Non-Invasive Diagnostic Techniques

Non-Invasive diagnostic techniques| | X-rays| An X-ray machine is essentially a camera. Instead of visible light, however, it uses X-rays to expose the film. X-rays are like light in that they are electromagnetic waves, but they are more energetic so they can penetrate many materials to varying degrees. When the X-rays hit the film, they expose it just as light would. Since bone, fat, muscle, tumors and other masses all absorb X-rays at different levels, the image on the film lets you see different (distinct) structures inside the body because of the different levels of exposure on the film. Ultrasound| Ultrasound or ultrasonography is a medical imaging technique that uses high frequency sound waves and their echoes. The technique is similar to the echolocation used by bats, whales and dolphins, as well as SONAR used by submarines. | Thermography| | MRI| MRI scanners vary in size and shape, and some newer models have a greater degree of openness around the sides. Still, the basic des ign is the same, and the patient is pushed into a tube that's only about 24 inches (60 centimetres) in diameter.The biggest and most important component of an MRI system is the magnet. There is a horizontal tube — the same one the patient enters — running through the magnet from front to back. This tube is known as the bore. But this isn't just any magnet — we're dealing with an incredibly strong system here, one capable of producing a large, stable magnetic field. The strength of a magnet in an MRI system is rated using a unit of measure known as a tesla.Another unit of measure commonly used with magnets is the gauss (1 tesla = 10,000 gauss). The magnets in use today in MRI systems create a magnetic field of 0. 5-tesla to 2. 0-tesla, or 5,000 to 20,000 gauss. When you realize that the Earth's magnetic field measures 0. 5 gauss, you can see how powerful these magnets are. Most MRI systems use a superconducting magnet, which consists of many coils or windings of wire through which a current of electricity is passed, creating a magnetic field of up to 2. 0 tesla.Maintaining such a large magnetic field requires a good deal of energy, which is accomplished by superconductivity, or reducing the resistance in the wires to almost zero. To do this, the wires are continually bathed in liquid helium at 452. 4 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (269. 1 below zero degrees Celsius) [source: Coyne]. This cold is insulated by a vacuum. While superconductive magnets are expensive, the strong magnetic field allows for the highest-quality imaging, and superconductivity keeps the system economical to operate. |

History †bisness plan Essay

The owners of Excel Hygiene have been colleagues in a company which operated on a national scale, converting urban organic waste in to natural fertilizers for crop production in farms. This company has decided to focus on the rural sector and does not wish to expand its urban operations. Its major customer group is of farmers and owners of plantations. It has considered and rejected plans to enter health care lines. The agriculture and rural marketing business, while voluminous, is subject to the vagaries of nature. It is also intensely competitive, with narrow margins and uncertain demand levels. The bio-medical waste sector, on the other hand, is a rapidly rising star on the economic horizon. Demand for health care services is growing and assured. The number of competitors, as seen earlier, is limited, and consequently the margins are relatively attractive. The sector demands very high levels of service, but pay-offs are matching. Biotechnology is versatile with many future sectors which Excel Hygiene can address. There are many useful microbes in nature and their isolation and culture is relatively easy for those in the know. The owners of Excel Hygiene have succeeded in preparing and agreeing on a business plan. The latter has found favor with venture capitalists looking for biotech opportunities, so the company could be funded without denting the personal savings of the promoters too seriously. A crucial factor has been the timeliness of the new enterprise, though its aggression in bidding for a substantial price premium from the beginning is founded more on technical considerations of the safety advantage than any standard financial or economic wisdom. Market Definition Excel Hygiene plans to be a niche player with a very conservative market share target of just 1%. The first reason for this is the high premium the company wishes to charge for its differentiated products and services. It is possible that hospitals and doctors who do not attach much value to safety will not be willing to pay the higher prices. Further, health care institutions are conservative customers, and will take time to accept services from a new provider. The financiers behind the new enterprise also prefer quick and assured payback with high percentage returns to large volumes and top line growth. The entry strategy of Excel Hygiene is to secure contracts in relatively low-risk units of top quality institutions. Word of mouth promotion is very important in the health care community, so the new enterprise has to ensure that the most prestigious customers join its ranks first. The risks of switching to a new service provider are daunting in life saving units, but it is much easier to induce switches in routine areas. Excel hygiene will target waiting areas, food preparation zones, and general wards for its entry, staying away from competitive strongholds in Intensive Care and Casualty units. Excel Hygiene plans to hold seminars and to participate in scientific meetings on infection control to ensure word of mouth promotion of its services and image. Special efforts will be made to make spokespeople out of the best known doctors, surgeons, and para-medical workers, so that branding has a firm and stable base. The financial plans provide for this first phase to last the first full year of operations, and the second year will be used to leverage the accumulated goodwill by tripling the relatively small revenues of the first year. Excel Hygiene will invest in free demonstrations of its services for the first 6 months, backed by microbiology tests. This is to establish the reliability of the company’s services and to prove the efficacies of its novel range of biological products. The company will aim to have the results of these trials published, so that the investment can result in high growth during the second year of operations. A final element of strategy will be to liaise with regulatory authorities for endorsement of the company’s novel products. This approach will help to consolidate the small market share that the company hopes to forge within 2 years, and to protect its revenues during the subsequent years. The company hopes to excel by defining its business scope, territorial spread, and customer definition very tightly, seeking to specialize in a niche area. The emphasis is also on reassuring financiers since the company does not have a prior establishment in the market of substantial fixed asset covers. This conservative approach may be reviewed once the company has achieved its targets for the first five years. Quantitatively, Excel Hygiene targets net revenues of $500 thousand in the first year, rising to over $2 million by year 5. However, the major growth is expected during the second year itself. The infrastructure which has been planned will not allow full service coverage of more than 500 client units at a time within the designated territory. Hence, growth from the third year onwards will be marginal. It is typical in this business to suffer some client turnover, though it is equally possible to canvass for new contracts. Incineration and treatment capacities are other constraints to bear in mind.

Analysis Of Ron Clark’s Life

Analysis Of Ron Clarks Life Ron Clark, an American teacher, has a different and unique way of teaching kids and making a difference in their lives. He is spreading the message to other educators by turning the classroom around for students in the United States. Clark is changing the lives of children through his motivation and determination and discovering â€Å"untapped† potential in students in order for them to become the best that they can be. Clark’s childhood and young adult experiences are what makes him passionate about life, which in turn allows him inspire and educate his students. Throughout college, he found that his one true love in life was adventure (â€Å"Essential 55† 159). Because of his love for adventure, Clark had some wild moments. For example he ran across a football field that was being broadcasted nationally while being chased by the police (â€Å"Essential 55† 43). He never thought that he would become a teacher. Clark once said, â€Å"The time I have spen t teaching children lessons has been wonderful, and I can’t imagine doing anything other than teaching. That is ironic, however, because when I was growing up, being a teacher was the last thing I wanted to do† (â€Å"Essential 55† xii). His experiences from his youth are his foundation of balancing fun and learning in his classroom. He puts himself in the mind-set of the children in order to let the students understand the information. For example, he remembers â€Å"sitting in classes, while reading as a group. Sometimesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦I would stare at the page and daydream about anything† (â€Å"Excellent 11† 46). In order for his student’s not to feel the same way in class, â€Å"I read with force, energy, and expression. Sometimes while reading I’ll jump on a student’s desk, scream at the top of my lungs, or fall to the floor† (â€Å"Excellent 11† 49). Through these actions of making the classroom more entertai ning, it illustrates that he is willing to think outside the box until he finds the best way to help kids learn. Since the students can genuinely see the efforts he puts into each day, they will be more willing to put effort towards achieving their goals in the classroom. By holding on to his childhood memories, he is able to become a deeper person and to become a role model to his students. Since his mother wanted him to stay put, Clark became a fifth grade teacher at Snowden Elementary School, where many of the students had behavior problems and learning disabilities (â€Å"Essential 55† xi) Even though he had just begun teaching, Clark was slowly changing the world of education. Over the next few years in the classroom, his experiences were filled with ups and downs, with invitations to the White House, trips around the world and projects that captured world wide attention. These events show how much effort he puts into molding his students into responsible adults (â€Å" Essential 55† 3) Through his out of the box teaching style, he is not only teaching the curriculum, but also pushing them slowly into the modern world. By creating an adventure for kids, he is allowing his students to learn from experience by letting them to learn from their mistakes, to build trust and to encourage them to become better students. Clark started his own adventure when he left rural North Carolina to go teach at Harlem in New York City (Miners). He states that â€Å"Moving there opened my eyes, my heart, and my mind to experiences I never would have had otherwise† (Clark). Even though it was hard to move to a new city, he was glad that he just went for it (â€Å"Excellent 11† 37). By putting that same courage and determination into student’s lives, it can teach them to face their fears, and give them the urge to follow their dreams. Clark sets an example by following his heart, thus building a vision of how students should live their lives.

The Evolution of Financial Reporting in Kuwait Essay

The Evolution of Financial Reporting in Kuwait - Essay Example In general, the Kuwaiti government decided to take a macroeconomic approach to regulation, i.e., to take an active, interventionist position and dictate rules and regulations to the private sector. This paternalistic, protective approach is known as Kafala (Sponsorship of the State). Thus, laws were passed that outlined the responsibilities of companies to provide regular financial reports and to establish the enforcement agencies in the government. Explicit authority was given to the Registrar of Companies in Kuwait to regulate accounting. The Registrar has developed the detailed administrative guidelines indicating how companies should file their annual reports. In this way, the Registrar can control the quality of domestic accounting. In addition, the government began taking steps to monitor the economy and had to have accurate financial data. At the same time, the regulations should allow enough flexibility in the choice of financial accounting to not only provide a level playing field but also encourage entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Businesses soon learned the value of accurate financial data. In this regard, the importance of private sector associations and regulatory bodies in the establishment of standards cannot be overestimated. Eventually, as the private sector grows and matures, more and more responsibility for accounting practices will fall to the private associations as long as they remain within the framework of reporting rules proscribed by the law, by administrative pronouncement, and by practices developed by International Accounting Standards (IAS). These accounting associations are crucial in maintaining proper standards and will become even more important in the future. Financial reporting has evolved along two separate but parallel lines: Accounting Securities and the Stock Exchange. 4.2: Laws Affecting Accounting: The first law concerning accounting defines the qualifications needed to practice the profession and was passed in 1962. At first, the authority was given to the Ministry of Finance and Economy, but a few years later, it was passed to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry which now issues the licenses. Many of the articles in this law outline requirements: registrants must be of good moral character,

Problem Analysis Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Problem Analysis Report - Essay Example The minute a human being enters and becomes part of an organization, private or public, the interactions that take place within the different individuals is of an imperative stature. The variation that takes place over here is in the kind of interaction that takes place between such individuals. In most of the circumstances the communication or the interaction that takes place is more likely to be based upon the human weakness of bending towards the emotional construct of the human nature that upon the notion of objectivity or fairness. A sycophant is a person who is only concerned and in some cases obsessed with self-interest and utterly survives on the constant flattering of the influential people i.e. people who are either in power or have the possession of wealth. Such a person’s actions are conducted at the expense of his or her self-respect, dignity, and self-esteem – a manner also referred to as obsequiousness. Now the question or the problem that underlies over here is the fundamental query that, what are the stakeholders that are affected by the sycophantic culture? And if this is the case then, to what extent is this culture prevalent in our organizations†¦ For the record, it might not be very astonishing, the fact, if one was to make a statement that the element of sycophancy is present in every single organization of our era – irrespective of any degree of modernity displayed by the organizations. But the question that further arises over here is that how or why did the sycophancy attitude develop in the first place? Is the desire to associate yourself with the icons of power and wealth so strong that it practically fades out the principles of justice and impartiality? â€Å"Sycophantic behavior begins early in the educational system. Criticism is usually unwanted by institutions. The perks, benefits and privileges of power are too important to tolerate criticism, especially anything

What is the difference between trafficking and smuggling Essay

What is the difference between trafficking and smuggling - Essay Example Human smuggling involves bringing illegal aliens into a country, in addition to the illegal transportation and harboring of foreigners already in that country. On the other hand, human trafficking centers much on exploitation and is in most instances defined as sex trafficking whereby a commercial sex action gets stimulated by coercion, fraud or force or in which an individual forced to do such an action is a minor. It can also have the definition as the recruitment, transportation, harboring, obtaining and provision of an individual’s labor via coercion, fraud or force for the intention of subjection to forced servitude, debt bondage, slavery or peonage1. Generally, human trafficking and smuggling has become one of the greatest global problems and is considered to be among the world’s most degrading and shameful crimes, that impacts on the lives of several individuals around the globe and robbing such individuals their dignity. The traffickers and smugglers deceive women, children and even men from all sections of the globe and coerce or force them into daily exploitative situations. Globally, trafficking is considered much worse than smuggling and the most identifiable type of human trafficking is trafficking that intends to put a victim into sexual exploitation. Most people, however, do not know that this crime takes place with the intention of child begging, forced labor, removal of body organs, and domestic servitude2. In 2005, the ILO estimates indicated that, worldwide, there exist about 2.4 million human smuggling and trafficking victims at any given instance. A recent research study on the overall trends of forced labor however would propose that the extent of the crisis is much greater. In Asia, for instance, more than 140,000 victims are forced into violent and humiliating conditions because of sexual exploitation. Additionally, one out of seven of the prostitutes in the region most probably ended up forced

Female Prisoners Sexually Abused and Sold by Correctional Officers OR Article

Female Prisoners Sexually Abused and Sold by Correctional Officers OR Female Prisoner Impregnated by Correctional Officers - Article Example This implies that men do not have direct contact with female inmates. In the United States, male guards were not allowed to come into direct contact with female prisoners until 1964 Civil Rights Act (Figueira-McDonough & Sarri, 2002). About forty percent of women prison guards were men, and they had direct contact with the prisoners by the year 2007. The United States had 93,031 prisoners by the end of 2001. Women are incarcerated because of the increased war on drugs. The rapid increase of the population of women prisoners was not anticipated by the male dominated prison industry. Although United States prisons are for correcting offenders, most of the female prisons lack the facilities of accommodating healthcare, mental, and social needs of the prisoners (Parker, 2002). The number of women prisoners has been on the rise over the recent years in the United States but most of them do not face violent charges as opposed to men. Women prisoners have different experiences to those of men because women menstruate, and are very much affected by losing their children to Child Protective Services (Parker, 2002). Majority of women convicts are sexually or physically abused before they are convicted or are drug addicts. Men make up the majority of prisoners in the United States but the rate of the increase of number of women prisoners is worrying because it is more than that of men. Incarcerated women tend to form structures similar to those of families in a bid to ensure that they live, as they would have in the society. On the contrary, men become aggressive and isolate themselves from the other inmates (Rudolf, 2012). Increase in the number of female prisoners has resulted in the need of increased number of prison staff. Men are not emotionally or physically affected by incarceration as women are. This is because women are faced with the daunting task of facing sexual abuse in prisons. This can be attributed to the fact that the number of men staffing

Enterprise Resource Planning Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Enterprise Resource Planning - Research Paper Example According to "The Conference Board" despite the expenditure of millions of dollars and the work of numerous staff people, 60% of ERP projects fail to deliver the results expected of them. This means that 6 out of 10 ERP projects are either not on time, and/or budget, and/or don't deliver the value expected from them a year or more after launch. Additionally, the study found that, in most cases, implementation costs are 25% over budget. (Dudley Cooke, 2001) This paper will review the most frequent problems encountered, recommend strategies to overcome these obstacles and evaluate the potential to implement ERP systems in organizations. Criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of ERP systems include benefits, functional requirements, hardware requirements, risks associated with implementing an ERP system, and cost. We have seen the industry statistics and know there are issues as well, now the pertinent question is to ask: what are the main causes of ERP failure and what can be done to prevent this from happening The implementation of an ERP project requires the acceptance, compliance, and commitment of a wide range of people: 'Implementing any integrated ERP solution is not so much a technological exercise but an "organizational revolution". Extensive preparation before implementation is the key to success' (Bingi, Sharma et al., 1999). Many experts such as King (1997) regard the need to secure a commitment to a course of action as possibly a more important issue than the determination of the most appropriate evaluation technique. The point here is that achieving positive attitudes and behaviors (especially those of the top management) directed towards a certain outcome may provide benefits that exceed those that can be attained from pushing for the optimum levels of choice. The tendency of top management to delegate the supervision of an ERP implementation to lower management levels usually results in being out of touch with critical events, or the lack of understanding of the scope, size, and technical aspects of the project, and subsequently, the proper commitment of time and resources required for a successful implementation. The result is a failure in the waiting. Involvement of the lower cadre is good but should not be at the expense of the top management being ignorant. Despite the fact that over 90% of companies that have installed ERP admit that they did not do enough to manage organizational turmoil (resulting from the implementation of ERP), most do not even have a clue as to how to minimize organizational distress nor to make it all seem worthwhile (Dudley Cooke, 2001). In my opinion, it is the responsibility of the top management to take charge and manage the change.  

Healing in Marks Gospel Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Healing in Marks Gospel - Essay Example Further we will see that it is very arguable point. All cases of healing in Mark can be split into two broad categories: healing itself, and casting out demons and unclean spirits. The former one includes healing from fever, leprosy, paralysis, withered hand, haemorrhage, death, deafness, blindness, and in the latter one there are numerous instances of exorcism. When Jesus cast out an unclean spirit in Capernaum, it "convulsing him [a man] and crying with a loud voice, came out of him" (Mk 2:26). Whenever we read about demons and evil spirits we must remember that it's a common reference for mentally sick people of ancient and medieval times. Possessed ones actually had hysteria or various kinds of mental disorders (Crombie, 1964); belief in somebody's divinity could be a shock strong enough to cure themselves. It is important to note that at least in some cases (or even maybe in every one) it was a sick person healing himself, and Jesus was simply an agent, a catalyst. Crowds gathered around Jesus, for they believed that even a touch of his clothes could remove disease (Mark 5:28). A woman suffering from haemorrhage was healed, or maybe we should say "self-healed" in this way - in Mark 5:24-34 it is clearly shown. The woman thought that she would be healed if had touched Jesus' clothes, she believed in it. Notice that the meaning of "belief" has at least two different meanings: you can believe that Earth is round (in fact, it's a flattened sphere) but it doesn't affect your feelings, since you're not an ancient astronomer questioning the contrary. And there is belief that is somehow connected with your welfare, health or even life. Sometimes it grows up to the stage of temporary insanity, and a stress situation can have a great impact on individual. In our case we see the latter situation: "your faith has made you well" (Mark 5:34). Then the author adds: "go in peace, and be healed of your disease" to emphasise the role of Jesus. If we agree to the aforesaid, we must agree that disbelief works in adverse way. When Jesus returned to his hometown, there was no sensation, for they remember him to be just a son of carpenter. Men in synagogue demonstrated hostility against him and "he could do no deed of power there" (Mark 6:5), though healed a few people. About the same way Jesus healed Simon's mother-in-law, who had fever (Mark 1:29); a paralysed man (Mark 2); a man with a withered hand (Mark 3:5); a deaf man near Decapolis (Mark 7:31-35); a blind man in Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26) and near Jericho (Mark 10:46-52) and a multitude of people whose diseases are not mentioned. Actually, it doesn't matter what disease was healed; it matters, how it was healed. Sanders in his book "The Historical Figure of Jesus" (Sanders, 1996, especially chapter 17) goes further and also asks about perception specifics of ancient men, what they thought they saw and what really happened. Why the blind man in Bethsaida wasn't healed from the first attempt There may be many suggestions, but I think it's because of author's attitude towards prayers. Compare the case of epileptic boy, when Jesus' disciples were unable to heal him; there Jesus emphasised the importance of prayer and faith. We don't have to pay attention on imaginary

How engineering has a negative impact on the natural environment Essay

How engineering has a negative impact on the natural environment - Essay Example Conferring to Balaban (2012), constructions are huge contributors to ecological deterioration. Moreover, it is quite clear that additional actions are required in order to make the building activities and the built environment ecological. Construction activities are among the major exploiters of both non-renewable and renewable natural resources. It depends profoundly on the natural environment to acquire raw materials that are used in these activities. These raw materials comprise of sand, timber, and aggregate for the construction process. According to Horvath (2004), the construction activities devours 40% of the globe’s sand, gravel, and raw stones and 25% of the virgin timber annually. Additionally, it devours 16% of water and 40% of the energy. The mining of these natural resources brings about permanent alterations to the natural ecology of the coastal areas and the countryside, both from a scenic and an ecological point of view. The following transformation of these zones into geographically dispersed locations not only brings about extra consumption of energy, but also upsurges the volume of particulate matter into the air. Construction activities and the extraction of raw materials also contribute to the build-up of pollutants in the air. The United States construction activities done by engineers is responsible for 20% of the waste found in water, 40% of the emissions to the atmosphere and 13% comprise of further releases. Dust and other releases comprise of particular poisonous substances such as sulp hur oxides and nitrogen. They are released in the course of transportation and production of materials along with from site activities. They have triggered serious dangers to the natural ecology. Further, dangerous materials like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are applied in fire-fighting systems, refrigeration plants, air conditioning, and insulation and have serious effects on the ozone layer. The ozone is a vapour

The various market entry strategies Essay Example for Free

The various market entry strategies Essay Research Objectives: This research is undertaken to identify, analyze and evaluate the various market entry strategies in global markets. Specifically, the research will examine exporting, franchising, acquisition, merger, wholly owned subsidiaries and joint ventures. Furthermore, the research will also analyze entry strategies implemented by a number of multinational corporations operating in different industries. Finally, the research will conclude with the factors that need to be examined and investigated before entering a global market. General Introduction: Multinational firms deciding how to enter or operate in a global market must carefully and precisely take into consideration many critical factors including the local business environment in addition to the firm’s own core competencies. An entry mode is defined by Wild Wild (2012) as â€Å"the institutional arrangement by which a firm gets its products, technologies, human skills, or other resources into a market.† (Wild Wild, 2012, p.358) Wheleen Hunger (2010) stated that research had indicated that growing globally is linked with the organization’s profitability. This means that firm’s who are looking for ways to increase their long-term profitability, are now looking for profitable and appropriate markets to offer their products and or services. A firm can select from a number of strategic options the most appropriate method for entering a global market or establishing production plans in another nation. Zekiri Angelova (2011) argued that Firms that want to internationalize must decide on a fitting mode of entry into a foreign market in order to make the best use of their resources. â€Å"The age of globalization has both facilitated and necessitated businesses to move towards the internationalization of organizations of all sizes.† (Wood and Robertson, as cited in Zekiri Angelova, 2011, p.573). There are many different modes of entering into foreign markets. Each mode has its strengths and weaknesses in general terms. However, Zekiri (2011) explained that each single multinational firm would be more attracted to a type mode depending on their backgrounds, nature of the company, strategic objectives as well as the resources. In many cases, there are many obstacles that companies have to meet while deciding to enter other markets, for example; safety, environmental, packaging, labeling, patents, trademarks and copyrights, are factors that businesses depend on being successful. Moreover, It should be stated that the local business environment in terms of political, technological, legal, environmental, and cultural factors should be deeply studied to assess the attractiveness of the target market. This argument is also supported by Zekiri Angelova (2011) as he stated â€Å"it is difficult to understand the business environment in a country without studying the current politic al system and institutions, government policies, and a variety of data and other information on the country’s economy.† (Zekiri, 2011, p.573) Kotler Armstrong (2008) as well as Chung Enderwich (2001) explained that some of the benefits associated with operating on international basis are the increased profits and sales growth, the chances of achieving both economies of scale and location economies. Zekiri Angelova (2011) also added that many firms are operating on international basis for better opportunities and profit potential in emerging markets such as (India, China, Brazil and Russia) As globalization now is fostering international operations as nations are being more open to trade and foreign investment opportunities. Global Market Entry Strategies: Advantages and Disadvantages Exporting: According to many researchers including Wheleen Hunger (2010), Kotler Armstrong (2009), and Chung Enderwich (2011) exporting is one of the most basic and simplest entry strategies as it minimizes the risk and experiment with a specific product. Shaver (2009) defined exporting as â€Å"the production of goods at home that are sold in foreign markets.† (Shaver, 2009, p.1047) in other words, products are shipped from the home country to other countries for marketing. Wheleen Hunger (2010) stated that the company could either choose to handle all critical functions itself or could contract these functions to export management companies. The main benefits of exporting are its simplicity and low cost of investment and risk. Consequently, exporting could be seen as the first entry method used by organizations in order to obtain knowledge of the foreign market. Other advantages of exporting are increased utilization of the domestic plant, thus using idle capacity and reducing unit costs through economies of scale. Exporting also helps in diversifying markets, which reduces the company’s exposure to domestic demand instability. On the other hand, the disadvantages of exporting include high transportation fees trade barriers, tariffs, quotas, and problems with local agents. In addition, exporters have lower control of distribution and local agents. Moreover, Shaver (2009) noted that companies engaging in exporting could face the potential risk of exchange rate fluctuations, and could be subject to custom duties and taxes in the importing counties. Zekiri Angelova (2011) although exporting costs are relatively low compared with the other entry methods, to enter and develop these markets exporters usually incur costs to gain exposure, set up sales and distribution networks, and attract customers. Furthermore, cultural barriers could forces companies to modify or redesign their products including labeling and packaging for the purpose of meeting consumers’ preferences/tastes and local requirements. From on own point of view, which was not discussed by any of the previous authors and researchers, is that exporting is hindering a firm’s ability to quickly respond to the changing needs of target consumers. Franchising: Franchising is one of the global entry modes that has been widely used as a quick method of global expansion, most notably by multinational fast food and retail chains such as (KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks). According to Wheleen Hunger (2010), under a franchising agreement, the franchiser offers rights to another party to open a retail store using the franchiser’s name and operating system. In other words, by the payment of a royalty fee, the franchisee will obtain the major business know-how via an agreement with the franchiser. Franchising is most commonly used in a number of American service industries, such as McDonald’s, KFC, and Starbucks etc. from an own point of view, franchisers are constantly demonstrating their ability to adapt and modify their product offering to suit local tastes and preferences. This is especially true in McDonald’s, which offers different menus in different nations. McDonald’s brand is still internationally consistent, but service staff and menu choices can be modified to local needs. According to Roland Berger Tata strategic management group (2009) McDonald’s in India was able to create localized products where it did not serve hamburger meals as some religions in India prohibits the consuming meat. Instead McDonald’s served vegetarian and chicken meals that gained the favorability of most Indian consumers. Holmes (2003) stated a major disadvantage associated with entering global markets via franchisee agreements. Firstly, he stated that franchisers might find it difficult to manage a large number of franchisees in a variety of national markets. The major issue in franchisee agreements is that product and service quality in addition to promotional messages among franchisees will not be consistent or similar from one market to another. Another major disadvantage discussed by Wild Wild (2012) is franchisees can experience a loss of organizational flexibility in franchising agreements. â€Å"Franchise contracts can restrict their strategic and tactical options and they may even be forced to promote products by the franchiser’s other division. Dahlstrom, Duncan, Ramsay, Amburgey (2004) explained that when PepsiCo used to own the global fast-food chains Pizza Hut and KFC, it used to force franchisees to sell its beverages to their consumers which gained the criticism of many franch isees worldwide. Acquisitions: As Wheleen Hunger (2010) explained a fast way used by heavy multinational corporations in different industries to operate into a desired and profitable global market is through â€Å"purchasing another company already operating in that area.† One of the benefits that he clearly discussed is the synergistic benefits could be acquired if the firm acquires another company having strong complementary product lines and a good distribution network. Lahovnik (2011) argued that acquisitions have been the most popular growth strategy for decades in the US economy. He explained that the 1990s and 2000s also featured a markedly increased volume of European mergers and acquisitions. Economic growth, deregulation and the development of the common European economy accelerated the acquisition process in EU countries. He also noted that the number of acquisitions has also risen in economies in transition. Horizontal acquisitions are the most popular and most frequently pursued acquisition type. From the strategic perspective, the key questions are whether and how an acquirer will restructure the company, and how this will contribute to the acquired company’s competitive advantage. For instance, According to UPI (2012) Boeing is continuing to advance its defense logistics support portfolio with the acquisition of California Company Miro Technologies, a Boeing supplier. UPI (2012) further explains that Miro was a privately held software company specializing in enterprise asset and supply chain management; maintenance, repair and overhaul services; and performance-based logistics management. It will become part of Boeings Global Services and Support business within Boeing Defense, Space and Security. Boeings services and logistics business has grown significantly in recent years and Miro has been a trusted technology partner during that time. (Parasida, as cited in UPI, 2012) Specifically, the acquisition expands GSS product offerings for linking and fusing data from existing systems to improve mission readiness and to reduce sustainment costs. Some of the major advantages that acquisitions provide to multi-national firms are the following. First, Riley (2012) stated that firms could have quick access to resources both physical and human as well as potential skills and competencies. Secondly, economies of scale could be achieved which helps spread the risk through wider range of products and greater geographical spread. However, from an own point of view, the main drawback of acquiring other companies from a different nation is the clash of cultures. From instance, when Wal-Mart decided to enter the European market through Germany it acquired two `German retailers however, the two acquired companies had a totally different corporate culture which prohibited Wal-Mart from integrating its corporate culture into the newly acquired companies. Therefore, from an own point of Wal-Mart’s entry in the German market through acquisition could have been more successful if Wal-Mart carefully studied the various German retailers and appropriately chose a profitable German retailer that is characterized with a culture that is not highly differentiated from Wal-Mart’s corporate culture and can be integrated easily into Wal-Mart’s. Also the acquired companies should have given Wal-Mart a unique opportunity to effectively compete with the aggressive competition in the Retailing industry and offer a unique and innovative value proposition that is not offered by others. Mergers: According to Investopedia (2010) In the pure sense of the term, a merger happens when two firms, often of about the same size, agree to go forward as a single new company rather than remain separately owned and operated. This kind of action is more precisely referred to as a merger of equals. Both companies stocks are surrendered and new company stock is issued in its place. For example, both Daimler-Benz and Chrysler ceased to exist when the two firms merged, and a new company, DaimlerChrysler, was created. Schamotter (2012) stated that the mergers could benefit both companies in various ways. Firstly, A merged company can reduce many of its expenses. Budgets for things like marketing might be shared, while the new, larger company enjoys greater purchasing power, which lowers the costs of raw materials and other necessities. More often than not, a merger results in staff layoffs as positions become redundant in the new single entity. Merged companies can also share office space and eliminate duplicate manufacturing facilities. Secondly, Schamattor (2012) explains that by merging, the new company is theoretically provided with access to more customers. This is true if the individual companies had been demonstrably successful in separate markets, as opposed to roughly equally competing in the same one. For example, according to the BBC, the merger of the German automaker Daimler Benz with the American automaker Chrysler Corp. allowed the new company, Daimler Benz, to access markets in both Europe and North America. Merged companies can offer a greater range of products and services. Because these may be complimentary, the merged company may be able to capture more consumers than they would as individual entities. Moreover, the research firmly believes that merged companies can access a diversified set of intellectual capital through different human skills and competencies that could be used as a platform from conti nuous innovation and new product development. On the contrary, mergers could harm both companies if a clash of culture does exist. Just like acquisitions, a firm merging with another firm from a different culture could lead to decline in the firm’s performance, unsatisfied employees, and more importantly loss of shareholder’s value and decline in the market performance. These arguments are supported by both Wild Wild (2012) and Chung Enderwich (2011) as they both argued that lack of cross-cultural competence is the barrier to an effective and long-term mergers. Joint Ventures: In some situations or circumstances, many multinational firms prefer to share ownership of an operation rather than complete ownership. Joint ventures differs from mergers in the sense that in joint ventures â€Å"a separate company is created and jointly owned by two or more independent entities to achieve a common business goal. The partners could be private firms, government agencies, or public companies (companies owned by the government). For example, BP was forced according to the law in Egypt to form a joint venture with the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) has made our joint venture, GUPCO, an industry leader and one of the largest oil and gas operations in the entire region. Moreover, BP Egypt has another joint venture with United Gas Derivatives Company (UGDC), owns and operates the largest natural gas liquids (NGL) plant in Egypt. Wild Wild (2012) discussed some of the advantages of joint ventures. First, they argued that companies do rely on joint ventures to reduce risk. In other words, a company can use a joint venture to learn about the local business environment before operating solely. Secondly, they argued that companies can use joint ventures to penetrate international markets that are other wise off limits. Some governments do design and implement laws that force foreign companies to share ownership with domestic firms. Finally, â€Å"a company can gain access to another company’s international distribution networks through the use of joint ventures.† (Worley Worley, 2012, p.374) Among the disadvantages of joint ventures, conflict of ownership might arise between the two parties. Also Worley Worley (2012) added that conflict can also arise from disagreements over how future investments and profits are to be shared. Secondly, they are stated that loss of control over a joint venture’s operations can also result when the local government is a partner in the venture. Where governments could decide to nationalize the company and takes full ownership of the venture. Conclusion: To conclude, the choice of the entry mode has many important strategic implications for a firm’s long-term operations. Firms do spend a large sum of money and devote much of their time in determining the most efficient and effective way to enter the desired global market. From an own point of view, which is also supported by the work of Worley Worley (2012), Zekiri Angelova (2011) and Kotler Armstrong (2008) one of the critical activities that needs to be conducted before the entry choice is to analyze and evaluate both the opportunities and threats present in the local business environment of the host country. The culture, which is the set of values, beliefs and norms greatly differ from one country to another and could negatively or positively influence the firm’s performance. Wal-Mart’s failure in Germany was the result of the lack of intercultural competence. The political and legal environment could serve as an opportunity or threat for a specific firm. For example, political instability in a target market increases the risk of investment. Certain import regulations such as high tariffs, or low quota limits can discourage a firm to export its products to this country. Also local content requirements by governments could force multinational corporations to use local resources which might not be meeting the quality standards. Bibliography: 1- Wild, J Wild, K. (2012). â€Å"International business: the challenges of globalization.† (6th ed.). London: Pearson Education 2- Wheleen, T. Hunger, D. (2010). â€Å"Strategic management and business policy†. (12th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education 3- Kotler, P. Armstrong, G. (2008). â€Å"Principles of marketing.† (12th ed.). New Jersey: Peasron Education 4- Shaver, J. (2011). The benefits of geographic sales diversification: how exporting facilitates capital investment. Strategic Management Journal, 1046-1060. Retrieved from Ebscohost research database. 5- Zekiri, J. Angelova, B. (2011). Factors that influence entry mode choice in foreign markets. European Journal of Social Science, 4(22), 572-584. Retrieved from Ebscohost research database. 6- Roland Berger Tata Strategic Management Group. (2009). India: opportunities challenges. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=2ved=0CDcQFjABurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rolandberger.de% 2Fmedia%2Fpdf%2FRoland_Berger_India_Opportunities_20090706.pdfei=dj2-ULGmGczFswbcuIG4Dgusg=AFQjCNEwgEyYvYOggC_So6o_Mfx5S_CooQsig2=yoLcEuhmRXeawISVMaXBEg 7- Lahovnik, M. (2011). Strategic fit between business strategies in the post-acquisition period and acquisition performance. Retrieved from 8- Dahlstrom, R. Ramsay, R. Duncan, J. Amburgey, T. (2004). Cases in strategic-systems auditing. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=1ved=0CC8QFjAAurl=http%3A%2F%2Fbusiness.illinois.edu%2Fkpmg-uiuccases%2Fcases%2Ftricon%2FTricon.pdfei=mD6-UNzEKozAtAb-kYH4DQusg=AFQj

Summary of Story Essay Example for Free

Summary of Story Essay * A man of God, who went through the ups and downs of life, who walked through the valley and the shadow of death by choosing to ignore what God wants for him. He spent his early childhood as one who fears God, but as he grew old, he wandered away and chose a different path. As a teen, he had done nasty things and as he grew older, he became worse. He started doing bigger criminal works, even started using and dealing drugs. He was caught a couple of times, went in and out of prison, and still chooses to do bad things. But then came a night, when he double crossed one of his fellow drug dealers, he knew that they would come to seek and kill him for what he has done to them. As he tries to hide, avoid what’s coming, he turned to God. He asked God to save him, and if God would give him this favor, he will give his life to Him by coming back and serving Him. Henry’s story is somewhat alike to the story in the bible â€Å"The prodigal son†, for he chose to go away but later comes back for mercy and acceptance. We all make mistakes in our lives, but it’s never too late to ask God for forgiveness. God doesn’t look at a clock and counts how long a person has taken to ask for forgiveness. God is always more than willing to accept someone who seeks to be forgiven and guided through his life. Favorite line: â€Å"Faith is about doing, you are how you act and not just how you believe†¦Ã¢â‚¬  * Albert Lewis Faith is something that we may all believe. Even though it varies in form, process, rituals or language, it is always present anytime anywhere. Faith can be defined in many ways than one, but what’s important is how a person believes in it and lives with it. You can say you have faith but you cannot be called faithful unless you practice what you preach. Believing is not enough if you don’t fully understand what you believe in. Likewise, if you only believe in faith but you don’t give it as much importance as you give to other things, then it will be not more than just a word. As the saying goes, â€Å"actions speak louder than words†, so if you know how to embody and practice the faith you believe, then that defines that you are what you believe. Morale of the story: â€Å"Mistakes are ever present in our lives. But it’s our choice to do what is right and what is wrong. Life is full of challenges that may affect us in many ways. It’s always up to us to coupe up with life and face everything it has in stored for us†¦Ã¢â‚¬  In the story have a little faith; there are some citations that indicate some character that have committed something that was far from what is accepted. Here are some examples; the first one would be about Albert Lewis. It happened when he was studying to be ordained as a Rabbi, he failed to pass so he chose to stop and not to continue anymore. But then he came to know a boy who was so insubordinate and impolite. He tried his best to talk to the boy, loosen him so as for him to be understood. After a couple of days, the boy came home as a changed child. And with this, the boy’s family was so thankful for what Albert has done, and in coincidence the boy’s father was a pastor. The father convinced Albert to try again if he really wanted to be ordained as a pastor. Giving up for what you want will only lead to grief and unsatisfactory with one’s self.

Norwegian Health System Analysis

Norwegian Health System Analysis Organization and governance: The Norwegian health care system can best be described as a semi decentralized system. Municipalities are in charge of primary care and have the full responsibility of organizing health services on a local level. Since 2002, the four regional health authorities (RHAs) have been under state supervision and have been held responsible for specialist care. Counties’ role is confined to statutory dental care. The Ministry of Health is responsible for regulation and supervision of this framework, however many missions and assignments are mandated to different subordinate organisms. The ministry regulates the activities of its subordinate organisms through direct controlling in the case of national agencies, ownership arrangements such as budgets and letters of instructions (RHAs), and legislation and money-related instruments (counties and municipalities). It guarantees that health and social services are granted in line with national acts and regulations. Recently, inter-sectorial coordination has become an important tool in order to hinder social imbalances in health. In addition, more consideration has been dedicated to improve resource allocation (by emphasizing on the importance of health technology assessment and through priority settings), quality outcomes and patient safety. Since the beginning of 21st century, reinforcing patients’ role has become a top priority, for instan ce, through an overarching patient rights legislation handling issues such as patient choice and complaint procedures. Overview of the health system: The hierarchical structure of the Norwegian welfare system is based on the moral principal of equal access to healthcare services for all inhabitants irrespective of their social, economic or geographical residency. Norway has a three-tier healthcare system: national/state, regional health authorities (RHA) and municipalities (fig1.2). Counties play a small role in the health-care organization. The system is managed through an expansive number of acts and secondary legislation. Legislation mirrors the decentralized structure of the welfare system: specialist care is controlled by the Specialist Care Act of 1999 and the Health Authorities and Health trust Act of 2001, dental care is managed by the Dental Health Services Act of 1983 and primary care is regulated by the Municipal Health and Care Act of 2011. Other areas of care that encompass several hierarchical levels are managed by distinct acts: for instance, the Mental Care Act of 1999 and the Public Health Act of 2011. The government determines national priorities and the national budget is negotiated within the parliament. Almost all proposals presented to the parliament are studied in depth by an expert committee. The Standing Committee on Health and Care Services is in charge of matters related to health services, drug and alcohol policy, public health and pharmaceuticals. The overall responsibility for the health-care sector however, rests at the national level with the Ministry of Health and Care Services. The ministry determines the national health policy, prepares and oversees legislation, decides on the allocation of funds within the health sector (allocation of resources to health and other sectors is the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance), and implements national health policy with the help of several subordinate institutions (Directorate of Health, 2012c). The Ministry of Labor plays an indirect role in the welfare system, essentially through the Labor and Welfare Administration (NAV) that regulates various benefits regimens within the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), such as sick leave and disability compensation. The Ministry of Health and the Directorate of Health have been in charge of the healthcare budget in the overall NIS budget plan. This part of the budget is directed by the Norwegian Health Economics Administration HELFO. Historical Background: The directorate of Health was founded in 1945 and its work and the general health policy were inspired by the United Kingdom Beveridge Report (Kuhnle, 2006). The foundation of the NIS in 1967 (which was integrated into the NAV in 2006) was an imperative step towards attaining universal coverage of welfare services. The Regular General Practitioner (RGP) scheme was implemented, giving people the right to choose a general practitioner (GP) of their choice (to be subscribed on the GPs list). Since 2012, the Coordination Reform gave the municipalities a bigger financial responsibility regarding patients who are about to be discharged from hospitals. This reform also aims to amend coordination between the municipal level and the RHAs. Organization Central governance of the health system The ministry of Health puts national health regulations, elaborates major reforms and enforces their applications. The ministry via the RHAs has a direct obligation regarding the procurement of specialist care to patients. In addition, it has administrative control over a number of subordinate agencies (table 2.1, pages 21 and 47) Regional health authorities and hospital trust specialized health care There are four RHAs in Norway: Northern Norway RHA (Helse Nord), Central Norway RHA (Helse Midt Norge), Western Norway RHA (Helse Vest) and, the biggest, South-Eastern Norway RHA (Helse Sà ¸r Øst), covering nearly 55% of the population. The RHAs are in charge of the provision of specialized care and other specialized services including radiology, laboratory and ambulatory services. Presently, there are 27 health trusts managed by the RHAs. Counties dental care and public health In general, the Counties’ part in healthcare is restricted. They are primarily in charge of the procurement of statutory dental care. Municipalities primary care Municipalities are accountable for the procurement and financing of primary care. Moreover, they are accountable for a large scope of public health and preventive measures. Municipalities are not under the direct commands of the central authorities and have a lot of flexibility in arranging primary care services. Private health care sector The engagement of private actors in primary care is considerable. The majority of the general practitioner is self-employed. However, most GPs are integrated in the public system by contracting with municipalities. On the contrary, private pecuniary providers play a small role in the procurement of secondary care: less than 2% of hospital beds are in private profit-making hospitals. Radiology centers and laboratory services remain the major profit-making institutions (80% and 60% of GP referrals for respectively radiology and laboratory services were made to for-profit facilities in 2010) (Directorate of Health, 2012b). Associations of health care professionals The major associations are the Norwegian Medical Association (27000 members), the Dental Association (6300) and the Nurses Union (90000).These associations play a double role as trade union and professional associations. As professional associations, they are responsible for a large scope of activities, for example, trainings, education, health policies and ethics. As trade union, they aspire to protect and enhance the financial and professional interests of their members. Decentralization and centralization (3.3 pooling of funding) Scandinavian health care systems are often characterized as being run according to decentralized national health service (NHS) model: funding is raised by taxation and the main actors are public (Rice Smith, 2002). The twentieth century saw a considerable delegation of power from central authority to the municipal level, however both tendencies currently co-exist. â€Å"The funding system for municipalities was changed in 1986 when about 50 different earmarked grants were replaced by block grants† (Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, 2005). This reform granted municipalities a more prominent level of independence regarding resources allocation across services. Municipalities are also entitled to raise taxes in the interest of financing their activities. In addition, some further decentralization actions were implemented since the beginning of the 21st century. For instance, the 2000 reform changed the paradigm of hospitals’ management (day-to day running of the hospital is the responsibility of the general manager and executive board) (Johnsen 2006). On the other hand, centralization tendencies can be observed at the same time. The 2002 reforms transferred responsibility for second care from counties to the national level (state). The country was segregated into 5 RHAs (then reduced to 4 in 2007) and hospitals were organized as hospital trusts, which were founded at the same time (Hagen Kaarboe, 2007). (Sections 3.3.3 and 2.8.4) Planning The National Health Plans is the groundwork planning tool in the welfare area for the coming four years. The plans describe the existing status of the healthcare system, as well as the major challenges, and propose policy goals and actions aimed at meeting them (Nylenna 2007). Intersectoraility The coordination of the different measures aimed to improve the overall organization of the healthcare system relies on the interaction of various ministries other than the ministry of Health. The Ministry of Education is concerned with the forecasting of the health workforce, the Ministry of finance is involved through the taxation system and the Ministry of Labor is implicated in the NIS. Information systems: National registers gather an extensive scope of healthcare data and cover the entire population (table 2.2). Collecting data is compulsory for healthcare professionals and it doesn’t entail patients’ consent. At this date, there are 15 central registries in Norway. Hence, the quality of data in these registers is in general considered to be high (NIPH, 2009). Statistics Norway is the central institution in charge of gathering, examining, and publishing official statistics. Moreover, there are several medical databases (kvalitetsregistere) which gather data about health outcomes and other information concerning specific treatments or diagnoses. These databases give important information to evaluate the impact of different treatment strategies and provide valuable data for research and quality control. Health technology assessment (HTA) HTA is under the responsibility of the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services (NOKC). This appraisal evaluates both the clinical and cost-effectiveness benefits of a medicine or procedure. The new system launched in early 2013 is backed by â€Å"mini-HTA â€Å"reports†(assessed at the level of local hospitals), as well as â€Å"full-HTA† reports carried out by the Norwegian Medicines Agency (NoMA) and the NOKC. The purpose of the â€Å"mini HTA† is to guarantee that patients have fast access to innovative and safe hospital treatments. Priority setting or resource allocation Regulation: Regulation and governance of third-party payers The NIS is the main third party payer in Norwegian welfare system. Its budget is under the control of the Directorate of Health (HELFO). Voluntary health insurance (VHI) is the only other third –party payer in the Norwegian system. Governance and regulation of specialist care We should to a previous section? The ministry of health is in charge of secondary care through RHAs. However RHAs are independent legal entities, governed by independent boards. The RHAs are responsible of health trusts but health trusts are also separate legal institutions with their own management an executive board. Regulation and governance of pharmaceuticals Regulation of pharmaceutical products The Norwegian Medicines Agency (NoMA) is responsible for granting/withdrawing marketing authorizations and is in charge of post-marketing pharmacovigilance. The regulation of pharmaceuticals comes into agreement with applicable EU regulations since Norway is a member of the EEA. Therefore, there are four relevant procedures that industries should use when requesting marketing authorization: the national procedure, centralized procedure, mutual recognition and decentralized procedures. Regulation of pharmacies and wholesalers The 2000 Pharmacy Act shapes the activities of pharmacies in Norway. This act remolded the pharmaceutical environment. First, pharmacist monopole was cancelled (only certified pharmacists can manage pharmacies, however any individual can possess the pharmacy). Second, the restrictions on opening new pharmacies were removed (until 2001 the NoMA adjusted the number of pharmacies). Hence, every drugstore must have two different licenses: one license to possess the pharmacy (the owner’s license) and the second to manage the pharmacy (the operating license). Third, drugstore chains are permitted. Pharmacists have been granted the right for generic substitution since 2001, though only drugs available on the â€Å"substitution list† published by NoMA can be substituted. Only a couple of internet pharmacies are available in Norway and are only permitted to sell OTC medicines. Policies to improve cost effective use of pharmaceuticals â€Å"First–choice scheme† is an initiative taken by the government to encourage the usage of generics. Doctors are now compelled to prescribe generic drugs unless there is a life-threating medical reason that justifies the use prescription of the name brand drug. Pharmacists are bound to advise patients if there is a less expensive generic drug when their doctor prescribes the original name brand medicine. Patients are obliged to pay the price difference if they insist on buying the originator drug rather than the generic. Higher profits on generic drugs are a key driver for pharmacist to encourage the switch.

Christopher Marlowes The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doc

Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus For a play that has retained much of its scholarly value over the four hundred and ten years, there is surprisingly little known about Christopher Marlowe’s masterpiece, The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. The date of its first performance is unknown, and is highly obscured by the added facts that there are two texts of Doctor Faustus, one published in 1604; the other in 1616 (Ribner viii). Christopher Marlowe, even in these early times, set a standard for tragic plays, which would not be rivaled until Shakespeare unleashed his literary landmarks at around the same time Marlowe’s career ended. Despite the lack of specifics on this seminal work, it is still easy to feel the pain Christopher Marlowe wished to convey with this text. Within the rich dialogue of The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe attempts to communicate a personal struggle; both emotional and spiritual, between what Marlowe views as human nature and what the world views as God’s desires for man, and the overwhelming feelings of loss which accompany this struggle. Doctor Faustus is a play that thrives primarily on the discourses that abound throughout its length. In the dialogue between the two main characters, Doctor Faustus himself, and the demon Mephistophilis, one finds almost the entirety of the play. Doctor Faustus â€Å"†¦is a man who of his own conscious willfulness brings tragedy and torment crashing down on his head†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (Cole 191). Faustus finds himself melancholic with the pursuit of knowledge he has thus far attained, commenting: â€Å"Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold, And be eternized for some wonderous cure†¦ Why, Faustus, hast thou not attained that end? Is it not thy common talk sound aphorisms?† (Ribner 5) He has grown sick of the pursuit of knowledge as he sees it, and believing himself to have become educated in all of the worlds major subjects, seeks the power of God himself (Ellis-Fermor, 74). Through the art of conjuring spirits, commenting, â€Å"†¦A sound magician is a mighty God†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Ribner 7). The human lust for power has reached a new height in Faustus, and to attain what he desires, the easiest means are demonic. On his way to making the decision to enlist infernal forces in his quest for power, Faustus is prodded by friends, Valdes and ... ...ssey Press, 1966. Masinton, Charles G. Christopher Malowe’s Tragic Vision, a Study in Damnation. Athens: Ohio University Press. 1972. Thomas, Vivien, and Tydeman, William, ed. Christopher Marlowe : the Plays and Their Sources. London ; New York : Routledge, 1994. Sharma, Jitendra Kumar. Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus : a Criticism. New Delhi : Sterling Publishers Private, 1985. Marcus, Leah Sinanoglou. Unediting the Renaissance : Shakespeare, Marlowe, Milton. London ; New York : Routledge, 1996. Ellis-Fermor, Una Mary. â€Å"Faustus†. Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, Text and Major Criticism. ed. Irving Ribner. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1966. Kirschbaum, Leo. â€Å"Marlowe’s Faustus: A Reconsideration†. Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, Text and Major Criticism. ed. Irving Ribner. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1966. Dabbs, Thomas. Reforming Marlowe : The Nineteenth Century Canonization of a Renaissance Dramatist. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press ; London : Associated University Presses, 1991. Aquinas, St. Thomas. â€Å"On the eternity of the world (De Aeternitate Mundi)†. Trans. Vollert, Cyril. Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 1964.

Data Mining in a Nut Shell Essay example -- Essays Papers

Data Mining in a Nut Shell In today’s business world, information about the customer is a necessity for a businesses trying to maximize its profits. A new, and important, tool in gaining this knowledge is Data Mining. Data Mining is a set of automated procedures used to find previously unknown patterns and relationships in data. These patterns and relationships, once extracted, can be used to make valid predictions about the behavior of the customer. Data Mining is generally used for four main tasks: (1) to improve the process of making new customers and retaining customers; (2) to reduce fraud; (3) to identify internal wastefulness and deal with that wastefulness in operations, and (4) to chart unexplored areas of the internet (Cavoukian). The fulfillment of these tasks can be enhanced if appropriate data has been collected and if that data is stored in a data warehouse. According to Stanford University, "A Data Warehouse is a repository of integrated information, available for queries and analysis. Data and information are extracted from heterogeneous sources as they are generated....This makes it much easier and more efficient to run queries over data that originally came from different sources." When data about an organization’s practices is easier to access, it becomes more economical to mine. â€Å"Without the pool of validated and scrubbed data that a data warehouse provides, the data mining process requires c onsiderable additional effort to pre-process the data† (SAS Institute). There are several different types of models and algorithms used to â€Å"mine† the data. These include, but are not limited to, neural networks, decision trees, rule induction, boosting, and genetic algorithms. Neural networks are physical cellular systems which can acquire, store, and utilize experiential knowledge (Zurada). Neural networks offer a way to efficiently model large and complex problems. Decision trees are diagrams used for making decisions in business or computer programming. Branches are used to represent choices with associated risks, costs, results, or probabilities. Rule induction is a way of deriving a set of rules to classify cases (Two Crows). These set of rules differ from those in a decision tree in that they are independent from one another. Boosting is a technique in which multiple random samples of data are taken and a... ...networks, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms. http://www.partek.com/ . MIT WINROSA WINROSA is a software tool which generates automatically Fuzzy If-Then Rules from your data. The generated data set can be run by most of the existing fuzzy tools like e.g. DataEngine, fuzzyTECH, and Matlab. http://www.mitgmbh.de/ Attar Software XpertRule Data Mining using high performance parallel SQL technologyA Windows PC client being able to intelligently query the data source on the host server can achieve knowledge Induction. The speed of the process is therefore dependant upon the server - not the speed of the client PC. This allows data mining to exploit the speed offered by MPP servers (Massive Parallel Processors) and database architectures that are optimized for serving queries. http://www.attar.com/ Works Cited Cavoukian, Ann, Ph.D. â€Å"Data Mining: Staking a Claim on Your Privacy.† Jan. 1998 Pryke, Andy. â€Å"The Data Mine.† 23 Sep. 1998 SAS Institute Inc. â€Å"Data Mining.† 12 Jan. 2000 Two Crows Co. â€Å"Introduction to Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery.† 1999 Zurada, J.M. (1992), Introduction To Artificial Neural Systems, Boston: PWS Publishing Company, p. xv:

Societal Drug Use in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World :: essays research papers

â€Å"There is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon, returning whence they find themselves on the other side of the crevice, safe on the solid ground of daily labour and distraction, scampering from feely to feely, from girl to pneumatic girl, from Electromagnetic Golf course to †¦" In a perfect society, humans do not need to resort to drugs to keep society in balance. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, society is based on keeping everyone happy- and if for some reason someone becomes unhappy then there is always soma- the â€Å"perfect† drug. Humans are conditioned from the very start to be happy while performing their specific tasks. â€Å"We also predestine and condition. We decant out babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future Directors of Hatcheries.† (Page 13) Brave New World’s society is built on keeping everyone happy and keeping everyone working in balance with civilization. However, without soma, Brave New World’s society wouldn’t function properly. The soma helps to keep the society moving, always working to keep production moving, just like Ford’s assembly line. However, is there something wrong with depending on a drug to keep a society working? Huxley’s portrayed society does in fact work to an extent. People know what they need to do, people are happy, people have soma, and people can have pleasure whenever they like. Things get done, but those same things could get done in a different way. The introduction of the Savage starts to show a different side of the story. The Savage, not conditioned and born to an actual mother, has different ideas about society- especially soma. â€Å"Listen, I beg of you. Lend me your ears†¦ Don’t take that horrible stuff. It’s poison, it’s poison.† The Savage is not happy with the life that the â€Å"civilized† people live. To him it seems like a big illusion. The people are conditioned to not have emotions, but humans cannot really be humans without emotions. Humans are different from all the other creatures in this world because they do indeed have emotions. The advanced human brain has allowed people to have emotions- which affect their lives daily. â€Å"The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action† (William James) The Savage had several chances to â€Å"have† Lenina any time he wanted but he didn’t want that.

The Influence of Constructivism

Determining the Influences of Soviet Propaganda on Contemporary Advertising and Promotion The purpose of this study is to look at the representation of political ideology on Soviet posters and the ways in which this style continues to influence today’s advertising and popular culture. Though there are many forms of propaganda the forms of propaganda I intend to discuss in this essay are visual. The areas I aim to further my understanding of are the representation of political ideologies on today’s contemporary popular culture.I intend to investigate the idea that the Constructivists created the blueprint for modern consumerism and methods of advertising. I will investigate semiotics and Marxism in context with my study. In today’s society of consumerist culture I think the topic of propaganda is interesting as I feel propaganda goes hand in hand with advertising. In today’s society we are relentlessly saturated with loaded words and images, for this reason I wanted to investigate the origins of consumerism and today’s advertising.The purpose of Soviet propaganda was to create a new type of world; Lenin wanted to remodel the world under Socialist Realism and visual propaganda played an important part in this. Using propaganda to influence people’s thoughts and actions by making them act on feelings rather than rational thought. I am going to investigate the idea that soviet Marxist ideology continues to influence To illustrate my idea I am going to discuss the semiotics of a Soviet poster designed by Alexander Rodchenko for Gosizdat (fig. ) in 1924 the poster is a typical example of the stark, distinct and timeless design of the era. The poster features Lilia brick, a muse of Vladimir Mayakovsky and later Alexander Rodchenko. The poster was designed as mass spread agitprop intended to spread the ideals of Socialist Realism with its vision of a widespread literate society. The simplified bold graphic is typical of the wor k produced during the Constructivist movement; the lack of decoration or of representational depiction of objects ties in with the movement’s aims to keep the production purely informative and functional. Art that fails to become part of life will be catalogued in the museum of archaeological antiquities† (Rodchenko The poster features a woman, Lilia Brick, wearing a kerchief; clothes of the proletarian workers. This design and its message was calculated so that the proletarian of Russia would relate and engage with the message the image conveys. The woman is shouting â€Å"Books† inside a trapezoid shape, as most of the population were illiterate it was necessary for the image to be understood visually. Pictures indeed could be more potent than writing because they ‘impose meaning at one stroke’ but semiotic communication could extend beyond both the verbal and the visual† (Visual Culture, Richard Howels, 2003, page 100) Personally, I think th is is a timeless image but I don’t think it is very understandable without the text. It is an example of the constructivist’s novel experiments with juxtaposition and photography. Contemporary posters and graphics are testament to the strength of design this age produced.To further illustrate my idea I am going to discuss the semiotics of three advertising images and compare them with the Gosizdat (fig. 1) 1924 Lilia Brick poster from the Soviet era, which they are derivative of. The images I will discuss come from a broad spectrum in popular culture. I will look at an image from a political campaign, a mobile phone advert and a popular indie band. In order to sell and appeal, it is my opinion that these products and ideologies have borrowed the connotations of power and directness that these Soviet posters command.A humorous take on poster from the Barak Obama campaign featuring a dog in the place of Lilia Brick became a hit on the Internet. This suggests the poster h as widespread appeal on masse. The poster was not affiliated with the campaign. An example of the Gosizdat posters influential use in advertising can be viewed in a Greek advert for Vodaphone mobiles (fig. 2), here the semiotics are not entirely saying the same thing as in the poster designed for Gosizdat (fig. ), in this version it is depoliticised. The poster itself comes with an extra subtext thanks to its history; the viewer can take meaning from this as well as the intended message to advertise Vodaphone. â€Å"The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. Its authority is lost. In its place there is a language of images. What matters now is who uses that language for what purpose. † (Berger, 1972, p. 33) The anonymous woman in the poster is supposed to be shouting some sort of offer or Vodaphone; the anonymous woman in the poster is in black and white creating an interesting juxtaposition against the bright colour scheme. The image of the woman seems slightly mor e ‘cut-out and pasted in’ than the other example images. I feel this could be derivative of the Constructivists experimentation with photomontage. It is in a sense ironic that these posters are now being used to promote capitalism given that the political ideology at the time was to do with Communism.A statement made by art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon backs this up; he says in BBC4 programme The Art of Russia: Smashing the Mould â€Å"this was totally new to use words like this and that is one of the paradoxes that Rodchenko and Mayakovsky give to the West – the visual language of Capitalism†¦because they are inventing advertising† (M2 PRESSWIRE-10 November 2009-BBC: The Art Of Russia on BBC Four(C) 1994-2009 M2 COMMUNICATIONS RDATE:09112009) The second example of the influence of the poster for Gosizdat (fig. ) is in the album artwork for Franz Ferdinand’s 2005 album You Could Have It So Much Better (fig. 3). The semiotics suggests the same as with the last two reworks. The band reworked two other Constructivist posters for two more of their singles artwork; This Fire 2004 (fig 4) is derivative of the El Lissitzky poster Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge 1919 and Take Me Out 2004 (fig. 5) is a rework of Aleksandr Rodchenko’s One-Sixth Part the World Poster 1923 (fig 6).The illustrator and graphic designer Shepard Fairey who created the affiliated Obama campaign posters deliberately took inspiration from Soviet posters when creating the Obama Hope (fig. 7) poster. The work of Neville Brody further backs up the ideology behind the movement and that today’s designers draw much inspiration from Constructivism. Bold design and typography classic are time enduring. The semiotics of these images have connotations of empowerment. What matters is that design is a way of reflecting social undercurrents. The Futurists supported Mussolini, whereas Rodchenko was a socialist revolutionary. I draw a sense of dynamism and optimism with no intention of a political connotation. If you look at some of Rodchenko’s paintings, you’ll see he anticipated abstract expressionism by a good 50 or 60 years. It’s so abstract, it’s completely apolitical. Rodchenko was more about humanism and humanitarianism than communism. †- Neville Brody.Another direct example of a Soviet posters influence on recent popular culture is the occurrence of Red Wedge in the 80’s, this collective of musicians wanted to inspire young people to connect with the politics of the Labour government and inspire them to take charge of their political opinions. A lithographic poster inspired the name for this movement: Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge 1919 (fig. 8); a poster designed by Constructivist artist El Lissitzky. The Red Wedge’ logo was also inspired by the poster and designed by graphic designer Neville Brody.In the 1980s there was a revival of politically fuelled art, Neville Brody re worked the typography of the Soviet era in popular magazine The Face (fig. 9). Jenny Holzier’s Protect Me from What I Want, 1998 (fig. 10) is sending out a political message in a very simplified way just as the Constructivists did. â€Å"Holzer writes messages which are not in â€Å"her† voice but in styles that mimic the anonymous voices of authority† government, education and advertising† (Toby Clark, Art and Propaganda, 1997, page 155) The film created in the time of Soviet Russia was also influential.It has had an affect on the film production and movie editing of today. The film Battleship Potemkin, a silent film directed in 1925 by Eisenstein is one of the first examples of evocative film editing and of propaganda in film, it served as a warning against rebellion toward the government, such was the influence of this film, people at the time of its release who viewed it believed these were real events. The films this influence is apparent in are The U ntouchables and Brazil.In my opinion the imagery of the Soviet era is incredibly iconic and it is not surprising that it has been borrowed time and time again. It seems evident from the examples in the text that everything from companies and politicians and popular culture will continue to borrow some of the imagery and iconography that the Constructivists strived to create, it is interesting that the artistic movements at the time of the Soviet era are not known as well as some. I have come to the conclusion that Soviet idealism has influenced much of today’s culture though the message is obviously not the same.I think the much of the advertising inspired by The Constructivists is clever as it can tap into what makes an image iconic. Companies that use the Russia propaganda style of imagery are looking to give their product cult status and iconography. With reworking of the Soviet and Constructivist style the designers are borrowing some of that power. In a world where we ar e saturate by advertisements the ones inspired by Constructivism are most successful in my opinion.

Harriet Martineau and the Conflict Theory Essay

When I look over the theories we have discussed in our text: functionalism,symbolic interaction and conflict, I think the one I relate to best is the conflict theorist. The conflict theorist that I agree with the most is Harriet Martineau. She was a conflict theorist that the book describes as, â€Å"Scholar Harriet Martineau (1803–1876), an English opponent of slavery and capitalism who felt they oppressed women, children, and nonwhites, translated the work of Comte so people could understand the importance of his perspective (Adams & Sydie, 2001). Regarded as a radical in her day, her work was largely dismissed by people in authority.† ( Vissing, 2011, chapter2 sect 3 para 13) There were many female activists who were active early on in the field but they were ignored until feminine activists brought it to the attention of the American public arena ( Vissing, 2011). She would best referred to as a conflict theorist. The conflict theory is defined as, â€Å"a theory that assumes that the institutions and interactions within society foster inequality and competition, and when they are challenged, then beneficial social change can result.† ( Vissing, 2011) Our text states that Harriett Martineau was a feminine activist and also was an activist for children and non-whites. Our society has changed greatly since the 1800’s and without people like Mrs. Martineu , I ,as a female, would not have the advantages I have today. Things like voting, and equality in the work place have helped women and minorities project their viewpoint into the system we have today. These activists stroved for fair working laws which would keep women in the 1800’s and early 1900’s from being mistreated and used. Also another important  thing the feminine activists fought for was birth control and abortion as an option to females, so that they may work or pursue personal goals and interests. The belief in conflict theory is that there must be a challenge to the system  and the way things are in order to activate change, and from what we can tell in the past this has been an effective tool in the slow processes of equality. Another thing that Harriet Martineau did was take the works of Auguste Comte and put them into layman’s terms for the average person of the time could understand. Auguste Comte’s beliefs were that we should look at observable facts in order to study society, not just the cultural beliefs.†His concept of positivism holds that there is nothing that can’t be accurately studied if the right methodology is employed. If we try conscientiously enough by employing the scientific method, most things can be studied and understood.† ( Vissing, 2011, chapter 1 section 3 para 3) Harriet Martineau used this idea and applied it to the progression of equality for women children and non-whites. In Harriet Martineau’s life she was brought up in a comfortable middle class family, and was denied some education because of her sex. When her father died she was faced with sever economic loss and for once felt what it was like to not have the conveniences of a middle class family to hide in. She was engaged to be married but her fiance fell ill and she was â€Å"saved† from a married life. She was single for the rest of her life and face living and earning a living in a patriarchal society. She soon was face with some uncomfortable things and rather than accept them and conform she invoked change within our society by making the plight of women, children and non-whites a mainstream problem that needed to be corrected. Martineau was a Unitarian in religion and at first had a very strong religious viewpoint on the world and society. (Hill, 1991). There are many things that I agree with Martineau on such as that all people should be treated equal and fairly. Another of her main ideas was that non-whites should be treated fairly and with the same respect and dignity that whites were given. She also believed that women children and nonwhites should be able to vote to give their voices some power and that they be offered a chance at education and opportunities for work as well and earn an income which  provided them with sense of freedom and self sufficiency. In America we would not be the culture we are today without activists such as Harriet Martineau. There would be no women CEOs, we would have no choice other than abstinence when it comes to birth control. Many women died because abortion was illegal and they sought backdoor clinics and at home methods of there own to rid themselves of an unwanted pregnancy. Another important issue that was resolved due to activists initiating equality into our culture not only for every white man but for every person regardless of race, gender, age or religoud preferences. Today we are treated equal in most instances and when not the issue is usally irradicated quickly. In my opinion the conflict theorist had the right idea, without conflict or differences in the way society is run there will be no need for change. If there is someone who feels like things need to be changed we must bring that issue to the people and make it known because not all inequalities are suffered by the same people and unless you have been never been treated  unfairly then you know how it feels to not be able to do something or say something just  because of who you are not what you have done. Our merits should be what we are judged on and not by what someone stereotypes us as being. We have come a long way as a culture but as long as there is a society we will always have some form of fight on our hands to ensure equality for all  people, and it seems to me that the conflict theory is the best way to do this. Reference Belasco, S. (2000). Harriet martineau’s black hero and the american antislavery movement. Nineteenth – Century Literature, 55(2), 157-194. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/211910586?accountid=32521 Michael, R. H., & Deborah, A. L. (2010). The harriet martineau sociological society’s fifth working seminar: A report from boston college 1. Sociological Origins, 6(1), 5-7. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/204784236?accountid=32521 Vissing, Y. (2011) An Introduction to Sociology. (Ashford University ed). San Diego: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. retrieved from: https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUSOC101.11.1/sections/sec1.3?search=harriet%20Martineau#w4370

Water Diuresis in Man Practical Report Essay

INTRODUCTION The body needs to maintain equilibrium to function properly in everyday life. The most important substance it must regulate is water; water is everywhere in our body and its balance is essential for proper body function. A very carefully regulated process is solute concentration. If there is a sudden increase in water which enters the extracellular fluid, sodium ions will then contribute less to the extracellular solute concentration as the ratio between water and solute has now changed. Osmolality is the amount of solute in a kilogram, hence the osmolality in the extracellular space has also decreased. Water diuresis is the increase in urinary water excreted with little or no change in the solute excretion. Excess water needs to be excreted to maintain a good balance of water and solute inside the body. The aim of this practical is to test the effects of strenuous exercise and desmopressin (anti-diuretic hormone) on urine flow and urine sodium concentration. We will be testing the hypotheses that vigorous exercise will decrease urine flow and increase urine sodium concentration, whereas desmopressin will have the opposite effect of decreased urine flow and increased sodium concentration. Use the class data (refer to the appropriate figures in your discussion). (a) What happens to the rate of urine production (i.e. urine flow) for the three procedures (i.e. control, desmopressin and exercise)? Use your knowledge of statistics to evaluate the evidence that the responses after the treatments (i.e. desmopressin and exercise) differed from that in the control subjects. Explain the following (including the underlying mechanisms): i. why there is a delay in the onset of the diuresis after water loading in the control subject (A); ii. the effects of administered desmopressin on the diuresis (subject B); iii. the mechanisms by which a single session of vigorous exercise affects the diuresis produced by the water load (subject C). After drinking water, the control and test subjects had gradual increase of urine flow, reaching a peak then decreasing again, whereas the desmopressin subject had decreased urine flow after taking the hormone, thereafter plateauing. According to the Dunnett’s t test between the urine flow of the subjects, the urine flow of the treatment subjects was significantly different to that of the control. There is a delay in the onset of diuresis after loading in the control subject as it takes time for the water to be filtered in the body. Water is absorbed from the gut into the extracellular fluid. Osmoreceptors from the posterior pituitary detect the water through cell stretch and initiate responses that control ADH secretion (Widmaier et al., 2014). Fluids are filtered through the kidneys and the excess water is transported to the bladder where it will then be excreted. Desmopressin decreases the urine volume excreted. Desmopressin is a synthetic substitute  for anti-diuretic hormone (ADH). ADH acts on the kidneys to reabsorb water. Due to increased water reabsorption, diuresis (urine volume) is decreased. A single session of vigorous exercise sharply decreases the urine flow and hence, diuresis. During exercise, you lose sodium and water by sweating so the kidney works to reabsorb the water so you are not dehydrated. This results in more concentrated urine. (b) If a control subject was dehydrated at the beginning of the practical class, how would you expect this to affect their response to the water load? They would retain some of the water and hence would have decreased urine excretion compared to someone who is well hydrated. (c) What effect does alcohol have on water diuresis? What is the mechanism of the action of alcohol on a water diuresis? Alcohol inhibits the pituitary secretion of ADH, which acts on the kidneys to reabsorb water. Because ADH levels drop, the kidneys do not reabsorb as much water and hence produce more urine, causing increased water diuresis. (d) Use the class graphs and statistical analysis of the urine sodium concentration to determine if this is different for the control and desmopressin subjects. Do you think there a relationship between urine flow and the urine sodium concentration? According to the statistical analysis, the difference between the control and desmopressin subjects for sodium urine concentration were significantly different. Looking at the class graphs, this is also true; the graph values vary significantly. There seems to be an inverse relationship between urine flow and urine sodium concentration. When the urine flow is high, the urine sodium concentration is relatively low and vice versa. (e) Use the class graphs and statistical analysis of the sodium excretion rate to determine if this is different for the control and desmopressin subjects. Do you think there a relationship between urine flow and the sodium excretion rate? According to the statistical analysis, the sodium excretion rate for the control and desmopressin subjects are not significantly different. This can also be seem from the class graphs; they  follow similar values. There does not seem to be a high correlation between urine flow and sodium excretion rate. After taking desmopressin, the subjects’ sodium secretion rate is similar to the control’s, however, the urine flow is noticeably decreased after drinking water. Looking at the exercise subjects, their sodium excretion is lower than the other subjects after drinking water, however their urine flow after a few samples is significantly increased. (f)Complete the following table: Stimulus Type/Site of Receptors ADH Response Physiological response on Urine Volume Physiological response on Blood Volume Increased osmolality (dehydration) Osmoreceptors High ADH levels Decreased Decreased Decreased osmolality Osmoreceptors Low ADH levels Increased Increased Increased blood volume Baroreceptors Decreased ADH secretion Increased Increased Decreased blood volume Barereceptors Increased ADH secretion Decreased Decreased CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that strenuous exercise decreases urine flow and hence will increase the concentration of urine. Desmopressin decreased urine flow and due to this increased water excretion, also decreased the concentration of urine. REFERENCES: Widmaier, EP, Raff, H & Strang, KT (2014). Vander’s Human Physiology. The Mechanisms of Body Function. MCGraw Hill, Chapter 14, page 499.

Facilitate Continuous Improvement Essay

Assessment Activity 1 1. You work for an organisation that does not actively encourage its employees to participate in decision-making processes, and to assume responsibility and exercise initiative as appropriate. What would you say to convince the organisation’s management that they should actively encourage employees to assume responsibility and initiative? Write a transcript of what you would say. â€Å"Although not encouraged, recently I decided to let our ICT Support Specialist head up the roll out of our new Antivirus solution. I presented him with the project and advised that he will be managing it and will need to source the resources required and also the process. The only information I provided was a deadline of 4 weeks to complete the project/rollout Firstly the feedback I got from the Support Specialist was incredibly positive. He was excited to run his own project and make his own decisions on how to complete it. It brought out a different side to an employee whom sometimes finds it hard to stay motivated. The project is in its final stages now and has ran very smoothly and is well ahead of schedule. I believe encouraging employees to make their own decisions does boost initiative and this is one example of how extra responsibility and the opportunity for a non-management employee to work autonomously brings in very positive results. This is something I would like to encourage to my department more often as I believe I can get excellent outcomes on upcoming projects. 2. Do you consider group decision-making to be a valuable tool that will aid in encouraging employees to participate in decision-making processes, and to assume responsibility and exercise initiative? Explain. I strongly believe any decision making process privileges that one can grant to employees can be very beneficial as stated above in the example. This shows trust in employees, and I believe giving employees extra responsibilities can have a very positive effect. In a group decision making environment, this also promotes team work. Having a department making decisions together is a great way to encourage this. Assessment Activity 2 1. Your organisation has changed the way it accepts payments from customers/clients to make the process easier for clients/customers. What would you do to ensure that the organisations continuous improvement processes are communicated to all stakeholders? I believe this is something the whole organisation should be aware of, this way any client facing employees can better explain this to customers/clients in the event questions or queries are raised. Stakeholders would include clients/customers so I believe a communication in the form of a letter/email should be sent out to all the client base explaining how the new payment process works and how it will benefit them. The most important part is to promote it as a positive change for the client/customers. Assessment Activity 3 1. Define sustainability and outline why organisations should develop workplace sustainability policies. Sustainability in a business sense is the management the impact the organisation has in it’s environment. The impact can cover areas that not only include the â€Å"environment† but also the staff, client base and even the finances of the organisation. Developing Sustainability policies is very important in a number of ways. It can be promoted by the organisation that they follow this policy in order to achieve a smaller carbon footprint, however at the same time this could be saving the organisation money. For example, the organisation decides to implement double sided printing, now this is reducing paper usage which is fantastic to the environment, however it is also reducing the amount of paper the organisation is purchasing, therefor reducing expenditure. 2. Research environmental management issues for the workplace and state why these issues should be taken into consideration when planning and managing an organisation’s operations. The main issue as with most organisations is their impact to the environment and their footprint. This can effect a number of areas within the organisation, including reputation to their clients/customers, general publics views/opinions, employees and even the companies finances. In an office environment such as Status Industries. The main concerns are overuse of paper and printing products, lighting usage and power consumption. These can all be addressed. See table on next page how Status Industries has engaged these issues with policies. Environmental Issue Impact Resolution Result Over Usage of Paper in printing Environment, Cost of Paper, Paper Wastage Double Sided Printing forced on all Xerox devices within organisation Dramatic reduction in paper usage. Cost of paper saved. Colour Printing Usage in office High usage of colour toners where not needed, cost impact as colour prints more expensive than black and white. Force default Black and White printing. Requiring staff to have to select colour printing if they require it. All Staff email sent explaining cost of colour printing over black and white Black and White printing increased. Less colour toner usage. Cost savings. Lighting Lighting currently on 24 hours a day. Expensive power bills and waste of electricity Timers installed on lights to switch off at 8pm every night and to be off over weekend periods Dramatic cost saving and less usage of power. Cost saving on replacing globes. Electricity Wasting Computers and monitors switched on 24/7, wasted electricity usage, expensive electricity bills Email sent out by management detailing a new policy to switch off PC’s at night when finished. Exclusions from this are staff whom like Reduction in power. Reputation from general public boosted as windows are on main road and public can see Monitors are left on at night time. Assessment Activity 6 You have been asked to develop strategies to ensure that systems and processes are used to monitor operational progress and to identify ways in which planning and operations could be improved. In particular, your organisation wants you to determine whether processes currently carried out by employees are as efficient as possible. How would you go about doing this? Firstly you could perform an audit of the current processes. Let’s look at a new employee process and how this is setup from at an IT viewpoint. The current process below Now there have been several flaws in this process. Mainly the communication breakdown with Human Resource and IT which has resulted in accounts not been created in time. There are ways to alter the current process and instil new procedures to ensure the process is more successful. The proposed changes are below: A timeframe of at least 10 days for Human Resource to allow for the completion of IT’s account creation and asset allocation (PC/Laptop, Mobile Phone) Accountability to one staff member in Human Resources to communicate with an IT staff member regarding any change to the process and vice versa. A written and ISO approved document on the procedure. This is from the beginning stages with HR to the finishing touches on the IT stages. This is to be given to all staff members in both departments and signed by each staff member. So it is on record as being understood by each employee in case further action/education/disciplinary discussion is required. Assessment Activity 7 You have determined that adjustments should be made in your work team. Changes need to be made to the way customer complaints are recorded and dealt with. How would you go about communicating the need for change to strategies to relevant stakeholders? Relevant stakeholders internally are first and foremost the executive team, they are the ones that make the organisational impact decisions. Changing the way customer complaints are dealt with is something they will need to provide input for. Once they have approved the said solution this should be communicated in several forms to the customer base. This can be done by posting letters, emails and on the main page of a website. In the planning stages communicating three different alternative solutions to Executive Management would be a good first step. Explaining and selling the reasons why this should be changed. The main goal in mind for making a change that effects customers, is to ensure it is a â€Å"better solution† A good example of this is a large organisation such as Telstra. They have a reputation for having less than satisfactory customer service via phone. Customers have complained about being transferred multiple times and not getting a solution. Telstra has made large steps to improve customer service and have introduced a â€Å"Chat† service. This is ideal for people who have a desk job and don’t have the time to be on a phone. You speak to one representative and can explain information a lot easier. This is a very positive step that other organisations in the industry have followed. Selling the vision to relevant stakeholders, explaining how it will benefit the customer base. Remembering please customers not only retains a base, it can increase reputation and perhaps even allow for expansion of customer base. Assessment Activity 9 2. Give examples of aids/tools that can be used to document the data from a checklist Several graphs and tables can aid the recording of this data and also to report on the data collected. Such Graphs that could be used in this instance are Pie Graph to show the amount of a certain defect on a certain shift to compare where most of the errors are occurring Line Graph to show where the peak period of errors occur Histograms to show similar to the above Example of a Pie Graph for the above table 3. Why do graphs and charts provide a good representation of data? Graphs and charts provide a graphical view of the overall picture. As shown above in the Table of Data and also the Pie Graph. Straight away by looking at the Pie Graph you can see the trend. When analysing data Graphs are the best way to do this instead of tables. It can be a quick reference guide compared to sifting through a large amount of numbers. On the subject of trends. Line Graphs can show this better than most methods in some cases where using a line graph is applicable. For example. To see how many defects over a 24 hour period took place in a factory environment. Here you can see where defects dipped and were at a minimum and also peaked and showed a maximum. From this data you can easily see where pain points are in a situation and then provide a possible resolution. Assessment Tool 2 1. How can an organisations continuous improvement processes be communicated to all stakeholders and how can individuals and teams be encouraged and supported to embrace it? Communicating change in any organisation is important. Stakeholders in certain situations depending on the scale of change could include almost every employee. Best practice is to have a seminar or training session to highlight the need for certain changes or continuous improvement. For example if the organisation wants to be ISO accredited in a certain area, then it becomes vital for all employees to play a part. Explaining the positives the improvement will entail will certainly sell the vision. 2. Having made a decision about what to do to improve an organisations processes, what should you do to plan for the implementation of that change? A Project Plan is always a good start. This can outline the schedule and resources required, identify the tasks and objectives associated. Communication again is very important with any change, to ensure all of the organisation (if applicable) is aware of the change. The key thing to remember is, people don’t like change if they haven’t been advised. 3. Explain the difference between Feedback and feed forward control. Feed-Forward Control is a measure that regulates inputs. This can be resources such as human resource, financial and material. This is a proactive measure to allow management to prevent issues instead of having to resolve them later. This is known to be a time consuming exercise, 4. What processes might be used to ensure that team members are informed of outcomes of continuous improvement efforts? Why is this necessary and how will this contribute toward further improvements? Reports can be sent to team members on a set time frame (monthly, quarterly) this could include data and graphs/tables. Graphs are a great way to visually see trends and also to gauge whether there has been improvement in  a certain area. It also determines where there are possible issues. It allows the team to strategize where and how they can improve. 5. What is continuous improvement? Continuous improvement is an infinite process to improve a service, product or process. Depending on the type of industry the organisation is in will determine what areas of will utilize this type of method. Let’s look at an IT department, who has an inbuilt database every employee uses for the day to day tasks. A prototype has been created of this software, and it is in production. However there will always be room for improvement for any software, so constant updating is done on the software, the applications team within the IT Department work each day on add-ons or improvements. What started out as version 1.00 has now turned into 2.34 in the space of 3 years. 6. What can you do to support improvements now and in the future? Improvement in an organisation comes with ideas from the team. This can be suggestions raised in meetings, feedback and communication. The only way to improve processes, products or services is to communicate with departments and key members of staff. Having evidence in front of employees such as graphs is a great way to visually demonstrate where improvement is needed in certain areas. Concentrating on weak points in the organisation is the key to improvement. Assessment Tool 3: Project Continuous improvement is common in most organisations in some degree. This is an exercise that can cover a number of areas. Usually the three areas are as follows Process Products Service Process in the context of continuous improvement can look at ways to improve the said process. Let’s look at the example of a crucial process in a majority of organisations. A login is required for every employee who starts with the company. This is for them to login to their desktop and perform day  to day functions. The process is as follows. The problem is with this process is communication is relied upon. There is no official area where data can be obtained. IT need to wait for HR to provide information, then HR have to wait for IT, The manager of a new employee has to wait for IT and HR. There has been several flaws with this. Improvement can be done is a number of ways. 1. Have a meeting with HR and IT to establish procedures and timeframes 2. Look at a more centralised system where details can be accessed. It was later decided a shared calendar on Sharepoint with email alerts when entries are created to be sent to all HR and IT staff. HR would enter a new starter on this calendar, IT would see the details and create the account. They would then add the relevant login details to the calendar and notify the manager. This is seen as a better process, but one that can still be improved upon. There can be a period of trial over a set timeframe to see if it can be improved even further. Taking as much manual labour out of the equation will reduce the amount of errors, oversights etc. Now looking at service. Customer Service or Service Delivery (in an internal environment) is extremely important in any industry. Good customer service means happy clients, more clients which leads to a successful organisation. Let’s look at the example of an ISP. They have 3 core call centre departments, a Sales, Billing and Technical Support area. How can we gauge what customers impressions are of the level of customer service? A good way is after a phone call to have a rating system where a customer can rate the level of service is received from 1-5. 5 being exceptional and 1 being appalling. This is the first step in continuous improvement in customer service. The survey could be on going or could be over a set period. Either way reporting could be sent on the results to managers/team leaders. There might be a number of trends identified. Staff with exceptional consistent ratings could be rewarded. Staff with lower or appalling ratings could be trained to improve their skill. Reporting for this survey could be time stamped, so graphs could be created when staff aren’t providing a good level of customer service. You may see a trend like Monday being the worst performing day or  Friday afternoon. Education, Training are a number ways to continue the improvement of customer service. As well as awards or rewards as stated above. The final area is products. If an organisation is in the business of developing and distributing products, their main concern with continuous improvement will be developing this product to ensure it is the best in their market. If in a mass production environment, quality control would be paramount to ensure product defects are at a minimum or non existent. Earlier in this document a graph was created showing defect levels over certain shifts. This is a great way to isolate where improvement is needed. Why did a certain shift have so many defects? Is there something wrong with the team who is assigned to these shifts? This may involve further staff training, disciplinary action or new staff members involved. Sometimes it could be as simple as making a clearly defined process to get a product complete without issues. Let’s look at the example of Microsoft. They are the pioneers of operating systems. According to data for the years 2004 – 2009, Microsoft on average has covered around 90% of the market across the globe. (see graph on next page) This is an extraordinary number and one that comes with pressure and responsibility to ensure its product is up to an elite standard. Microsoft will release Operating Systems every 4 years on average, however after the release they will continue to build on the operating system. Adding features, fixing bugs, improving the overall experience. Also it offers support to customers with forums such as Technet and the obvious customer support. The updating is the main part of continuous improvement. This builds towards the next version of the Operating System which in some cases not all, will be an absolute improvement over the predecessor. Example being Windows 8, they have received overwhelming feedback that consumers are not favourable of the start menu being removed. They listened and implemented a start menu of some description in Windows 8.1 and it will return in Windows 10. Risk Management comes into play with most decisions or implementation of a new process. With the three examples shown above a Risk Management assessment of some degree/scale would be included. For the example. Microsoft would need to investigate whether continuing support for an operating system would be viable. They will usually release a statement to  the public explaining how long their support and updates will be created for Operating System. Microsoft also would have weighed the pro’s and cons for implementing a start menu feature into 8.1. Customer satisfaction is a high priority, however if it isn’t feasible it would be a risk to implement it. As you’re using resources and time to implement something rather major. Wouldn’t this be better spent developing on the next version. How does continuous improvement affect employees? This question is very important. As employees are a major part of how well an organisation succeeds. An example of this would be an entrepreneurial firm which is small. Employees are driven to succeed because a sense of ownership due to it being only around 20 staff members, each is aware of their responsibilities and are directly accountable for certain roles. However the firm’s hierarchy believe the best way moving forward is to grow. As the growth takes place the sense of ownership has decreased. The culture will understandably change. Therefor it is incredibly important in the early stages prior to making major changes such as growth, that the organisation creates a culture that values accountability and to provide for accountability in organizational design. Communication in a small company will be different to a larger one. There would be little need for formal communication and any sort of reporting as they are all in th e same small location. They also understand what is important to communicate due to the scale of workload. The change here as it grows would need to be subtle. Explaining to current staff the need/requirement to implement different ways we must communicate. It is logistically going to be impossible to have a general talk with another colleague about something critical when they are in the East coast of the United States and you are based at Head Office in Sydney Australia. If this is educated earlier, it will provide a better understanding from long standing employees on how it will benefit the organisation, this once again comes back to the culture created. The employee will see this will a positive for the organisation. Attitude towards change can vary dependent on factors such as the average age and tenure with the organisation as well. Why do organisations feel the need to incorporate continuous improvement sometimes is dependent on the type of industry. The pressures of certain industries almost forces organisation to  implement continuous improvement. The Business Environment refers to the factors that affect an organisation’s ability to be competitive in their market. Kodak for example, were a leader in photographic/camera film. However the environment changed around them dramatically in recent years with digital photography taking over the market. Film was no longer the medium used. It saw a decline in revenue ($14.5bn in 1995 to $2.35bn in 2013) A lot of companies would not of survived something this dramatic. Kodak revolutionised and changed their way of thinking. Kodak had to shrink in size and effectively start again, go back to basics. It kept the best minds they had to brainstorm how to continue. Kodak is now a leader in photo print paper, packaging, commercial film and speciality chemicals. Although Kodak isn’t a good example of â€Å"improvement† there is an argument for continuity. Not many companies have survived when hit with a change of the scale photography went through over 10 years ago. It is a credit to Kodak they were able to adapt to change and strive to succeed with improvement to the way they work in their industry.