Smoking Effects, Reasons and Solutions

Character Analysis Of Frankensteins Monster

Character Analysis Of Frankensteins Monster The Monster The mention of the name "Frankenstein" from Mary Shelley's gothic work conjures up an image of a grotesque, ogre-like monster whose only instinct is to murder and take life. Victor Frankenstein's scientific creation is, in fact, quite misshapen and ugly physically, yet it possesses mental qualities that are much more human than monstrous. As the Monster experiences more and more sensations in the world, he gains qualities that are increasingly human. In reality, the monstrosity of the creature is only skin deep, for within his wretched body resides the heart of a compassionate and gentle child. Frankenstein's creature is truly more human than monster based on his innocent nature, his thirst for knowledge, and the complex range of emotions he experiences throughout the novel.From his awakening, the Monster exhibits an innocent and gentle nature, one reminiscent of a curious child first entering the world. After awakening Victor and unintentionally frightening him away, the Monster becomes confused.exophagy.com Frankenstein (1910 film)He later admits that he "sat down and wept" (Shelley 129) after being left alone. He is not instinctively an angry or out of control creature; he is simply afraid, as would be any creature when left alone only hours after birth. There is nothing monstrous about this behavior that, though childlike, is normal human conduct. The monster later recalls that his soul "glowed with love and humanity" (96) during his childhood. The Monster confronts Victor again in the frozen wilderness. Victor immediately threatens the monster and tries to fight it. Rather than fight back (as he could easily overpower the feeble Frankenstein), he says, "I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee" (95). This is a very advanced decision for the Monster. Even most human children would fight back in this situation, whereas the...

Role of family environment in adult criminality Essay

Role of family environment in adult criminality - Essay Example Juvenile delinquency is the display of criminal attitude by youngsters in the age of transition into adulthood while adult criminality is the display of violent behaviors in adulthood. A whole range of antisocial behaviors are displayed by the juvenile delinquents that include but are not limited to drug abuse, alcohol abuse, vandalism, rape, weapon possession, bullying, school malpractices, truancy, and cultism which make them criminal as grownups. There is a growing consensus among the analysts that adult crime finds its roots in the family environment an individual spends his/her childhood in (Eitle and Turner, 2002, p. 215). There is dire need to realize the specific factors ingrained in the corrupt family environment which are responsible for enhancing a child’s tendency to land in the world of crime. This paper aims at discussing some of the ways in which children gain negative influences from the family environment. Antisocial behavior of parents increases their children’s tendency to become delinquent and antisocial. Several studies including McCord (1977) and Robins (1979) have depicted the criminality of parents as the causal factor behind the child delinquency. Family factors have been identified as strong determinants of criminality in children. We know that children who grow up in homes are characterized by lack of warmth and support, whose parents lack behavior management skills, and whose lives are characterized by conflict or maltreatment will more likely be delinquent, whereas a supportive family can protect children even in a very hostile and damaging external environment. (Smith and Stern, 1997, p. 383). In Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, the most comprehensive research upon family offence was conducted that included 400 males of all ages in the range of 8 years to 48 years (Farrington et al., 2006). The researchers predicted a boy’s convictions due to his relationship with a convicted brother, sister, father or mother. It was found that each of these relatives had his/her own independent significance as predictor, though the level of influence was controlled by certain factors including gender and age. 63 per cent of the convicted boys had convicted fathers as compared to 30 per cent of the boys tha t had non-convicted fathers. In determining the influence of relationships upon a boy’s delinquency, same-sex relationships were found to be more influential in comparison to the opposite-sex relationships. Also, the influence of criminality of elder siblings was found to be more than that of younger siblings. Sexual abuse that girls experience at home triggers the motivation in them to run away with a view to escaping the abuse they are offered at home (Siegel and Williams, 2003, p. 71). This act of leaving the home may results into an incarceration along with different kinds of offending. In order to make their living while away from home, many girls become thieves or prostitutes. A lot of retrospective investigations have found the origin of prostitution in the childhood sexual abuse. Studies by Reich and Gutierres (1979) and Ames and Widom (1998) have shown that sexual abuse at home is a predictor of running away from home with a great statistical significance. A research directed at exploring the causes of male and female runaways determined that sexual abuse was a reason for leaving home only for females (Welsh et al., 1995). Child neglect and abuse may cause improper development of several areas of brain which may become the root-cause of impaired physical, emotional and psychological development. Certain regions of the brain may display a hyperarousal response as a result of the stress caused by the chronic abuse. Its consequences may include but are not limited to sleep disturbance, hyperactivity, and tension. Besides, it increases an individual’s vulnerability to attention deficit disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder,

Business Accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Business Accounting - Essay Example Acer Group generated revenues of $14.74 billion in 2012 (Acer-group, 2012). Its revenues decreased by 9.62% in comparison with the previous year. The gross profit of the company was $1.48 billion and its gross margin equaled 10.04%. Gross margin is a measure of the broad profitability of the company. Despite its solid broad profitability the company incurred in net losses for the year of $99.88 million. Its net losses for 2012 were lower than the 2011 losses of $226.59 million. The net margin of the firm was -0.68%. Net margin measures the absolute profitability of a firm. The return on assets (ROA) of Acer Group was -0.04%. ROA indicates how profitable a firm is in relation to its assets (Investopedia, 2013). The return on assets of Acer Group was bad for two reasons. First the metric result was negative. A negative ROA is an undesirable outcome. The second reason is that it was below the computer industry average ROA of 4.4% (Dun & Bradstreet, 2013). The return on equity (ROE) of t he firm was -0.13%. Acer Group’s return on equity is much lower than the industry average of 9.7%. The current ratio measures the ability of a company to pay off its short term debt (Accountingexplained, 2013). This ratio is calculated dividing current assets by current liabilities. Acer Group had a current ratio of 1.19. Its current ratio is acceptable because is above the 1.0 threshold, but it is 1.01 below the industry average current ratio of 2.20. The quick ratio is another liquidity metric. It is calculated similarly than the current ratio with the exception that inventory is subtracted from current assets in the numerator of the formula. The quick ratio of Acer Group was 0.89 which is lower than the industry average of 1.50. The working capital of a business is calculated subtracting current liabilities from current assets. Acer Group had a working capital in 2012 of $954,888,000. This metric measures the ability of the company to pay off its short term debt using sole ly its current assets. The debt ratio measures how much a company relies on debt to finance its assets (Investorwords, 2013). It is calculated dividing total debt by total assets. Acer Group had a debt ratio in 2012 of 0.67. Considering its size the company is not too leveraged which allows the option of using additional debt in the future to expand. The debt to equity ratio of the organization was 0.49. This ratio measures the amount of assets being provided by creditors for each dollar of assets being provided by stockholders (Garrison & Noreen, 2003). The debt to equity ratio of Acer Group is lower than the industry average of 0.82. Acer Group has depended less on debt than its competition. The inventory turnover of the company was 8.91. This implies that the company sold its inventory nearly nine times during the year. The average sale period of the firm was 40.95 days, thus it took the company less than 41 days to sell its entire inventory. The asset to sales ratio of the busin ess was 52.77% which is slightly below the industry standard of 53.40%. The sale to working capital ratio of the firm was 15.43. This ratio is good considering the fact that the industry standard is only 3.50. The times interest earned ratio measures the company’s ability to make interest payments. Acer Group had a times interest earned ratio of 1.25. Task 2 The common stocks of Acer are trading in the market under the symbol ACEIF. The stocks were priced at $3.02 as of December 25, 2013 (Yahoo, 2013).

Sensory Perceptions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 12

Sensory Perceptions - Essay Example This brief overview will examine the sensory perceptions and the factors that affect the authenticity and believability of information from the sensory nerves. Several reasons make people trust their sensory information and believe this information to be true. For instance, in the event that one places his hand on a hot charcoal or pot, the feeling sense sends an impulse to the brain, and one removes the hand from the hot object before it is badly burnt (Miller, 2008). Further, the sense of smell is always accurate, and one can rely on that information to make informed decisions. The smell of smoke can indicate that an item is burning or that there is a fire burning somewhere. There is no reason for one to question the accuracy of the sense of smell. Furthermore, human sense of sight provides reliable information concerning the nature and appearance of the environment that surrounds people (Chaudhuri, 2011). For instance, if an individual sees a person running in the field, there is no doubt that indeed that person is running. Further, one cannot be doubtful of the fact that his eyes can see that there is a heavy down pour in the neighborhood. On the contrary, sensory information can be inaccurate in several ways. For instance, past experiences influence the interpretation of the sensory information and end up giving wrong information to the person who is observing a situation (Chaudhuri, 2011). It is possible for a person with past unpleasant experience of infidelity to misunderstand a woman she notices speaking to her husband. Further, the sensory nerves do not perceive hidden things, and if people rely on this information, they might end up in danger. For instance, the eyes might not spot a thug hiding behind a tree, and one might make wrong judgments that one can walk in the street at night safely (Miller, 2008). The final reason that makes sensory information inaccurate is that people never interpret data from the sensory organs accurately

Implementing an Electronic Health Record System

Implementing an Electronic Health Record System Implementing Electronic Health Record System Based on HL7 RIM -Reusing the RIM Model Archetypes Nancy Mittal Abstract: It is difficult to exchange healthcare information between different HealthCare Systems. Health Level Seven is a universal standard to facilitate the communication between different HealthCare Systems. Electronic Health Record System is a software platform that store patient health data which maintained by hospital and medical practice. Health Level 7 Reference Information Model was studied to provide the interoperability between different HealthCare Systems. In this paper, we studied about the various version of Health Level Seven standard including HL7 v2.x, HL7 v3.0, HL7 RIM. This paper focused on how the existing structure of HL7 is improved by reusing the HL7 RIM classes such as Act, Role, and Entity etc each are associated with set of attributes. It explains to modify the existing structure of HL7, need to modify the HL7 RIM because HL7 RIM model provide the structure of HL7. This paper also explained the role based queries are performed by the interested stakeholders like pati ents, doctors and hospitals. In this new structural form, role based information is maintained in the centralize database. This research fills the gap between skilled and semi-skilled users and query is performed on role base. Keywords: HL7, RIM, Role, Archetypes 1. Introduction: With the continuous development of health records, maintain and exchange the information in different HealthCare systems has become unavoidable. So, the communication between different hospitals or between different HealthCare system need to improved. Electronic Health Record is a repository of health information in a digital format about an individual patient or population managed by hospitals or medical practice that shared across different HealthCare Systems. It reduces the chances of data replication. More organizations adopt EHR; physicians, nurses and clinicians have greater access to patient information which helps in accurate diagnosis and complete data helps to ensure the best possible care. Electronic Health Record (EHR) system is needed to focus on two requirements: dynamic involvement of different hospitals, patients and HealthCare Systems And the way of maintaining the information. Standard compliant EHR provide facility of communication and to exchange information of patients between different hospitals, doctors, HealthCare systems. Each patient has his own queries respective to their role in the system. The query interface is designed to provide the effective knowledge among different kind of patients, hospitals. Health Level Seven: Heath Level Seven is a standard developing organisation accredited by ANSI (American National Standard Institute) founded in 1987. HL7[1] name refers the top layer of the OSI (Open System Interconnection) layer protocol for the health environment. HL7 specifies a number of various standards health information and also provide communication between different HealthCare System. Standard are the set of rules that allow information to be shared in standardized and reliable manner. HL7 messaging standard: There are two main HL7 messaging standard HL7 v2.x and HL7 v3.0. HL7 v2.x is also called as pipe hat. This standard provides the interoperability specification for health and medical transaction. HL7 v2.x message format are in human readable ASCII and non XML encoding syntax. It supports administrative, logistical, financial as well as clinical messages. HL7 v3.0 provides the interoperability specification for health and medical transaction based on RIM (Reference Information Model). HL7 v3.0 message format based on XML encoding syntax and also on HDF (formal methodology) and object oriented principle. It supports only clinical data. Movement from HL7 v2 to HL7 v3 is that v3 would be model driven methodology means v3 standard support healthcare workflows through modelling; the end result maximize reuse and increase consistency in HL7 specification. Another[2] HL7 v2.7 supports all HealthCare department data for exchange between different HealthCare systems. It reduces the custom interface programming. But it is not plug and play; and not support transaction processing feature. Table1.Difference between HL7 v2.x and HL7 v3.0 HL7 RIM[3] (Reference Information Model): The HL7 Reference Information Model provides the structural information of HL7 in the form of information classes. HL7 RIM is an object oriented model to make compatible the HL7 specification interoperability to all domains. It is important part of the HL7 v3.0 development model. It increases precision and reducing implementation costs. HL7 RIM is based on UML (Unified Modelling Language). Reference information model has five components: Subject Area (major part of am model), class (about which information is collected), Relationship (relation between classes), attribute (information about class), and data type (specification of the format of an attribute). RIM has six main important classes: Act- It represents actions that are executed by entity. Entity: These are the physical things that take part in health care. Role: Role that entity plays as they participate in health care Participation: It represent context for an act such as who perform, for whom and where. ActRelationship: It represents the relationship between actions. RoleLink: It represents the relationship between roles. 2. Related Work: Electronic health record system based on health level seven, and HL7 used to provide the communication between different HealthCare systems, most of the research studies show perplexing which is further discussed in this paper review. Tung Tran, Hwa-Sun Kim[[1]] studied the research on,†A Development of HL7 Middleware for Medical Device Communication† to developed HL7 compliant middleware. Researcher used HL7 as a middleware to facilitate data transfer to information system in hospitals. Middleware has capability of receiving data from monitoring device and converting into HL7 data type format. It receive raw data from medical devices and convert to HL7 data and passed to HIS based on HL7 interface engine. Li-Fan Ko, Jen-Chiun Lin, Chi-Huang Chen, Jie-Sheng Chang, Faipei Lai[[2]] concluded the research on,†HL7 Middleware Framework for Healthcare Information System. Researchers introduce HL7 and web services standard into framework which is basically Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). HL7 directly transmitted data over transport layer protocol TCP/IP: for small application HL7 message over TCP are simple and easy to implement; for larger application, system become complex and attacker increases. This research solved that problem by introducing web services which provide interoperation between software systems. Jennifer Munnelly[[3]] in his research study on, HL7 Healthcare Information Management Using Aspect-Oriented Programming focused the modification in application department without the requirement modification into complete structure by using HL7.Researcher suggested introduce HL7 functionality into exiting application without any modification through AOP. Wooshik Kim[[4]] studied the research on, Integration of IEEE 1451 and HL7 Exchanging Information for Patients’ Sensor Data showed the IEEE 1451 concerned with smart transducer and having plug –play capabilities. Patients wear sensors that measure the patient’s status in real time and transmitted these data to remote sites such as hospital. HL7 accepted this kind of data and interpreted with various online sensor data. Pasquale De Meo[[5]] studied on, Integration of the HL7 Standard in a Multiagent System to Support Personalized Access to e-Health Services. In this paper, he presented a system which has multi agents to maintain patients in seek of health related services in e-health care by using various algorithms PPB, DS-PPB, AB. This proposed system increases the quality service and effectiveness. Maqbool Hussain[[6]] concluded his research on, Healthcare Applications Interoperability through Implementation of HL7 Web Service Basic Profile studied all phases of web service component that implement HL7 Web Service Basic Profile. It is branch of the transportation subsystem progressed at NUST School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Pakistan. Naeem Khalid Janjua[[7]] in research study presented work on, Digital Health Care Ecosystem: SOA Compliant HL7 based Health Care Information Interchange and proposed Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) based HL7 system design for patient information and showed the translation from HL7 V2 to V3 and mapping between database and user query. Sara Gaion[[8]] researched on, Design of a Domain Model for Clinical Engineering within the HL7 Reference Information Model. This paper develop a DIM (Domain Information Model) by providing the HL7 RIM to clinical engineering in a particular domain. This paper represent clinical engineering information in the HL7 RIM (Reference Information Model) with the reason of developing a HL7 v3 RIM model based on DIM (Domain Information Model) dedicated to CE(Clinical Engineering) by reuse of standard healthcare information models and show the process of repairing and maintenance of device used in hospital. N.A. Mamani Macedo[[9]] studied the research on, Electronic Health Record: Comparative Analysis of HL7 and Open EHR Approaches. This paper showed the comparison between HL7 and openEHR to automatism a Patient’s Record in any hospital which adopted: HL7 and OpenEHR. The method includes analyzing each way, defining some criteria of evaluation, design a comparative chart. 3. Design model: The work is defined with the specification of the hospital and the relative attributes and the functional specification. It defines the role and requirement to specify the functional dependencies and its requirements. The role is defined for all the interested patients and hospitals and all interested users are connected to it along with their specified roles. The hospital is responsible for the information updating as well as to generate the query that queried by patients to obtain the information access about the patient, disease or diagnose. Complete information is defined in the form of centralized repository. Model is in the form of a query interface in which the communication to the system and different hospitals maintain the information in different way so that the mapping is required between the query set and the hospitals. To establish this mapping, the structural constructs for the system are defined so that the functional based information transition will be take place. Steps in implementation model First step is role identification and analysis: Users in this system are patients and hospitals(health organization). Role is defined for all the interested users ,patients and hospitals and they are coonnected to it along with their hospitals. Second step is role specific query generation: Hospitals is reasponsible for the information updating as wel as to generate the query that queried by patients to obtain the information access about the patient,disease and diagnose. Third step is query filteration and mapping done by RIM model: Complete information is defined in the form of centralized dataset.Model in the form of query interface in which the communication to the system and diff hospitals maintain the information in diff way. So that mapping is required between query set and hospitals. Last step query result are extraced. 4. Conclusion: In changing the structure of HL7 and increasing the reusability over existing HL7 RIM model by reuse the RIM model archetypes. HL7 standard facilitate to exchange and sharing the healthcare information among different hospitals or in between different healthcare systems. We concluded that we extract the existing HL7 RIM model and improve the reusability over existing model by reusing the classes of RIM model and implement the user interface to accept request from different users and process the role base Queries. References: [1] Health Level Seven (HL7), http://www.hl7.org. [2] Explorative study of healthcare data Interchange standards [3]http://www.openhre.org/local/rim202/rim.htm#Acts-sbj [[1]] Tung, Kim, Cho,† A Development of HL7 Middleware for Medical Device Communication†, Fifth International Conference on Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications [[2]] Li-Fan Ko, Jen-Chiun Lin, Chi-Huang Chen, Jie-Sheng Chang, Faipei Lai,† HL7 Middleware Framework for Healthcare Information System†. Basically framework is service oriented architecture (SOA)†. [[3]] Jennifer Munnelly, HL7 Healthcare Information Management Using Aspect-Oriented Programming, International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems, pp 1 – 4 ¸2009 [[4]] Wooshik Kim, Integration of IEEE 1451 and HL7 Exchanging Information for Patients’ Sensor Data, J Med Syst, pp 1033–1041, 2010 [[5]] Pasquale De Meo, Integration of the HL7 Standard in a Multiagent System to Support Personalized Access to e-Health Services, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, pp 1244 1260, 2011 [[6]] Maqbool Hussain, Healthcare Applications Interoperability through Implementation of HL7 Web Service Basic Profile, Sixth International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations, pp 308 313 ¸2009 [[7]][7] Naeem Khalid Janjua, Digital Health Care Ecosystem: SOA Compliant HL7 based Health Care Information Interchange, 3rd IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies, pp 329 – 334, 2009 [[8]] [8] Sara Gaion, Design of a Domain Model for Clinical Engineering within the HL7 Reference Information Model, IEEE Workshop on Health Care Management, pp 1 6 , 2010 [[9]] N.A. Mamani Macedo, Electronic Health Record: Comparative Analysis of HL7 and Open EHR Approaches, Pan American Health Care Exchange, pp 105 – 110, 2010

john kerry :: essays research papers

Kerry's rivals wax optimistic Massachusetts senator goes for third weekend win Howard Dean braves the cold weather to speak to supporters outside of a caucus site in Bangor, Maine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Story Tools -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CNN ELECTION EXPRESS On the campaign trail: The latest Express Line dispatch VIDEO Kerry wins caucuses in Washington state and Michigan. PLAY VIDEO -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kerry sharpens his attack on the Bush administration. PLAY VIDEO -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GOP may target Kerry by labeling him a "Massachusetts liberal." PLAY VIDEO RELATED Gallery: Analyzing the results Gallery: On the campaign trail Gallery: The candidates, up closer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- †¢ Kerry labels Bush 'extreme' †¢ Dean loses endorsement †¢ Edwards focuses on the South †¢ Analyzing Michigan, Washington †¢ Poll: Kerry has national appeal DEMOCRATIC CONTESTS †¢ Sunday, February 8: Maine caucuses †¢ Tuesday, February 10: Tennessee and Virginia primaries †¢Tuesday, February 17: Wisconsin primary When is your primary? For more key dates in the 2004 election season, see our special America Votes 2004 Election Calendar SPECIAL REPORT †¢ Complete February 3 results †¢ Upcoming Races: Washington, Michigan, Maine †¢ Delegate Scorecard †¢ Primary Explainer †¢ Special Report YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS America Votes 2004s Presidential Race Democratic candidates Presidential primaries or Create your own Manage alerts | What is this? BANGOR, Maine (CNN) -- Democrats across Maine braved frigid winds Sunday to have their say in presidential caucuses in which 24 delegates to the party's nominating convention are up for grabs. Front-runner Sen. John Kerry of neighboring Massachusetts entered the Maine contest with the momentum from two dominant first-place showings in Saturday's caucuses in Washington and Michigan. Kerry also has the endorsements of Maine's Democratic governor, John Baldacci, and former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell. A win in Maine would be his 10th victory in 12 primaries and caucuses. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, struggling to revive his once-promising campaign, was the only candidate barnstorming the state Sunday, making stops in six cities, hoping his fellow New Englanders don't give him the cold shoulder. "Maine folks are just like Vermont people -- they're very independent. And that's a great place to start the turnaround," Dean said after greeting supporters in Bangor who braved sub-zero wind chill to cheer their candidate. Results from the caucuses were expected from party officials about 9 p.m. Dean finished second in both caucuses Saturday. He got 30 percent of the delegate support in Washington, his best showing in any of the nominating contests held so far. But he was nearly 20 points behind Kerry, and 35 points behind him in Michigan.

Ihg’s Corporate Strategy: “The Winning Ways”

IHG’s corporate strategy: ‘The winning ways’ IHG’s mission statement is: ‘to become the greatest company in the world through creating great hotels guests love’. IHG’s road map for growth is dependent on engagement and high performance from the entire workforce. In order to achieve this, IHG designed a set of values, known as ‘the winning ways’. The winning ways serve as ‘a road map’, which enables IHG to reach their long-term vision. IHG’s winning ways will act as the foundation for how they go about their business. More specifically, the winning ways are fundamental to enhancing relationships with guests, colleagues and business owners. This new way of working will also support and drive the organization’s growth. But what are the winning ways and how exactly will one measure the strategy’s success? The winning ways are as follows: Do The Right Thing – â€Å"We aim to do what we believe is right and have the courage and conviction to put it into practice. We are honest and straightforward and see our decisions through. † Show We Care – â€Å"We want to be a company that understands people’s needs better than anyone else in our industry. This means being sensitive to others, noticing the things that matter and taking responsibility for getting things right. Aim Higher – â€Å"We aim to be acknowledged industry leaders, and have built a team of talented people who have a will to be the best. We strive for success and we value individuals who are always looking for better ways to do things. † Celebrate Difference – â€Å"We believe it is the knowledge of our people that brings our brands to life. We do not impose a rigid, uniform view of the world. Our global strength comes from celebrating local differences, while knowing that some things should be the same. † Work Better Together – â€Å"We are at our best when we collaborate to form a powerful team. We listen to each other and combine our expertise to create a strong, focused, supportive and trusted team of people. † The winning ways outline IHG’s culture as being a world leading hotel group. This unique strategy has been rolled out across the entire group and in order to measure the success of the winning ways, employee satisfaction surveys are used. Basically, IHG acknowledges that their people are the most important element for success, because they are responsible for bringing IHG’s brands (within IHG, there are seven hotel brands) to life for guests. IHG uses its’ winning ways strategy to put personnel ‘in the spotlight’ and therefore making employees satisfied, in which they will portray their gratification towards guests. In conclusion, IHG’s winning ways strategy is a smart, yet simple approach to reach their mission statement. The winning ways can also be referred to as their guideline or bible to guide the hotel group towards their long-term vision. IHG’s winning ways are how personnel should behave on a daily basis; a set of behaviors based on their values which is ultimately absorbed by the entire workforce and transferred to the guests. By creating a consistent and reliable workforce, IHG can be sure that their winning ways strategy is the perfect route to success, because after all, guest satisfaction is everything in the hotel industry. References Robert Dransfield (2001), Corporate Strategy – 1st edition, Guildford, England, Heinemann Laura Pratt (2011), Hotelier Magazine – People Pleasers: IHG Aims to Please as Pinnacles 2011 Company of the Year Allison Shirreffs (2011), Atlanta Business Chronicle – InterContinental Hotels Group: Best places to work InterContinental Hotels Group corporate website: http://www. ihgplc. com/index. asp [pic]

The Different Meanings and Uses of Economic Efficiency

The Different Meanings and Uses of Economic Efficiency Generally speaking, economic efficiency refers to a market outcome that is optimal for society. Â  In the context of welfare economics, an outcome that is economically efficient is one that maximizes the size of the economic value pie that a market creates for society. Â  In an economically efficient market outcome, there are no available Pareto improvements to be made, and the outcome satisfies what is known as the Kaldor-Hicks criterion. More specifically, economic efficiency is a term typically used in microeconomics when discussing production. Production of a unit of goods is considered to be economically efficient when that unit of goods is produced at the lowest possible cost. Economics by Parkin and Bade give a useful introduction to the difference between economic efficiency and technological efficiency: There are two concepts of efficiency: Technological efficiency occurs when it is not possible to increase output without increasing inputs. Economic efficiency occurs when the cost of producing a given output is as low as possible.Technological efficiency is an engineering matter. Given what is technologically feasible, something can or cannot be done. Economic efficiency depends on the prices of the factors of production. Something that is technologically efficient may not be economically efficient. But something that is economically efficient is always technologically efficient. A key point to understand is the idea that economic efficiency occurs when the cost of producing a given output is as low as possible. Theres a hidden assumption here, and that is the assumption that all else being equal. A change that lowers the quality of the good while at the same time lowers the cost of production does not increase economic efficiency. The concept of economic efficiency is only relevant when the quality of goods being produced is unchanged.

buy custom Exploration of the Arab-American Muslim Community essay

buy custom Exploration of the Arab-American Muslim Community essay Arab-Americans comprise an ethnicity consisting of groups of people from 22 countries spread across south-west Asia and North Africa. Some refer to them as Middle Eastern. These people immigrated to America during the 19th century and continue to do so up to date, albeit in smaller numbers. The majority of the easily identified Arab-Americans are Muslims even though they are the minority of the community. The Muslim Arab-Americans mostly stand out because of their religious and traditional practices. The noticeable practices of the Muslim Arabs are: Ramadan fasting, attending of Mosque on Friday, among others. These people also commonly stand out because of their dressing especially the women who wear hijabs or burqas. The burqa is an enveloping and modest attire that covers the body from head to toe and is mostly worn by Islamic women in public. The men also sometimes spot long beards. Unlike other foreign cultures and ethnicities in the United States, the Arab American Muslims have maintained their traditions; consistently passing them onto their children. This being evident from the learning that takes place in open Islamic private schools (Samhan). These noticeable features coupled with the fact that these Muslim Arabs do not inter-marry, makes the community an easy target for discrimination and bigotry. Their distinguishing features have also formed the basis of the stereotyping of Arab Muslims living in America. Hamza, Yaseen, El-Houbi, Duncan and Diaz (18) explain that most media channels in the early years typecast Arab Muslims as billionaires, bombers with veiled harems and long beards. Most of these stereotypes have since been done away with but the image of a Muslim bomber or terrorist has remained. The US census classifies the Arabs as whites but some Arabs especially the Muslims have felt discriminated against. This has mostly been experienced since the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. There was however discrimination of Arab Muslims pre the September 11 attacks. The first wave of Arab American immigrants was confronted with discrimination on the simple ground that they were foreign but it was not that rampant. The Arab-Israeli conflict increased bias against the Middle Eastern culture owing to the fact that America supported Israel. Discrimination against Arab American Muslims was also experienced because of the war that America had been fighting in Iraq against Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was a dictator who had committed heinous crimes against humanity and was finally captured and hanged by the US government in 2006. These images of dictators and wars from Middle East had served as a way of stereotyping Middle Eastern people since that was the only way they were portrayed by the media. Discrimination against Arab-Americans was however not so pronounced as that of the other races and ethnicities such as blacks and Hispanics. Discrimination however increased with the images in the media and also terror attacks such as the 1993 bombing of World Trade Centre. A new wave of stereotyping and extreme bias became evident following the terrorist attacks in New York in 2001. This discrimination was based on the fact that the terror gang in Afghanistan identified as Al Qaeda was said to be responsible for the twin attacks. The hijackers of the planes that crashed into the twin towers were all identified as Muslims. The attacks saw Muslim Arabs in America all pigeonholed as terrorists. This was mostly seen in the airports where some even refused to board planes with a Muslim passenger. There has also been closer scrutiny of immigrants from Middle East. In some airports, the Muslim Arabs have been subjected to stricter standards. Personally, I must admit that after the terror attacks, I became more alert and conscious about the Muslims around me. The terror attacks made Americans angry as many had lost their lives and some still suffer the adverse effects of the tragedy. In some States, it was reported that Muslims were insulted in public and atta cked. Mosques were also vandalized and burnt in some places. Extreme hatred and contempt was also shown to anyone who associated themselves with the Arab Muslims. The attacks created an image of bloodthirsty, religious fanatic and animalistic Arab Muslims which saw their discrimination rampantly increase. The Council of American Islamic Relations reported that after 2001, hate crimes against Muslims tripled. The American government also closed down six charities belonging to American Muslims, following the attacks. There has also been unconscious discrimination in the criminal justice system where there has been detention and torture of suspected terrorists and this has mostly been applicable to Arab American Muslims. This was mostly seen in the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison. The stereotypes of Arab American Muslims according to the findings of this research are not true. Other studies have also proved that Arab American Muslims are very different from the terrorists. There are also many Arab American Muslims who have spoken openly against jiha and other extremist behavior. Most Muslims advocate that Islam is a religion of peace. Arab American Muslims are also from various countries with various cultures. They do not all come from Afghanistan or war torn areas. It was however observed in my research that Islam calls for modesty and conservatism and that is why the women have to cover their heads. The men do not however have to spot long beards or look like Osama bin Laden. The Arab American Muslim community is as diverse as any other community and they do not all fit in one pigeonhole. Having viewed movies and documentaries about the Middle East and especially the Muslim community, I had formed opinions and stereotypes about them. The September 11, 2001 also shaped most of my opinions about the community. I had not interacted with people of this community before, and there was no way of verifying the ideas and concepts that I had gathered from the media. This research has however helped me to interact with some members of the Arab American Muslim community. I have conducted interviews on their thoughts on racial bias in America and how at home they feel in America especially after the 2001 attacks. I have also visited websites such as alhewar.com which elaborate on the Arab American culture and dispels some of the myths held about the community in America. To fully understand the extent of the discrimination and the daily struggles of Muslim Arabs in America, I had to immerse myself in their culture. I decided to be one of the Muslims for a whole week. This meant t elling people that I was Muslim and dressing like one. I also walked together with the Muslim group of people that I had chosen to help me with the research. This experience proved to be quite enlightening and challenging at the same time. It was also worthwhile and gave me the opportunity to be able to experience everything first hand. Methodology The cyberspace has a lot of information on the Arab American Muslim community. This is where most of the information on this research was obtained from. The interviews with the Muslims were also a reliable and first hand source of information on the group. The research also relied on journal articles and television interviews and popular shows. As has been mentioned above, I researched about the Muslim Arab community by becoming one of them. The Muslim group of people who were my interviewees also served as my guides in order to make the experience more real. Everywhere we went, people understood that I was one of the Muslims and treated me as one. The Muslim community treated me with utmost hospitality even though they understood that I was not one of them. There were however stares from strangers on the streets and a shopkeeper once refused to serve us on the basis that he did not support terrorists. The discrimination was disheartening as it felt like an ambush on me even though I knew I was not a Muslim. This was the part that brought some apprehension on my part. This is because no one likes to be attacked or be discriminated against. The anxiety was also heightened by the outright confrontations from some members of the public some of whom clearly showed their disapproval of Islam. There was also anxiety at first about how the Muslims would respond to the issue of segregation, given the fact that it is still an emotive issue. I also had my doubts on the consequences of posing as a Muslim in America. The immersion however helped me get closer to the Muslim community and it helped develop a sense of trust between me and my Muslim colleagues. The Arab Muslims that I had interacted with also helped to point the places where they faced acute discrimination and emphasized that that was their daily struggle. During the interaction I found a peculiar thing that I did not expect. There were some Arab Muslims who had chosen to completely abandon their culture as a way of avoiding stereotyping and discrimination. There were also others who wished to go back to their countries of origin as they were afraid of profiling by the government. There were others who also secretly wished they were born in a different race as they were completely disgusted by the terrorists. This presented an issue of hatred of ones own race or ethnicity. I also asked the research group if they ever thought that the discrimination would come to an end eventually and if the law against discrimination was working in their favour. Most of them were of the idea that the discrimination was unlikely to end in this decade and that anti-discrimination laws did not seem to protect them from outright bias. They felt that the government had removed civil protection of Arab Muslims in America since the September 11 attacks. Findings My observations and interviews led me to the conclusion that the Arab American Muslim community has faced tremendous discrimination since 2001. The discrimination has been open in most cases and has led to serious psychological problems for some, for example the case of the man who disowned his ethnicity and Islam. Most of the Muslims would want to dispel the myth that they are all terrorists and extremists. My research on the Muslim culture also revealed that some of the Muslims were fourth generation Americans who had lived in America for a long period of time. They knew America as their home yet when they were seen on the streets people misconceived them as foreigners and worst still terrorists. The discrimination has had impact on the identity of some of the Muslims. Cainkar (23) states that some have preferred to conceal their identity by changing their names, for example one could change from Farouq to Fred. Others have also gone as far as disowning their families in order not to be identified with them. This has been made possible by the fact that Arab American Muslims without any other distinguishing features are considered Caucasian. The interviews and internet research also revealed that the government did not have a strong enough policy to curb the hate crimes and extreme discrimination against the Arab Muslims in America. This has mainly been attributed to the fact that in some cases, the government has been the biased party. The Muslims also revealed that they felt that the government viewed them as the enemies or relatives of the enemies. I also interviewed some members of the public on why they stereotyped Arab American Muslims as terrorists. Some people answered that even though they knew some of the Muslims were not terrorists, then maybe a brother or other relative back home was, making them equally terrorist. This reasoning appalled me because it seemed that going by this, then the families of the millions of criminals in America would also b e considered as criminals. The investigations also revealed that airports have been worst sites of discrimination for Arab American Muslims. This is because of the fact that the September 11 attacks were as a result of two planes that had been hijacked. The presence of a Muslim has therefore heightened anxiety at the airport and in some cases there are special security checks for them. Some are even removed from planes to be given thorough checking. This has culminated to less Muslim Arabs travelling into the country and within the country. The US Department of Justice issued an internal memo to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and US Customs in June 2002. This memo requested that Yemenis entering the US should be sought out in the airports and searched thoroughly. This requirement also applied to Yemeni Americans, and it saw many Yemeni travelers removed from planes and prevented from boarding. No stereotypes that I had before were confirmed during my exploration of the Arab American Muslim communit y. I realized at the end of the day that no human being is exactly the same as the other. Regardless of the many factors that bind people in a particular ethnicity or race, there were many other different characteristics distinguishing each individual. To work from further judgment of the Arab Americans more so the Muslims, I have decided to access websites and read books to know more about the culture. The colleagues I made from the investigation have also immensely helped me understand many of the things I did not. Conclusion This exploration project has helped me to find out a lot more than I could write in this paper. It has also helped me discover more about myself and my own culture. I learnt that discrimination can have far reaching consequences that society does not contemplate. I also learnt that stereotyping and segregation is painful and I understood civil rights movements such as that of Martin Luther King much more clearly. The discrimination of Arab American Muslims has been under-addressed unlike that of blacks in the earlier years. This is mainly because of the terrorist attacks and this has generated pain and suffering. It is clear that many Americans died during the September 2001 attacks, but hatred and segregation of innocent people will definitely not solve the problem of terrorism. The real terrorist culprits should be captured, investigated and sentenced. This was exercised during the Oklahoma City 1998 bombings, where the real culprits were captured. Whidden (2829) states that the Ok lahoma City bombings were the worst in Americas history. He also states that Arab American terrorists have been responsible for only a few bombings in American soil since 1984; most terrorist attacks being executed by Americans themselves. This is not to condone or promote terrorism but what I learnt is that in the same way one would not want to pay for the mistakes of another person, Arab Muslims in America would not want to pay for the mistakes of the Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group. Justice should be afforded to all American citizens regardless of their race or ethnicity. There have however been some positive changes since the 2001 attacks and Americans are trying to learn more about Islam. We have to look for the commonalities that unite as Americans instead of erecting differences and tolerating each other (Jamal). Buy custom Exploration of the Arab-American Muslim Community essay

Read Ch. 11 and the Resource section in the book Creating Graphics for Essay

Read Ch. 11 and the Resource section in the book Creating Graphics for Learning and Performance - Essay Example The standing out of the information improves leaner selection. Contrast can be used to help the leaner distinguish between information that is important to the one that is less important. Two color schemes are very important in the perception and visual acuity of the learner. The two schemes divide the color wheel in two halves, which are the warm and cool color and the spectral scheme. Colors that are found in the middle of the color spectra are linked to greater acuity. Warm colors are used to make an element even more noticeable. Organization The color chosen should be able to exhibit a hierarchy of importance. Color can be used to suggest a form of ranking. Color can be used to create layers of information resulting in the creation of hierarchy. The dark to sequence or the dull to bright sequence can be used to demonstrate the increase in significance. Integration Colors that are used should enable the learner to view and the bigger picture. Colors can be combined to form a contr ibution to the learner seeing the bigger picture. The choice of colors can be dependent on the color wheel. It provides a scheme of colors that tend to work together. One can be able to work with fewer colors effectively. The choice of colors can be based on inspiration from art. Works of art can be inspirational. The choice of colors can be based on color palettes. The color palettes are found in templates. The color schemes used are artist-created. The schemes should be mastered to enable to fully utilize them. The choice of colors may be based on psychological associations. Colors can evoke responses. The responses are emotional in nature. Colors can be used in accordance to the various colors that are associated to the various human emotions. Briefly, one should choose colors that enables learners identify important information easily and quickly by making such information stand out. The colors chosen should also bring out the main theme of whatever information is being displaye d. The choice of color should be made with the aim of establishing order or hierarchy in the arrangement of information more so in the order of significance to the learner. Should I base decisions on the psychology of color? Psychology of color refers to the physical and emotional impact that colors have. The notion can also be based on the harmony that is assigned to each different color. The psychological aspects are based on different cultural preferences, gender, and age. For example, bright primary colors are preferred by children. Freshness relates to blue and green. Orange associates excitement. More white colors are considered light. Less white colors are considered heavy. Yes, decisions on the color to be used should be based on the psychology of color. The decision also depends on the age group of learners. Adults have different color preferences and meanings as compared to children. Cultural preferences should also be tabled. Different colors have different meanings to di fferent cultures. Colors considered attractive to women convey a different message to men and vice versa. The targeted learner group will hugely influence the decisions. Colors evoke responses that are emotional. Colors create a warm and inviting feeling to the learners. The invited learner will feel more at ease hence enhancing the whole learning process. A bad combination of colors can result to distraction of the learner. Distraction of the learner inhibits performance of the whole learnin

Ethics of Solar Laboratory,Hydro Power Laboratory and Wind Power Assignment

Ethics of Solar Laboratory,Hydro Power Laboratory and Wind Power Laboratory - Assignment Example In this regard, the general public and other concerned stakeholders are on a high alert on issues ascribed to ethic on the energy production sector. This discussion will focus on the three forms of energy generation, basically explicating ethical considerations on their production. In as much as there are few ethical issues raised in the field of solar energy production, one of the most evident ethical concerns in this field since the early 1990’s is the cost of production. According to the National Academy of Engineering, production of solar energy is relatively higher, especially when produced on a large scale (Durant, 2012). The high cost of production of this form of energy arises from the fact that the materials used to manufacture solar panels are quite expensive for instance: The National Academy of Engineering noted that most solar panels are manufactured using silicon as a photovoltaic material; silicon is quite expensive thus creating the need for another cheaper alternative photovoltaic material. In this regard, the Academy proposed a number of ways: The first strategy to lower the cost of solar energy generation is to use Cadmium Telluride as a photovoltaic material; this material is relatively cheaper than silicon (Durant, 2012). Moreover, the production of solar energy could also be made cheaper through encouraging mass production of solar energy. The other ethical issue ascribed to the production of solar energy is its impact of environment; environmentalists have asserted that solar energy is one of the best sources renewable energy owing to the fact that it does not pose any environmental threat that could affect nature and human life (Durant, 2012). Perhaps this is one of the reasons this kind of energy is currently gaining global recognition. There are various benefits associated with the use of wind power. One of these benefits is the fact that wind power is renewable and does not have significant negative impact on the