applied. The outcome of the test determines the branch traversed, and the next node visited. The class for the instance is the class of the final leaf node. 3. FEATURE SELECTION: Many irrelevant attributes may be present in data to be mined. So they need to be removed. Also many mining algorithms don’t perform well with large amounts of features or attributes. Therefore feature selection techniques needs to be applied before any kind of mining algorithm is applied. The main objectives of feature selection are to avoid overfitting and improve model performance and to provide faster and more cost-effective models. The selection of optimal features adds an extra layer of complexity in the modelling as instead of just finding optimal parameters for full set of features, first optimal feature subset is to be found and the model parameters are to be optimised. Attribute selection methods can be broadly divided into filter and wrapper approaches. In the filter approach the attribute selection method is independent of the data mining algorithm to be applied to the selected attributes and assess the relevance of features by looking only at the intrinsic propert ies of the data. In most cases a feature relevance score is calculated, and lowscoring features are removed. The subset of features left after feature removal is presented as input to the classification algorithm. Advantages of filter techniques are that they easily scale to highdimensional datasets are computationally simple and fast, and as the filter approach is independent of the mining algorithm so feature selection needs to be performed only once, and then different classifiers can be evaluated. 4. ROUGH SETS Any set of all indiscernible (similar) objects is called an elementary set. Any union of some elementary sets is referred to as a crisp or precise set otherwise the set is rough (imprecise, vague). Each rough set has boundary-line cases, i.e., objects which cannot be with certainty classified, by employing the available knowledge, as members of the set or its complement. Obviously rough sets, in contrast to precise sets, cannot be characterized in terms of information about their elements. With any rough set a pair of precise sets called the lower and the upper approximation of the rough set is associated. The lower approximation consists of all objects which surely belong to the set and the upper approximation contains all objects which possible belong to the set. The difference between the upper and the lower approximation constitutes the boundary region of the rough set. Rough set approach to data analysis has many important advantages like provides efficient algorithms for find ing hidden patterns in data, identifies relationships that would not be found using statistical methods, allows both qualitative and quantitative data, finds minimal sets of data (data reduction), evaluates significance of data, easy to understand. 5. ID3 DECISION TREE ALGORITHM: From the available data, using the different attribute values gives the dependent variable (target value) of a new sample by the predictive machine-learning called a decision tree. The attributes are denoted by the internal nodes of a decision tree; in the observed samples, the possible values of these attributes is shown by the branches between the nodes, the classification value (final) of the dependent variable is given by the terminal nodes. Here we are using this type of decision tree for large dataset of telecommunication industry. In the data set, the dependent variable is the attribute that have to be predicted, the values of all other attributes decides the dependent variable value and it is depends on it. The independent variable is the attribute, which predicts the values of the dependent variables. The simple algorithm is followed by this J48 Decision tree classifier. In the available data set using the attribute value, the decision tree is constructed for assort a new item. It describes the attribute that separates the various instances most clearly, whenever it finds a set of items (training set). The highest information gain is given by classifying the instances and the information about the data instances are represent by this feature. We can allot or predict the target value of the new instance by assuring all the respective attributes and their values. 6. J48 DECISION TREE TECHNIQUE: J48 is an open source Java implementation of the C4.5 algorithm in the Weka data mining tool. C4.5 is a program that creates a decision tree based on a set of labeled input data. This algorithm was developed by Ross Quinlan. The decision trees generated by C4.5 can be used for classification, and for this reason, C4.5 is often referred to as a statistical classifier (†C4.5 (J48)†. 7. IMPLEMENTATION MODEL: WEKA is a collection of machine learning algorithms for Data Mining tasks. It contains tools for data preprocessing, classification, regression, clustering, association rules, and visualization. For our purpose the classification tools were used. There was no preprocessing of the data. WEKA has four different modes to work in. Simple CLI; provides a simple command-line interface that allows direct execution of WEKA commands. Explorer; an environment for exploring data with WEKA. Experimenter; an environment for performing experiments and conduction of statistical tests between learning schemes. Knowledge Flow; presents a â€Å"data-flow† inspired interface to WEKA. The user can select WEKA components from a tool bar, place them on a layout canvas and connect them together in order to form a â€Å"knowledge flow† for processing and analyzing data. For most of the tests, which will be explained in more detail later, the explorer mode of WEKA is used. But because of the size of some data sets, there was not enough memory to run all the tests this way. Therefore the tests for the larger data sets were executed in the simple CLI mode to save working memory. 8. IMPLEMENTATION RESULT: The attributes that are selected by the Fuzzy Rough Subset Evaluation using Best First Search method and Information Gain Subset Evaluation using Ranker Method is as follows: 8.1 Fuzzy Rough Subset Using Best First Search Method === Attribute Selection on all input data === Search Method: Best first. Start set: no attributes Search direction: forward Stale search after 5 node expansions Total number of subsets evaluated: 90 Merit of best subset found: 1 Attribute Subset Evaluator (supervised, Class (nominal): 14 class): Fuzzy rough feature selection Method: Weak gamma Similarity measure: max(min( (a(y)-(a(x)-sigma_a)) / (a(x)-(a(x)-sigma_a)),((a(x)+sigma_a)-a(y)) / ((a(x)+sigma_a)-a(x)) , 0). Decision similarity: Equivalence Implicator: Lukasiewicz T-Norm: Lukasiewicz Relation composition: Lukasiewicz (S-Norm: Lukasiewicz) Dataset consistency: 1.0 Selected attributes: 1,3,4,5,8,10,12 : 7 0 2 3 4 7 9 11 8.2 Info Gain Subset Evaluation Using Ranker Search Method: === Attribute Selection on all input data === Search Method: Attribute ranking. Attribute Evaluator (supervised, Class (nominal): 14 class): Information Gain Ranking Filter Ranked attributes: 0.208556 13 12 0.192202 3 2 0.175278 12 11 0.129915 9 8 0.12028 8 7 0.119648 10 9 0.111153 11 10 0.066896 2 1 0.056726 1 0 0.024152 7 6 0.000193 6 5 0 4 3 0 5 4 Selected attributes: 13,3,12,9,8,10,11,2,1,7,6,4,5 : 13 8.2 ID3 Classification Result for 14 Attributes: Correctly Classified Instances 266 98.5185 % Incorrectly Classified Instances 4 1.4815 % Kappa statistic 0.9699 Mean absolute error 0.0183 Root mean squared error 0.0956 Relative absolute error 3.6997 % Root relative squared error 19.2354 % Coverage of cases (0.95 level) 100 % Mean rel. region size (0.95 level) 52.2222 % Total Number of Instances 270 8.3 J48 Classification Result for 14 Attributes: Correctly Classified Instances 239 88.5185 % Incorrectly Classified Instances 31 11.4815 % Kappa statistic 0.7653 Mean absolute error 0.1908 Root mean squared error 0.3088 Relative absolute error 38.6242 % Root relative squared error 62.1512 % Coverage of cases (0.95 level) 100 % Mean rel. region size (0.95 level) 92.2222 % Total Number of Instances 270 8.4 ID3 Classification Result for selected Attributes using Fuzzy Rough Subset Evaluation: Correctly Classified Instances 270 100 % Incorrectly Classified Instances 0 0 % Kappa statistic 1 Mean absolute error 0 Root mean squared error 0 Relative absolute error 0 % Root relative squared error 0 % Coverage of cases (0.95 level) 100 % Mean rel. region size (0.95 level) 25 % Total Number of Instances 270 8.5 J48 Classification Result for selected Attributes using Fuzzy Rough Subset Evaluation: Correctly Classified Instances 160 59.2593 % Incorrectly Classified Instances 110 40.7407 % Kappa statistic 0 Mean absolute error 0.2914 Root mean squared error 0.3817 Relative absolute error 99.5829 % Root relative squared error 99.9969 % Coverage of cases (0.95 level) 100 % Mean rel. region size (0.95 level) 100 % Total Number of Instances 270 8.6 ID3 Classification Result for Information Gain Subset Evaluation Using Ranker Method: Correctly Classified Instances 270 100 % Incorrectly Classified Instances 0 0 % Kappa statistic 1 Mean absolute error 0 Root mean squared error 0 Relative absolute error 0 % Root relative squared error 0 % Coverage of cases (0.95 level) 100 % Mean rel. region size (0.95 level) 33.3333 % Total Number of Instances 270 8.7 J48 Classification Result for Information Gain Subset Evaluation Using Ranker Method: Correctly Classified Instances 165 61.1111 % Incorrectly Classified Instances 105 38.8889 % Kappa statistic 0.3025 Mean absolute error 0.31 Root mean squared error 0.3937 Relative absolute error 87.1586 % Root relative squared error 93.4871 % Coverage of cases (0.95 level) 100 % Mean rel. region size (0.95 level) 89.2593 % Total Number of Instances 270 CONCLUSION: In this paper, from the above implementation result the Fuzzy Rough Subsets Evaluation is gives the selected attributes in less amount than the Info Gain Subset Evaluation and J48 decision tree classification techniques gives the approximate error rate using Fuzzy Rough Subsets Evaluation for the given data set than the ID3 decision tree techniques for both evaluation techniques. So finally for selecting the attributes fuzzy techniques gives the better result using Best First Search method and J48 classification method.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

History of Philippine Cinema :: Philippine Arts Film Movies Essays

History of Philippine Cinema Introduction The youngest of the Philippine arts, film has evolved to become the most popular of all the art forms. Introduced only in 1897, films have ranged from silent movies to talkies; black and white to color. Outpacing its predecessors by gaining public acceptance, from one end of the country to the other, its viewers come from all walks of life. Nationwide, there are more than 1000 movie theaters. Early in the 1980s, it was estimated in Metro Manila alone, there were around 2.5 million moviegoers. As an art form, it reflects the culture and the beliefs of the people it caters to and most times, is the one who shapes their consciousness. Philippine film as discussed in this paper includes films made by Filipino people exhibited in this country and possibly in other countries from the 1930s to the 1990s. The films may be silent pictures or talkies, black and white or color. They also include films such as documentaries, animation, experimental or alternative films and other types of films. This paper has three purposes or objectives. It intends, first of all, to provide a comprehensible background of the art of film in the Philippines. It provides insights on how the Philippine film has influenced Philippine culture and vice-versa. This is done by documenting the important events and important films in the area of film for the past ninety years. Second, it intends to explain the different trends and styles common in the Philippine film. And finally, it concludes with an analysis on how two important events in history, namely World War II and Martial Law altered the course of contemporary Philippine film. However, this paper is limited to films only from the particular time period of the 1930s to the 1990s. It fails to give a picture of how films were like ever since it started in 1897. This paper is also severely limited due to the unavailability and the lack of materials that discuss thoroughly the history of Philippine film. Film materials for those made during the pre-WWII years are simply non-existent. Data for this paper was gathered from the essays and reviews written by the artists and the critics themselves. It goes without saying that the resources were tested to the limits. CHAPTER 1 I. The 1930s to 1940s A. Early Philippine Films Filipinos started making movies in 1919. However, it would be important to know that the film industry in the Philippines began through the initiative of foreign entrepreneurs.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

The Sitcom - Similarities between Ourselves and the Characters Essay

The Sitcom - Similarities between Ourselves and the Characters A sitcom, short for situation comedy, is a comic television series made up of episodes involving the same group of characters in a recurring situation. When watching a sitcom one sees characters deal with life in an unmethodical, irrational, but humorous style. The ability to bring laughter out of situations dates back to variety shows, but dedicating a whole program around a group of characters is fairly new considering the long history of comedy. By being situational, sitcoms tend to poke fun at or bring the irony out of certain issues in life, whether at home or in the workplace. Because many people encounter these problems everyday, designing comedy programs with characters who also deal with these problems is easy. Seeing these characters turn our problems into humor is sometimes uplifting. All of a sudden, the problem may not seem as serious. The types of problems that the characters deal with are what categorize a sitcom. Sitcoms like â€Å"Everybody Loves Raymond,† â€Å"All in the Family,† â€Å"My Wife and Kids,† â€Å"Happ...

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Is Morality Subjective or Objective? Essay -- Philosophy Philosophical

Is Morality Subjective or Objective? Morality must be objectively derived because (1) the concepts of good and morality exist; (2) cultures differ regarding certain moral actions, thus there is the need to discover which is right but cultures are similar regarding the existence of and need for morality; (3) relativism is not logical and does not work, (4) for moral principles to be legitimate and consistent, they must be derived external to human societies. Otherwise morality is merely one person's choice or feeling, not an understanding of truth; and (5) the existence of religion. People recognize a moral aspect to the worship of deity; even if the deity does not exist, we still perceive a need for morality to be decreed by Someone or something greater than humanity. 1. First, the concepts of good and morality exist. The very existence of the idea of good argues for something in human society that is different than the bunnies and the wolves. "Nature" is amoral; the bunnies do not protest the fact that wolves eat them. There is no notion, outside of Bambi, that the animals consider some of themselves good and some bad. Thus, the nature of humanity is somehow different than other creatures. Somehow we know that certain principles and actions are "good" and acceptable, rather than simply necessary for existence. We contemplate the abstract thought of moral principle itself, and the universality of such an idea. All human cultures do not have exactly the same moral codes, but all cultures have a moral code. This concept of the nature of humanity argues for a code of morality that fits all people; we seek it, we believe it, we feel that we need it. Second, cultures differ regarding certain moral actions but all cultures... ...s, 1998. Paton, H.J. The Moral Law: Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. London: Hutchinson University Library, 1961. Philosophical Psychology. Abstract of article in Volume 11, Number 4, December, 1998. www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/cdelance Plato. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Bollingen Series LXXI. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961. Satris, Stephen. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Moral Issues. Guilford, CT: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2000. Schick, Theodore, Jr. "Morality Requires God... or Does It? The Council for Secular Humanism. 17 July 2002. Article from Free Inquiry Magazine, vol.17, number 3. www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/schick_17_3.html Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "The Cambridge Platonists." 17 July 2002. http://plato.stanford.edu

Monday, September 16, 2019

What is the origin of hip hop lyricism?

The history of the hip-hop dates back to the 1970s, where people began singing and dancing over strong beats which were sometimes accompanied with spoken words and with great emphasis on the value of lyricism. The love and desire for hip-hop music then became even stronger during the 1980s. By the onset of the eve of 1990s, hip hop became the mainstream of music decorated with ever changing genres and styles which could not be labeled due to the high combination of extreme diversities emanating from different artist. Some from west coast others from the east coast and in between nothing else was seen apart from hip-hop music and culture (Rahn, 2002, 16). The epoch of hip-hop music in 1970s was found with very high original and innovative techniques with DJs in New York highlighting very amazing rhythmic drum breaks and percussion riffs in the popular discos and funks that were played in various clubs. Hip-hop included scratching, rapping, break dancing and graffiti. It was believed that the art of rapping originated from the block parties after the ultra – competitive DJs decided to isolate the percussion breaks from the majority of favorite dances. As a result of this isolation a similar dance began to be observed in Jamaica which was known as dub dance which was composed of elongated percussion breaks (Rahn, 2002, p. 31). Therefore, it is true to believe that hip hop has its roots in the heart of disco . It was a dance that was practically characterized by divisions between detractors of disco music and their fans. Thus the effects of disco led to great transformations in the hip-hop culture and music. The very first original hip hop was literally an example of the disco tenets witnessed from the televised exploration of funky beats to dancing, cloths and corny special effects common with disco dances. At the capital city of United States, the ‘go go’ music also emerged and eventually collaborated with the hip-hop while the electronic dance joined the group creating the house of music based in Chicago. At this point of time the hip hop music developed the club scene. Thus it started realizing the significance of having big names of DJs as a skill towards capturing and drawing larger crowds. The sudden rise of DJs, stirred up the rise and popularity of rap music from the past to the present history. Thus rap music stirred up hip hop expanding and extending the functions of MCs, and DJs. One very significant task attached to the MCs, was to introduce the DJs, on stage together with his/her crew of artists performing together (Flores, 2000, p. 6). The task of entertaining and keeping the audience alert was also a task pledged to the MC. Skillfully and talented MCs filled with cool artistic skills and high charismatic strategies on stage became instrumental to the to the rise and popularity of rap artists and hip-hop music. Thus the history of hip-hop and rap music is founded on the humble beginnings of MCs and DJs together with the rise of break-dancers, rap artists and taggers all oc curring in the New York City. Surprisingly towards the late 1970s, hip-hop music received extraordinary expansion by gaining very high commercial powers when it established its meteoric popular music style in America consequently achieving popularity in the whole world (Alridge, Stewart, 2005, p, 125). In 1990 a sub – genre of rap music emerged known as gangsta rap that caught America by surprise. The organization of the controversial lyrics which were specifically based on sex, street violence, and drugs lured the American youths into its systems and apparently crossed over to capture the socio economic groupings. All along its history hip-hop music has continued to rise till to the present still with very high sense of popularity (Flores, 2000, p. 47). However, its history would be incomplete without teaching the roles of the performers who made it a success. That is the hip hop designers and artisans. Hip-hop music is a composition of artists who and rappers and they typically major on their personal life experiences, social problems occurring around them, important life events and personal stories which they wish to alert the public about. Rap music is also used to signify fictional themes and romanticized editions which are also appealing to the public and they have educative values about a specific group of people. Rap music evolves very strong rhythmic aspects accompanied by soothing spoken lyrics which evoke intense rhythms and intense beats (Rahn, 2002, p. 1128). They a well known for their special adaptive skills and techniques in using poetic strategies which are accompanied by alliterations and simple rhymes. The history of hip-hop music is a kit for preserving culture based the instrumental tracks and beats that have been played by different artists including beats and rhythms which have been collectively sampled from different categories of individuals in the globe. These samples include the well known and popular rock, funk and soul songs played by different artists. Such rhythms and sound are in away integrated synthesized and reinvented with the original indiginoeous twists done by performers (Flores, 2000, p. 7). However, the expansion of hip-hop music was also stirred to a large extend by the concept of minimalism and more specifically the invention of the modern electronic minimalism which brought full transformation replacing the extensive mess of ornamentation which existed in both classical and popular lyrics. This went a had to clearing the palates thus creating room for autobahn which stirred the discovery of the modern rhythms. Hip-hops are composed from different genres (Alridge, Stewart, 2005, p. 1131). such as the west African griots, a group which consists of praise singers and wandering poets, protestants sermons with teachings on spiritual reforms and Christina music, world music that is composed of outstanding traditions and cultures that cut across verities of people and many more driving genres especially borrowed from the Afro – Caribbean entertainments, scat singing and great heroic tales and rhymes. There are two other commonly popular types of hip hops that are currently taking their roots in the world namely, the American Graffiti and the breaking dance. Thus the history of hip-hop music is significantly very influential and it has played a lot in the construction of the present music.

Was the Vietnam War Winnable

Was the Vietnam War Winnable? The war in Vietnam waged by America was unwinnable through the type of warfare that was used by the US . If they had concentrated on certain key aspects they may have prevented the spread of communism to South Vietnam and achieved their ultimate goal. Americas inability to obtain the â€Å"Hearts and Minds â€Å"of the Vietnamese led to a continual supply of fighters. The US was unable to fight against an ever-increasing civilian army. In Vietnam the US relied tremendously on their advanced and superior firepower to defeat the Vietcong and the ARVN.There technology and training was inadequate in the foreign Vietnamese terrain. The Vietnamese were allied to other communist nations, if their defeat was too humiliating they may have escalated the cold war to a hot war. America was not supported by the people of Vietnam in their efforts to rid South Vietnam of â€Å"evil’ communism, even before the war began. This is one vital area the Americans fa iled. Their â€Å"Hearts and Minds† operation that begun years before the official beginning, of the war, was short-lived. The People of Vietnam considered â€Å"U. S. Diem is using fascist violence to provoke war, contrary to the will of the people and therefore must certainly be defeated† ( Le Duan, 1956). The hatred Vietnam had of outsiders trying to control them was spurred by years of colonisation by the French before the War started. This became a major setback as it was not corrected before the US attacked the communists. The angered civilians refused to cooperate with the Americans and this was one of their largest setbacks during the war. American soldiers entered Vietnam believing themselves to be fighting for the Vietnamese people protecting them from the â€Å"evils† of communism. he Vietnamese resisted the Americans believing them to be disrupting their peace. This infuriated the solders causing them to lash out at the locals. They had â€Å"raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan†( Kerry, 1971). The civilians retaliated by aiding the Viet Cong eventually joining them. This continued over the span of the war thereby creating an ever-increasing number of People fighting against the Americans.Americas inability to attain the â€Å"Hearts and Minds† of the Vietnamese population led to a constantly growing opposition ensuring that for every one â€Å"gook† the Americans killed there were always 2 more to replace him. No matter how many casualties USA inflicted on Vietnam the continuous supply of people would eventually beat the policy restricted US. ‘You can kill 10 of my men for everyone I kill of yours, but in the end I will win and you will lose†. American did not have the people of Vietnam backing them. To t he Vietnamese they were intruders who murdered their families forcing the people of Vietnam to fight back.The Vietnamese’s refusal to cooperate with America prompted backlash from the solders. The Vietnamese’s responded with even more resistance to the US. This chain reaction fuelled the hatred the Vietnamese had for America. The USA was extremely vain when going to war in Vietnam. They had extreme firepower. With a few weeks notice at the time, had the power to turn Vietnam into a region of radioactive glass. The US’s strategy of search and destroy conflicted directly with the Vietnamese’s strategy of hanging onto their belts (caplan,2012).Unlike previous American victories against Japan and Germany, massive American bombing of enemy cities and use of heavy artillery would not be as effective. The Viet Cong used a guerrilla warfare which did not allow the use of American artillery and bombs to kill them. The dense jungle fighting created low visibility f rom the air, which made it hard for the United States to utilize their far superior weapons. America dropped seven million tons of bombs on North Vietnam and the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia United States air forces only dropped 2. 2 million tons of ordnance in the largest war in history, WW2 .America dropped over ,three times more bombs, but it was still not effective enough to defeat North Vietnam. The US strategy of destroying enemy troops and supplies faster than they can reproduce them was not a viable strategy. The Vietnamese who had been fighting for independence for hundreds of years and were not about to give up. The US, at that time relied on their extremely advanced technology to combat the Vietnamese. This failed as the Vietnam is covered in dense jungle which rendered the Americans fighting style useless, they were accustomed to fighting in larger open areas instead of dense jungle and narrow city treets. Vietnam not only had an almost infinite number of p eople but also was supplied by both the Soviets and the Chinese. The Chinese were essential in North Vietnams eventual unification of Vietnam. They provided military experts to advise generals in decision making large amounts of military equipment and eventually solders to aid their war efforts against the South. This not only supplemented their strength but was also a separate major threat for USA. China and the Soviets being communist aimed at spreading communism around the world directly clashed with USA’s policy of preventing the spread of communism.The most successful part in America’s strategy was operation â€Å"Rolling Thunder† which was a large amount of bombings over Vietnam. This was the most successful of all American tactics. It incapacitated their enemy around 1972. Even though the most bombs in history, were dropped over Vietnam, America still feared the Chinese’s. If they hit too hard with the bombings on Vietnam their communist allies may involve themselves turning the cold war that they fought through Vietnam and other smaller nations into a hot war with Mutually Assured Destruction for the entire world.Had they continued the routine bombings and adjusted their fighting styles accordingly they may have triumphed in this conflict. The Vietnam war may have been winnable if the United States had focused more on re-educating the local people of Vietnam had adjusted their stratergy to fit the type of warfare and terrain in South Vietnam. They would have had to defeat the communists subtley to avoid humiliating the Chinees ans Soviets. Unfortunately the Americans â€Å"plunged boldly into the thick† of Vietnam without careing to attin the hearts and minds of its people.They fought against the natural terrain instead of adapting to it which was highly advantageous to the Vietnamese as it his them for so long. The USA is not known for being for being subtle and enjoy going full out into wars. By disgracing other com munists states they would turn the cold war into a hot war annihilating much of the planet. Therefore using a stratery that depende of heavy firepower and without the support of the locals the Vietnam war was unwinnable, if they had won the war and left Vietnam in a state of disgrace theywould have turned the cold war into a hot war. The perpose of the war was to atop the spread of communism and

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Crime Scene Essay

In an organized step by step approach â€Å"Scene Documentation† is one of the stages in the proper processing of a crime scene. The final results of a properly documented crime scene are the ability of others to take the finished product to use in either reconstructing the scene or the chain of events in an incident and our court room presentation. In documenting the scene there are actually three functions or methods used to properly document the crime scene. Those methods consist of written notes which will ultimately be used in constructing a final report, crime scene photographs, and a diagram or sketch. Consistency between each of these functions is paramount. Each method is important in the process of properly documenting the crime scene. The notes and reports should be done in a chronological order and should include no opinions, no analysis, or any conclusions; just the facts. The crime scene investigator or evidence recovery technician should document what they see, not what they think. The final report should tell a descriptive and factual story. A general description of the crime scene should be given just as the investigator sees it when she does the initial walk through of the scene. Each department or agency has a method which they use will for written documentation of the crime scene. There investigator or technician should follow her departments assigned procedures for written documentation. The importance of sharing information can never be over-looked. This article is intended to share ideas in the area of uniform documentation as an example of the format that is used by my department. We use a narrative section of the report divided it into five categories. The categories are the summary, the scene including a detailed body description if in a death investigation, processing, and evidence collected, and the pending that may be collected at another date or time. The summary would to basically give the details of how he was initiated into the investigation. For an example: â€Å"At the request of Robbery Detective H. Granier, this writer was requested to respond to assist in processing the scene of an armed robbery involving 4 unknown masked subjects. Detective H. Granier’s preliminary investigation revealed that the subjects startled the victim as she returned home from shopping†. For further details of this investigation refer to Detective H. Granier. Our summary is brief and does not include a lot of the said information  (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/unavailable/) The investigator in charge should obtain the following for the crime scene case file: 1. Initial responding officer documentation. 2. Emergency medical personnel documents. 3. Entry and exit documentation. 4. Photographs and any videos. 5. Crime scene sketches and diagrams. 6. Evidence documentation. 7. Other responders’ documentation. 8. Record of consent form or search warrant. 9. Criminal background check Reports such as forensic or technical reports should be added to this file when they become available. This will ensure that reports and other documentation pertaining to the crime scene investigation are compiled into a case file by the investigator in charge of the crime scene and allow for independent review of the work conducted. In the scene section of the narrative we should give a detailed description of the scene as it is seen when we approach the area. The scene description usually includes anything that is unusual and out of place. Any weather or environment conditions are also included. Again this is a description of what we see, not what we think. The evidence that should observe is: its location, the condition, or anything about the item will be included in our scene description section. This would also correspond to any identification markers used to number or label the items of evidence. These remarks would all be consistent with any numbers, letters, or labels indicated in the photographs, or drawn into a sketch of the scene (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/unavailable/). The processing section is for our units to describe what we did, if assistance was needed during the processing stages, who we had assisting, and what functions they did. The evidence collection section is to organize what evidence we and others assisting were able to recover from the crime scene, where the items were recovered from, and what part of the lab the items were  directed to for analysis. Criminal History A Criminal History Summary often referred to as a criminal history record or a â€Å"rap sheet† is a listing of certain information taken from fingerprint submissions retained by the FBI in connection with arrests and, in some instances, federal employment, naturalization, or military service. If no Criminal History Summary on file, the investigator will receive a response indicating that the person has no prior arrest data on file. If the person does have a criminal history Summary on file, you will receive your summary†. Pending Section The pending section would be for any known tasks that would need to be completed at a later date or time in the investigation. What is turned in to the Department? 1. A written report 2. Crime scene photographs 3. Crime scene sketch Crime Scene Example Final Report: Initial Information: Victim Name: Incident Address: Incident Date: Incident Time: Offense Report Date: Victim Information: Victim Name: Victim Address: Height: Weight: Eye Color: Hair Color: Scars: Tattoos: Other: NCIC #: Medical Examiner/Medical Summary: Medical Examiner/Agency: Injuries: Cause of Death: Manner of Death: Crime Scene Summary: Write a narrative about the crime scene. This is a summary of what you observed at the scene. You do not make hypothesis or draw conclusions. Evidence Log Summary: Evidence Number: Description Note: Attach Completed Evidence Collection Log to the end of this report. Image Inventory: Image Number Description Conclusions: Draw conclusions based on the evidence gathered. Be as complete as possible. Note: This list is limited to crime scene documentation. This should not be considered a comprehensive list of the documents involved in an investigative case file In conclusion, the final results of a properly documented crime scene are the ability of others to take the finished product to use in either reconstructing the scene or the chain of events in an incident and our court room presentation.

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Media and the Vietnam and Iraq Wars

Despite the differences in American culture from the time of the Vietnam war to the Iraq war, similarities exist in the way Americans perceived both wars. Vietnam and Iraq both raised questions about the appropriateness of U.S. involvement in foreign affairs and, in some cases, resulted in negative perceptions of the U.S. military. As the link between those fighting the war and those at home watching and reading about the events of the war, the media played an important role in both cases.Relationship between the media and the militaryDuring the beginning of Vietnam there was no official policy of censorship. Censorship would have been difficult to manage because as a guest of South Vietnam, the U.S. would have had to allow the South Vietnamese to control the censorship. Additionally, according to Daniel Hallin, the U.S. administration wanted to deny that there was a war happening there, and to impose censorship is one of the signs that a country is really going to war. 1By 1963, rep orters in Vietnam had begun receiving increasingly contradictory information about the war. Military officials in Saigon maintained that the war was going well, while personnel in the field told a different story. One glaring example was the defeat of the South Vietnamese at Ap Bac. Eight days after the incident, military officials declared the operation a success. Reporter Mal Browne recalls that when the astonished press challenged this statement, they were told by the Commander in Chief of U.S. forces to â€Å"get on the team.†1 This was the beginning of a more strained relationship between the media and the military.It was in 1963 also that news programs were extended to a half hour and began showing footage of the war. This was the first time American viewers were able to experience the war right in their living rooms. In 1965, Morley Safer brought the Cam Ne report to viewers. The Cam Ne incident marked the first time the average American was exposed to images of their soldiers engaged in activities that were less than noble – burning huts in a small village as women and children ran away screaming. Though not officially tied to the report, shortly after it aired the government issued new rules of engagement designed to protect South Vietnamese civilians.By the time the U.S. engaged in war with Iraq, the world had become a different place. The military had learned the value of public perception and the need to manage it. Restrictions were placed on the press limiting where they were allowed to go and what they were allowed to report. Unfortunately for the administration, what they couldn’t manage was the amount of amateur footage that made its way into the public eye.Digital cameras and the internet made it possible for anyone to post photos and other footage in front of a broad audience. Some of the most sensational stories reported during the war – including the Abu Ghraib incident – were the result of amateur photogr aphy that found its way into professional media outlets. While of questionable value as a news source, this footage showing graphic scenes intrigued viewers and affected their perception of the U.S. military and their mission in Iraq.Another effect of technology was that reporters were able to feed information to networks â€Å"real time.† This to-the-second coverage allowed viewers to experience the war as it happened, but the information they received was not always accurate. When the military unit in which a reporter was embedded came under attack, the reporter could only report what he was experiencing without the benefit of objectivity or the â€Å"big picture† view. While they did provide some provocative footage, these reports did not increase understanding of the situation. Morley Safer stated this eloquently when he said, â€Å"Live coverage†¦only adds heat, it does not add light.†1Accuracy of reportingNorman Solomon, syndicated columnist on media and politics, suggests that the media has been fundamental in making war possible for the U.S. through fraudulent reporting. He cites reporting of the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam and of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as examples.2Tim Ryan, Army Lieutenant Colonel, has also expressed concern about the accuracy of reporting and its effect on public perception during the Iraq war. He has suggested that the media intentionally focused on negatives or failures during the war and ignored positives for the sake of a more sensational report. He stated that â€Å"even the Arab media was more willing to show positives,† such as school renovations or the creation of a youth center, than were American journalists.3During both wars, questions have been raised about the absence of reporting on U.S. interests in the countries in which they were fighting. In Vietnam, manganese, rubber and minerals were of economic interest to the U.S. In Iraq, of course, it was oil. The possibility that t he U.S. had less than noble reasons for entering into these wars was rarely addressed in mainstream media.Media influenceThere are differing opinions on whether the media actually influenced the Vietnam or Iraq wars or whether they simply provided documentation of what was happening. As the above examples show, some commentators believe that the media did affect events by making it easier for the government to wage war through fraudulent reporting, or by negatively affecting the morale of American soldiers and citizens.Contrarily, the organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) claims that the media has been falsely accused of affecting the war.4 According to FAIR, reporters merely reflect the opinions and concerns of the public. As reporter Chris Hedges stated â€Å"when everyone's waving a flag, the media waves a flag. When middle class families start wondering why their boy is coming home in a rubber bag, then the media starts asking questions too.†1Regardless o f whether they merely presented or actually influenced the Vietnam and Iraq wars, it’s clear that the media encountered similar challenges during both wars. Despite all the changes that occurred in the 40-plus years between the two wars and the fact that confidence in mainstream media waned in that time, the public still looked to the media to help them understand the facts and to represent their interests when they were concerned about the actions being taken.Works Cited1) â€Å"Which side are you on?† Episode 2, Reporting America at War. PBS, November, 2003. Online transcript www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/about/ep02_transcript.html2) Solomon, Norman. Adapted from keynote speech at annual awards ceremony of Project Censored at Sonoma State University, CA, October 22, 2005. Online source3) Ryan, Tim. â€Å"Media and the Iraq War.† Editorial, San Diego Union-Tribune, January 30, 2005.4) Cohen, Jeff. â€Å"The Myth of the Media’s Role in Vietnam.à ¢â‚¬  May 6, 2001. http://www.fair.org/indexAphp?page=2526

Friday, September 13, 2019

Of what value are the four key concepts of Organization & Identity Essay

Of what value are the four key concepts of Organization & Identity (Identity, power, inequality, insecuirty) for understanding p - Essay Example These theories attempt to provide a justification for the theorisation of organisations and businesses as we have today. They provide a basis for describing and analysing the structures and foundations of organisations in the world and how humanity evolved from an unstructured world to a system whereby the concept of work takes the centre-stage and organisations are at the forefront of societies. This paper examines four important concepts related to organisations: identity, power, inequality and insecurity. The paper would answer the research question: what is the value of the four concepts of organisation and identity provides for the conceptualisation and understanding of management practices and systems in organisations. In attaining this end, the following objectives would be examined: 1. An assessment of organisational behaviour and conceptualisation of organisations. 2. An examination of the concept of organisational identity and internal structures. 3. An evaluation of the po sition of power and inequality in organisations. 4. The conceptualisation of the distribution of power, insecurity and corporate justice. Portions of this paper would involve the writer's personal experiences as an importer. The writer has been involved in the importation of products from China into the UK. The writer makes his profits from the cost variations and differences in prices between China and the UK. This profit provides him with a source of livelihood and the potential of recreating this income generation opportunity in the form of an organisation is examined at various points in the essay. Organisational Behaviour & Conceptualisation of Organisations Knights and Morgen (1993) argue that consumptions marks the modern society. This is because in the world today, there is the free economy where people work and the are free to do whatever they want. Things are fixed by the concepts of demand and supply. Hence, there is the need for people to come together to define the syst em through which they can work and provide the best results and optimise resources. Consumerism is in vogue because people are not restricted and governments do not continue to wield the control that they had before the Second World War (Knights and Morgen, 1993). In most nations around the world, there is the freedom to run commercial entities and get things to happen. This has led to a trend where organisations run the affairs of individuals and groups in different parts of the world. Consumption tends to influence the way people come together to do things. Consumption is crucial in the world today and demand and supply define how things must be done and how resources should be allocated. This laissez-faire system has encouraged the creation of groupings for effective work and the attainment of results. Consumption trends provide the roadmap for people to put factors of production together to attain results. This has provided the impetus for the creation of businesses and organisa tions in different parts of the world. The the trends in consumerism has provided the impetus for corporate entities to come together and grow as they pursue their economic ends through the provision of goods and services for consumers to use to satisfy their needs and aspirations. Drawing into my personal experience, I can identify that the importation industry revolves greatly around consumerism. In my sector of operations, most companies involved in the industry provide goods and services

Thursday, September 12, 2019

Kant vs. Mill Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Kant vs. Mill - Essay Example In other words, he says that one must act in a manner that one would expect others to act towards oneself. This Kantian ethical theory is popular because it is widely respected and consequently upheld by others. Mills’ ‘greatest happiness principle’ widely known as utilitarianism is fundamentally focused on the consequences of actions taken. He believed in the philosophy that actions, which result in maximum happiness for maximum number of people, are invariable good and therefore, the end justifies the means if it generates happiness for people. Popularised as act utilitarian theory, the actions, that are designed to benefit or have beneficial cascading effects on others, are morally and ethically right. Bentham propagates Mills’ theory and says ‘when choosing a course of action, one should always pick the one that will maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness for the greatest number of people’ (Bentham from Rosenstand p.176). I agree with Kant that trash should not be thrown out of the car window on the freeway primarily because Kant is quite vociferous on the issue that respect for others must become part of our actions and people must act appropriately. Throwing trash not only promotes the bad habit of scattering trash all over the place, even if it is a freeway, but it also violates the law of the state that encourages cleanliness, good habits amongst the citizens and ensures safety of other road users. Despite being a freeway, the people must ensure that their acts do not hurt the other people and throwing trash out of the window could inadvertently hurt people who could be passing by. Mills response to the issue is ridiculous because although cleaning lanes does provide employment to a segment of the people but at the same time, deliberately throwing trash would hurt the sensibilities of a lot more people! It must be understood that people are living within a defined parameters of a social framework. Hence, well being of

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

E-commerce and Marketing Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

E-commerce and Marketing - Assignment Example The aim of this paper is to examine the importance of social media marketing. The different elements of social media have been highlighted and discussed. The paper also discusses the promotion strategies which Xazha a small scale retailer in United Kingdom is supposed to adopt so as to maximize their profits. Lastly the paper also includes the factors which the small scale enterprise is supposed to consider before adopting the promotion strategies. Social media Its application in marketing has highly increased and it is being used as a base for client development. The insight of marketing through the social media has shifted in a very high rate and it is no longer seen as a trendy but as a flexible means. The big three sites which are ; Facebook, twitter, and Google have become a part and parcel of any business whereby each retail is seeking for a place in the traditional and modernized market place (Jaffrey, 2011). According to a report released in the year 2012, almost 60% of the marketers are spending time online focusing on promoting their products. It was also found out that 43% of the people who are in the age group of (20-29) are spending approximately 10 hours or more in a week on the social Medias. Most of them are chatting or just browsing. 58% of the businesses which use the social medial for promoting their products have been reported to increase their sales in the previous three years (Jaffrey, 2011). Facebook The site is mainly used by the youths. They find new friends and view their friend’s pictures among other activities. However, Facebook has been adopted for advertising. The businesses are creating Facebook pages which the Facebook users are in a position to view. The businesses can then use the pages they have created to promote their products, build, the organization’s brand as well as offering deals (Jaffrey, 2011). Twitter Just like face

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

U05a1 Project Annotated Outline and Annotated Bibliography Essay

U05a1 Project Annotated Outline and Annotated Bibliography - Essay Example health care is completely covered for and is accessible to all. This is a very common topic for almost all Americans. b) This makes the topic very important as it will permit getting a clear understanding of where the health care sector is headed and what is the future for the health care of the middle class American families. The document provides a clear report on the effects of the patients protection and affordable care act of 2009. The document is detailed with a clear explanation of the act and is very helpful in developing the study further. The above mentioned document provides a clear summary of the act and also provides a detailed explanation of the theory and the overall study which is very helpful for this study. This is an overall very helpful paper and is helpful in completion of this research. Dorgan, B. L. (2010). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from Democratic Policy Committee: http://dpc.senate.gov/dpcdoc-sen_health_care_bill.cfm This website provides a detailed explanation of the act and is very insightful as it provides a through explanation of the topic and also provides insight into the benefits and drawback of the act as well. This website will prove to be very helpful for the research as it is a direct government website and is updated with the latest on the topic and all discussions regarding the topic are easily available in simple and straightforward language making it easier to follow and

Monday, September 9, 2019

Information Studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Information Studies - Essay Example Based on my readings, information literacy is the ability to know what information is needed to solve a problem, the skill to organize that information, and the intuition to know that a source of information is credible with the knowledge of where to look elsewhere. The concept of information literacy, then, is related to the epistemological problem of what is knowledge and what are the credible sources of knowledge, using modern terminology and more practical goals. For the Educational Testing Service, their assessment of Information Literacy is valid but it is not sound. The people in ETS have assumed that the population is more or less homogeneous. If that's the case, any result would be conclusive, and any mistake will like stem from an incompetent administrator of their assessment tool. However, their testing instrument is not sound since the population is more or less heterogeneous. They completely ignored the role of social classes. Different people from different classes will have different values on certain information. The better off a person, the larger is his or her social capital. This has created a digital divide. Formerly, it was just a problem of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Now, it is a problem of the rich knowing more and more by which to get richer and richer, while the poor will not learn enough to get rich or even a decent living. Until these issu Until these issues are resolved, I hold that the Educational Testing Services must revise their instrument, assumptions, and methodologies so that information literacy can be accurately and reliably measure across differently types of people in the country. 2. A group of software developers has recently published a letter to president Obama encouraging the new administration to adopt open source software in the government's IT infrastructure. Imagine what arguments they may have to support the use open source software by government agencies. What might be some of the drawbacks associated with the government's use of open source software Using the pros and cons you outline, draw your own conclusion about whether the federal government should use open source software. Arguments for the use of open source software are as follows: With the global financial crisis hitting the major economies worldwide and the US government on deficit spending, it is only logical that the government should cut costs. Government financial officials are injecting taxpayers' money to salvage ailing financial institutions, even at the risk of hyperinflation due to artificially low interest rates. It is a fact that every few years, or even months, commercial software companies like Microsoft will release updates or new versions of commercial software. If governments or corporations will like the new features, they will have to purchase updates. Hence, more costs are involved. This can be prevented through the use of open source software. Since they are free, the government could save much from potential expenditures. Besides, monopolies like Microsoft must not be tolerated. If the government could show some support to independent software developers, then true competition and capitalism could help lower the cost of commercial software. The public will benefit, and improved features can be expected. The arguments against the use of Open Source are as follows: Open Source software are not as used as commercial softwar

Sunday, September 8, 2019

Training and Development (7) Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Training and Development (7) - Assignment Example The career development model would set specific target for employees, and therefore employees may be eager to achieve their targets as fast as possible. In order to gain better career achievements, employees necessarily need to develop improved skills and capabilities. Hence, effective career management would encourage employees to actively participate in development activities. In short, career development model would greatly assist organizations to implement their training programs and development activities successfully. Benefits of Career Development to Companies Generally, companies are very interested in helping employees to plan their career because this strategy benefits firms to achieve their short term as well as long term objectives successfully. As discussed earlier, the career development model would assist companies to keep its employees motivated (career motivation) and this situation in turn may assist organizations to reduce issues like absenteeism and staff turnover to a great extent. As Lindner (1998) points out, motivated employees would be more productive relative to others and hence an organization can improve its profitability by helping employees plan their career. Another benefit of this policy is that it would assist companies to minimize worksite conflicts to a large extent, because motivated employees will always try to contribute to team efforts. However, companies also face some challenges while helping employees to plan their career. First, organizations need to raise additional funds to finance the career development program. Secondly, a firm’s top management has to spend a considerable amount of time to operate the career development model. Components of Career Motivation Career resilience, career insight, and career identity are the three components of career motivation. Career resilience can be simply defined as the extent to which employees are capable of managing the problems that affect the efficiency of their work. â€Å"Career insight involves (1) how much employees know about their interests and their skill strengths and weaknesses and (2) their awareness of how these perceptions relate to their career goals† (Chapter 11). Finally, career identity refers to the extent to which employees are able to define their personal values in accordance with their nature of work. Career resilience is identified to be the most important component of career motivation whereas career insight appears to be the least important component. The level of career resilience is an important determinant of an employee’s commitment to the company. Hence, an employee with high level of career resilience can easily deal with his/her worksite problems and thereby contribute to the firm’s overall productivity. In contrast, an employee’s career insight does not directly influence the company’s operational efficiency as this component specifically relates to the employee’s career go als. Psychological Contract A psychological contract can be defined as â€Å"the expectations that employers and employees have about each other† (Chapter 11). The psychological contract reflects the view that the organization would provide long term employment and development opportunities to its employees if they stay with the company and maintain high level job performance. Pay increases and promotion may be the major