Saturday, August 31, 2019

Corruption: Sovereign State and Black Mark

Corruption Outlines: 1) Corruption is social evil. 2) Pakistan is the special victim. 3) Corruption is black mark. 4) Govt. is involved in corruption. 5) People are ignorant. 6) Govt. should be honest. 7) Media should show bad result of corruption. 8) Technical education is a good solution. Corruption is an evil that is destroying our nation. At this time, corruption is the biggest problem of our Pakistan. Pakistan needs progress, but corruption is the biggest hurdle in the way of progress. Although, corruption is an international problem, but Pakistan is special victim.Advanced countries have solved the evil of corruption, but Pakistan is facing dangers of corruption daily. Corruption is termite. This termite is eating the roots of our nation. Corruption is a black mark. In Pakistan, we face many different shapes of corruption. People are facing corruption daily. Corruption has made public life like hell. Corruption finished peace and rest of our nation. Corruption created many othe r social evils. Dearness is the special result of corruption. Our Govt. is famous for corruption. Our Govt. never gave any attention to corruption and its solution, but now the time is over.Mostly, the Govt. is involved in corruption. Departments are busy in corruption daily. They are running a rat race in corruption. Some NGOs are spreading corruption. They get benefits, there is corruption in Pakistan; If, some leaders are fan of corruption. They are the ring leader of corruption. RAW is also spreading corruption, because India wants to make Pakistan weak. USA is also involved in corruption in Pakistan, because USA can control Pakistan. Illiteracy in Pakistan is the major cause of corruption. People are ignorant and they are enjoying corruption. Our rulers are lazy. They are in favour of corruption.Media is ignoring corruption. T. V. is also neglecting corruption. There are many disadvantages of corruption. Our Pakistan is becoming weak. Governments are lazy. Media is sleeping. Ma phia is controlling our system. We are passing dull life. People have no normal values. Governments are evil. Departments are looters. Scholars are sleeping. People are neglecting duties. Nation is in full tension. There are other social evils. Pakistan has no future. Corruption has become our culture. God’s torment is very near. We are at the last stage of corruption. Our nation is jumping into dark well.Corruption should be finished. Governments should be active. Media should show bad results of corruption. Scholars should guide nation against corruption. Our rulers should make law against corruption. There should be strict punishment for corruption. Departments should never accept corruption. Our mothers should create awareness against corruption. We should pass simple life. We should get religious education, if we went to finish corruption. We should get technical education to finish corruption. There should be justice and prosperity in Pakistan. In this way, there will b e no corruption.

Friday, August 30, 2019

Race and Ethnicity Related Controversies in the News Essay

Any given society relies on newspapers as one of its major source of information and basically sets the tone for the rest of the media on how it should conduct its coverage (Jennifer, 2003). Given this fact, it important to question the way information is presented to the public by journalists. In their endeavor to provide the public with information, journalists reproduce world views that are culturally embedded in a bid to distinguish the significant and the valid (Mikal, 2010). The technique of organization used by journalist to frame their stories is the similar as the one used by everyone daily to create a conversation be it controversial or interesting. Journalists frame information either positively or negatively. They have the capability of making people question the race of the character in discussion thereby either drawing sympathy or criticism from the targeted audience for the purpose for which the journalist intended (Mia, 2006). This review will be looking at race and ethnicity and how it has been in the news as regards to racial profiling. In the news world, racial profiling has been used to mean the stopping of people in public places for the purpose of inspecting them to find out their race and ethnicity for statistical reasons. In post September 11 news, the term ‘Flying while Arabs’ has been common in journalists’ vocabulary. It is used to imply that law enforcers have been unfairly targeting Arabs without a good cause (Saud 2003). The Depart of Justice defines racial profiling as a police-initiated action relying on race or ethnicity besides the behavior of any individual who is suspected of engaging in criminal activity. Amnesty international, on the other hand, defines racial profiling as the use of race, ethnicity, and religion, to target individuals or groups by law enforcement officers because of lack of trustworthy information linking the aforementioned groups to crime or a scheme (Leonard 2002). Racial profiling was a social injustice according to many articles before the September 11 attack. However, others portrayed it as a sensible technique used by law enforcement officers (David, 2013). Those who defended the practice argued that it was a case of police officers using scarce resources in fighting crime by using the law of probability (Nadra ,2011). An interesting dichotomy came up after the September 11 attack with journalist adding victims of racial profiling to their coverage and the shift of transformation in belief by the public. In 2004, Michelle Makin wrote an article in the USA today stating that it justifiable to do racial profiling based on race, religion or even nationality in a scenario where by the security of the United States is threatened. She went on to state that in situation whereby the USA and Islamic extremist are at war, it makes sense to target local Muslim communities for intelligence gathering. A similar view was supported by Charles Krauthammer who in 2001 wrote in ‘Times’ magazine that to prevent terrorists from travelling in the US, then racial profiling at the airport was a better option. On October 17 2001, a renowned African American columnist expressed relief in his column Omaha world-Herald stating that his ethnic group was no longer in the spotlight as there was now a new public enemy number one namely Muhammad and Osama. In conclusion it can be said that while news remains to be the number source of information, it is also true that the way it is presented remains to be a vital as it can be used to create or demystify sociological theories in a society. Reference Mia N. (2006). Racial Profiling in the Black and Mainstream Media Before and After September 11 . The University of Texas at Austin. Available online < http://www. academia. edu/1535675/Racial_Profiling_in_the_Black_and_Mainstream_Media_Pre_and_Post_September_11_Doctoral_Dissertation> Nadra K. (2011). Improving Media Coverage of Racial profiling. Available online Mikal M. (2010). Media black face â€Å"racial Profiling† in news reporting. Available online < http://www. peopleofcolororganize. com/analysis/opinion/media-blackface-racial-profiling-news-reporting/> Jennifer D. (2003). The perils of profiling for the media. Available online < http://www. apa. org/monitor/jan03/perils. aspx> Saud (2003). Racial profiling of Arab, Muslim Americans in US media.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Ch 10 Boeing Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Ch 10 Boeing - Case Study Example Various factors both internal and external lead to this downfall of Boeing in late 90’s and early this decade. Boeing has now managed to strike gold again with Dreamliner while Airbus stumbled. But both were troubled by poor outsourcing strategies. This essay tries to address factors during this phase. One of the main reasons for Boeing’s downfall was the financial problems in Asia which lead numerous orders being cancelled and postponed. Boeing took a very long time to anticipate the impact of economic conditions in Asia. If Boeing had anticipated the negative impact of Asian economy sooner, it could have prevented some of the problems that it confronted. It could have been well prepared and managed its production more intelligently which would help in avoiding losses. Boeing’s top management messed up big time and made disastrous calculations in the late 1990’s which caused huge losses to the company. They were too blind to look beyond their traditional strategy and were adamant to maintain the 60% market share. After their poor show the top management should have been fired and new management that would bring in fresh ideas should have been hired. This would help the company to attack the problem in a different way and come up with a better strategy. â€Å"Management worries too much about Airbus, and to hell with the stockholders†.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Week #4 Learning Activity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Week #4 Learning Activity - Essay Example The Lily Ledbetter Act will help abolish pay discrimination because it extends time period for filing claims and expands the application of pay discrimination claims; however, it also has its limitations. The Act reinstates the interpretation of the regulation that a pay discrimination claim accumulates whenever an employee experiences pay discrimination (U.S. Department of Labor, 2014, p.1). The Act overturns the Supreme Court’s decision that stated that people subject to pay discrimination merely have 180 days from the date the employer first chooses to pay them less to file a discrimination claim (U.S. Department of Labor, 2014, p.1). Moreover, the Act allows some courts to interpret "compensation decision or other practice† for broader applications (National Women’s Law Center, 2011). For instance, in Gentry v. Jackson State University, a Mississippi district court ruled that denial of tenure can meet the criteria as a compensation decision or â€Å"other pra ctice,† if it shapes the plaintiffs salary (National Women’s Law Center, 2011). A broad interpretation of the law ensures that pay discrimination does not happen in other indirect forms. On the contrary, narrower interpretations can still lead to pay discrimination, despite the existence of the Act. For instance, some courts do not find â€Å"failure to promote† as part of compensation claims. Promotion directly affects pay discrimination, and yet, some courts may choose to not treat it as important to pay equity. The Lily Ledbetter Act greatly helps in reducing pay discrimination because of broadened filing of claims and interpretations. Nevertheless, it may not be enough to stop employers from applying pay discrimination through other means that the Act does not specifically include. Hence, the Act is only one of the many steps that society must take to ensure the full eradication of pay

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

International Human Resource Management and organisational behviour Essay

International Human Resource Management and organisational behviour - Essay Example In the case of running an enterprise or organization, the staffing function is a continuous process, and so the leader or the manager particularly the Human Resource Manager should perform the staffing function at all times. It is necessary that the management must ensure a constant availability of sufficient number of efficient employees from managers, executives, technical persons to labourers, for the efficient functioning of the enterprise. Overall, the selected personnel should be physically, mentally, emotionally and temperamentally fit for the job. This can be achieved by adopting or by having an optimal staffing process. According to Koontz and O’Donnell, â€Å"The managerial function of staffing involves managing the organization structure through proper and effective selection, appraisal and development of personnel to fill the roles designed into the structure†. This optimal staffing process and the resultant optimal performance of the organization will diffe r according to the nature or the type of the organization. That is, organizations may be divided into national firms and Multinational firms. National or indigenous firms are normally started or established by the ‘sons’ and ‘daughters’, or citizens of a particular nation, while Multinational companies (MNC) will be established in particular nations by foreigners, with the native people only playing a secondary role. Due to this difference in origination, the staffing process for these two types of organization will differ. So, this paper will discuss the perspective that staffing a Multinational Company is fundamentally different from staffing a national firm, by analyzing it through case studies. Recruitment forms the first and the main part of the staffing process, whatever is the type of the organization. The HRM perspective stresses that each activity including Staffing should form part of the whole process of people management. (Price 2002) Normally, organizations

Monday, August 26, 2019

Critical Appraisal Of Qualitative and Quantitative Research Articles Essay

Critical Appraisal Of Qualitative and Quantitative Research Articles - Essay Example The article titled â€Å"Analyzing Qualitative interview data. Addressing issues of reliability and validity† presented by   J.V. Appleton deals with the aspects that must be taken into consideration while conducting a qualitative research study to ensure the reliability and validity of the data (Appleton, 1995). In contrast, Shuster and Shannon (1994) in their article titled   â€Å"Differential Prehospital Benefit from Paramedic Care† present the aspects affecting the efficacy of quantitative research methods. Both article authors have based their findings on the results of actual studies they have personally carried out in order to assess the relative efficacy of either method. The two articles present a valuable insight into the process of conducting research and the means that may be employed to ensure that data obtained are as valid and reliable as possible. Both these studies were conducted using health professionals as the source of the data. J.V. Appleton (1995) is a healthcare visitor/worker and the aim and objective of her research effort were to identify a set of criteria to identify and determine which families could be considered â€Å"vulnerable† from the point of view of child protection. The method chosen for her research study was a qualitative approach based on a two-fold process – the administration of questionnaires as well as follow up interviews. The reason for the choice of a qualitative approach lay in the fact that this was an exploratory study designed to elicit the perspective of healthcare workers. Therefore the quality of the data was dependent upon the richness and quality of the responses that needed to be obtained rather than upon statistical numbers and figures that could be used as the basis for the study. Qualitative research has been found to be useful in the study of exploratory phenomena (Morse, 1991).   Appleton’s study was based upon questionnaires administered to 1 2 healthcare workers followed up by face to face interviews, with a tape recorder being used in all cases.

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Reflection paper Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Reflection paper - Article Example The documentary also identifies the marketing effects of politics, it discusses how the politicians utilize the marketing perspectives to be elected and stay in their offices. Information in the documentary is presented in a manner that indicates all the aspects of marketing. Douglass Rushcoff , the correspondent is unbiased on the factors he attributes on marketing. He talks of issues that concern the relation between marketers and consumers. He also mentions that consumers tend to be trapped in marketing and they are usually confused by the diversity in advertisement. The film indicates that the type of advertisement that has occupied the marketing world and how they are convincing to individuals. The aspect of marketing in politics is legit and common in various parts of the world. Politicians have been note to manipulate the image they want the society to view so that they can secure their offices and maintain their

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Islamic Banking and capitalism Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Islamic Banking and capitalism - Research Paper Example First, globalization is commonly seen as an integration of developed and less-developed countries leading to a homogenization of sorts. For instance, the emergence of a middle-class in China and India is often mentioned as an example of globalization homogenizing the world, as is the global reach of brands such as Nike and Ford. Globalization has also lead to the increasing mobility of the population. This in turn, has sometimes not created homogenization, but differentiation. An example of this would be the development of Islamic finance—financial organizations that are based on Islamic principles rather than capitalist or Western financial models. Analysts generally identify the first of these as â€Å"a savings bank based on profit-sharing in the Egyptian town of Mit Ghamr in 1963.† (Ariff, 1988, p. 42) Many significant Islamic financial institutions then developed in the 1970s such as the Dubai Islamic Bank, the Faisal Islamic Bank of Sudan and the Baharain Islamic Bank. More recently, with the widespread immigration of Muslims to the United States banks such as the Devon Bank in Chicago have developed. Its website describes it in this way: â€Å"Devon Bank offers Islamic financing services designed to avoid conventional interest common in traditional banking products.† (http://www.devonbank.com/Islamic/) The emergence of Islamic financial services corporations is an example of globalization leading to leading to more differentiation rather than homogenization. Throughout the world, and particularly in the United States, it is a new and a different development for there to be financial institutions that offer financial services based on Sharia law (and of course compliant with the legal requirements of their host countries. Devon Bank makes this plain on its homepage: â€Å"Our products are created to meet your needs by a staff versed in both U.S. and Islamic legal requirements, and then submitted

Friday, August 23, 2019

Eroding Local Control & The Influence and Climate of the Courts Essay - 2

Eroding Local Control & The Influence and Climate of the Courts - Essay Example The cost of improper education systems sums up in a downward trend in the national productivity with increased burden of care to the incarcerated persons and the unemployed through public relief (Garfield, Brimley, et al, 2008). Discussion Question 1 The degree to which education meets individual and societal aspirations depends largely on the quality of education received, which in turn tier closely with the resources made available and the extent to which they are properly used. The number of educational institutions is a fundamental contributory factor towards such quality. Thus, reducing the number of school districts in a state generally reduces the difference in ability to support education between the â€Å"wealthiest† system and the â€Å"poorest† system/district in terms of assessed valuation per pupil to be educated. As predicted by scholars like DuBois in the1970s, color line educational problem in terms of state funding in the 20th century seem to be flaring well into the 21st century with recognizable disparities. It is evidently clear that educational outcomes for students of color are proportionate functions of unequal access to educational resources. The US education system is understandably the most unequal in the industrialized world with students receiving different leaning opportunities based on social stratification. It is estimated that the expenditure ratio of wealthiest ten percent and the poorest ten percent of the district schools across states is almost 10 to 1. Averagely, the current strikingly differences are put at 3 to 1. According to Jonathan Kozol, expenditure per student in Chicago public schools in the 1990s was approximately $5000 while their Niles Township High school neighbors spent double the amount student. He also recounted the use of old textbooks, lack of science labs, inadequate teachers and more in elementary schools serving predominantly African Americans. In contrast, schools in New Trier serving 98 p ercent whites were well equipped with superior labs with up-to-date technology, experienced teachers and a wider range of courses provided. By every measure to the degree of qualification – state certification, pedagogical training, content background for teaching, test scores, college attended and the experience attained so far –fewer qualified teachers disproportionately serve in schools with greater numbers of low-income/minority students. It is utterly impossible to reconcile the two extreme scenarios with an expectation of similar student performance. It is on the basis of the foregoing facts that consolidation would be a desirable option in reducing the gap in supporting education between the wealthiest and the poorest. Discussion Question 2 While consolidation of schools would be a desirable option in terms of fiscal and educational auspices, the idea is not a â€Å"generic fits all† proposition. It is well beyond doubt that 5 school districts in Tennesse e County with separate, independent directors translates into appropriate supervisory personnel (instruction, curriculum, federal programs, special services, attendance). However, the ability to save on costs serves as a strong selling point for consolidation. Merging schools into large blocks free up unused resources for other purposes, reduces utility and maintenance costs,

Mathematics Book Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mathematics Book Report - Essay Example There are 28 chapters in the book, each one dealing with different aspects of mathematics. It does not deal everything as a story. Rather, it tells about the development of main ideas and gives us a clear understanding of what math and science in general means. The book starts with the origin of number systems through different countries, starting from Egypt, Mesopotamia and its development in the different ages of Plato and Aristotle. Then, the book tells about how math evolved through the eyes of different mathematicians like Newton, Leibniz, Fermat and Descartes and how they applied it in different fields of life. One always wonders about how each and every equation in mathematics was evolved and what made those equations perfectly correct. This book gives you the answers for whatever you think about math. Carl Boyer has given a strong emphasis on the chronological arrangement of the book and the history it refers to. This turns out to be the unique reason for the success of this book. Once you get your sight in, we are entitled to ask ourselves as to why mathematics leaves us with questions we cannot answer. The amazing thing one learns when reading this book is that mathematics evolved not only in Europe but in other parts of the world too. Interestingly, it is not only men who discovered its mysteries.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Social Contract Theory of John Locke Essay Example for Free

Social Contract Theory of John Locke Essay Abstract John Locke’s theory of the Social Contract is †merely a reasoned description of sound government but also a history of government from the earliest scatterings of humans, through their association in a social contract, to their rebellion when the terms of that contract are breached. † 1 This theory gives us the reason behind the idea that government only works if the people want to be governed. Any individual in this instance has the expectation that they and what they do are only limited by their own will. So under the social contract theory, the individual gives up some of its right in order to reap the benefits of what a social order can offer. Introduction Locke’s Theory says that before a society is formed men live â€Å"free† in a state of nature. In this society, although there are great things about living free in such a society, it carries the risk of having problems about all kinds of things and without a civil law authority; man was the arbiter of all. Locke’s theory brings to mind the old west. In little town with no law officer, the people or community carried out its own brand of justice. A man protected his home and family by any means necessary. The social contract theory gives them that right. Criminological Theory The theory has basis in today’s criminal justice system in that there are segments of society that believe that the law doesn’t apply to them nor does it protect them. For example, the perception is that the amount of crime in the inner city is rampant. It is widely reported on the news every night. There are always stories on these neighborhoods if and only if it is sensational and /or involves a Caucasian citizen. This argument bears out when newspapers print banner headlines about Caucasian children being missing or kidnapped and the nation is on the lookout for this child. Then, when an African American child goes missing, the first thing we hear about is that a pedophile was seen with him or his parents were drug dealers or someone in his family was convicted of a crime. The residents of the inner city have then learned that there is one set of laws for minorities or residents of the inner city and one set for those in the suburbs. In some instances they believe that there is no need for you to report some things to law enforcement because some how it will be the residents fault. The social contract theory is alive and well in the inner city. In Bill Lawson’s paper â€Å"Crime, Minorities, and the social contract â€Å" he posits that if the citizens of a particular neighborhood or group believe that government hasn’t done their job by adequately protecting them from crime and they take matters into their own hands according to Locke they are well within their rights. This comes from the idea that â€Å"One of the most important benefits of the state provides that of protection. This protection can be from either from outside invaders or unsavory characters within the state, that is, those individuals who want to infringe on property right by stealing, defrauding, or destroying property. †2 In the inner city, this seems more prevalent so if the citizens of that area believe that they are under served they tend to look to other means to protect themselves. Conclusion There are areas in the inner city that don’t expect the police to show up when something happens and when they do show up the people don’t expect them to do much. That expectation brings the social contract back into focus. For so long they believed that the government was protecting them, then after a while they came to believe that they had to protect themselves thereby enforcing the social contract with themselves and not the government.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Building Materials Market in Vietnam

Building Materials Market in Vietnam This part of the research provides a deeper view on Vietnam building materials industry with concentration on the recent business situation of construction and building materials market. Information about building materials firms is also provided. 1.1 Construction and real estate Vietnam’s economy has gone through a struggling period of insubstantial credit expansion, because of the decelerated development in the banking system characterized by non-performing loans (NPLs) and a property market slump. The property market in Vietnam is currently disheartened, disputing with market conditions including a lack of capital resources have resulted in construction companies being unable to complete projects, while purchasers are finding it challenging to afford property because of a lack of access to loans. As a result, many construction projects, housing, apartments, etc. are being unfinished .There are also signs of distressed property assets in the country. Therefore the construction industry’s growth rate declined from 19.7% in 2011 to 6.5% in 2012, although the industry reached a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19% from 2008 to 2012 (Timetric, 2013). The construction market in Vietnam is expected to be higher than average growth rates until the end of the decade (CB Richard Ellis Group, 2008 2013). Construction spending was approximately US$18.6 billion in 2012, which accounted for slightly under 20% of the country’s GDP. This spending is estimated to grow by nearly 7% per annual over the next five years (Savills, 2013). In Vietnam construction market, the residential sector made up the largest proportion of more than half of total construction spending in 2012, followed by the infrastructure sector. The non-residential market constituted just about 10% of total construction spending in 2012. (IHS Inc., 2012) Currently, a mismatch between supply and demand in the Vietnamese property market has happened. Demand perseveres for affordable housing, office but construction developers of mid to high end assets are in difficulty to attract buyers or rental consumers. This table showed the existing and the new supply for office market in Vietnam. Chart 10: Existing and new office supply. Unit: sqm (000s) (Savills, 2013) In Cushman Wakefield Market outlook 2013, it stated that current average rents for Grade A in Vietnam have decreased by 46% and 41% in HCMC and Hanoi respectively, compares to 2008. Meanwhile the total value of inventory in housing projects was estimated at more than VND125 trillion (US$6 billion) in 55 cities and provinces in May 2013. High real estate prices and over-supply, which have rocketed due to speculative activities at the peak of the market, are serious problems. They resulted in rental rates declined during the recent years with average rents throughout all grades falling by approximately 2% quarter-on-quarter (DTZ Vietnam, 2012). Contractors are holding on a lot of purchased real estate products at relatively high prices and are unwilling to sell at a loss price throughout the current downward trend. In many reports were submitted to construction firms and Vietnamese government, they all advised to address the over-supply issue, adjustments to the apartment size and lev el of development are necessary. In Asia Construction Outlook by AECOM in 2013, they forecasted that all major sectors in Vietnam would grow over the next five years at similar rates. Specifically, total construction output of Vietnam would be at around $18.5 billion till 2018, with the growth rate of about 6.7%. Infrastructure investment, such as highways, rail and ports, will be a main growth area until the end of the decade. However, the government is likely to have limited capacity for funding much of this because it is likely to be constrained by public debt levels. As a result Vietnam is set to offer significant opportunities through privately financed infrastructure projects, with the funding likely to take the form of foreign direct investment or PPP joint ventures. Geographically, the large amount of the investment will be focused on Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and the North-South corridor in between. 1.2 Building materials market 1.2.1 Characteristics The companies In Vietnam building materials industry, almost top manufacturers are state-owned. See the table 3 and 4 below for the top building materials firm in Vietnam according to VNR500: Table 3: Top 12 biggest building materials firms in Vietnam Rank Company Type Products 1 Ha Tien Cement JSC State-owned Cement 2 Viglacera Corporation State-owned Tiles, Building Glass, Sanitary wares, AAC, bricks 3 Cement Holcim Vietnam Joint Venture Cement 4 Nghi Son Cement Joint Venture Cement 5 Chinfon Cement Corporation Joint Venture Cement 6 Vincem Hoang Thach Co. Ltd State-owned Cement 7 Vincem Bim Son JSC State-owned Cement 8 Vissai Group Private Cement 9 Phuc Son Cement JSC Joint Venture Cement 10 FICO JSC State-owned Cement 11 Phu Tai JSC Private Stone, Tiles, Wood 12 Vincem Hoang Mai JSC State-owned Cement Note that the joint venture companies above are among state-owned companies and foreign investors. Table 4: Top 12 biggest private building materials companies in Vietnam Rank Company Products Note 1 Vissai Group Cement 2 Phu Tai JSC Stone, Tiles, Wood 3 Quangninh construction and cement JSC Cement Sub-company of SOE 4 Prime Vinh Phuc Company Tiles 5 Vinh Tuong Industrial Corporation Ceiling, drywall grid 6 Song Gianh Cement Co. Ltd. Cement Sub-company of SOE 7 Viglacera Ha Long JSC Terracotta tiles Sub-company of SOE 8 DIC Intraco JSC Steels, AAC, Wood, Roof tiles, Klinkers Sub-company of SOE 9 Le Phan Construction Co Ltd Concrete 10 Vicostone Stone 11 Prime Dai Viet JSC Tiles 12 Tay Do Cement JSC Cement Sub-company of SOE As you can see from the above tables, the state-owned building materials companies account for large proportion in the industry. They also are the dominating factor in private sector, it has created bad business environment in Vietnam due to incentives that SOEs have received. Therefore, they do not have very active domestic rivals who put pressure on them to innovate. Regarding to types of products, it is seen that cement is the top priority in the industry. 10 out of 12 biggest manufacturers are producing cement and cement related products. This sector has contributed a large ratio in export activities of Vietnam (see table 9). However, nowadays, tiles sector attracts more attention of government because of this sector’s importance on the global market. Vietnam ceramic tiles sector was ranked in the top ten countries of manufacturing and exporting tiles (Stock, 2010). 1.2.2 Domestic performance As stated in above part, all 3 main sectors of construction and real estate (residential, infrastructure and non-residential) has been struggling in the ability to complete their projects. Not only that, the economic crisis led to high inflation, tightened credit expansion, and lower spending of people. It made people less likely to buy, or rent a new house or even fix or upgrade their house. Therefore, the building materials market of Vietnam has also suffered a serious downward trend in development. Regarding ceramic market, according to reports and articles from Vietnam building ceramic association (VBCA) in 2013, the amount of manufactured tiles was slightly under 70% of total capacity, estimated around 289.8 million square meter. This number is much lower than 375 million square meter in 2010 when Vietnam was ranked the 5th on top manufacturing countries over the world with 3.9% on the world production (Stock, 2010). Stock of tiles that was difficult to clear, was approximately 50 days of production, about 40 million square meter or 112.800.000 USD. On the other hand, sanitary ware products were produced nearly 70% of total capacity, assessed at 9 million units, and number of units in inventory hit an average of 50-60 days of production, about 1.2 million units or approximately 28.200.000 USD. Table 5: Total consumption for tiles and sanitary ware of Vietnamese manufacturers. 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Total domestic consumption volume Tiles (million sqm) 150 203.65 297.5 290 272 246,9 Sanitary ware (million unit) 7.5 7.8 9.0 9.7 9.3 8.5 (Vietnam Ceramic Business Association, 2013) As we can see from Table 5, the volume of domestic consumption for tiles and sanitary ware started to decrease significantly from 2011, since Vietnam stand in its own recession. Before this year, the world economic crisis obviously had no negative effects on the local market because the amount kept raising until 2010. Table 6: Total tiles (ceramic and porcelain) in stock of some Vietnamese manufacturers No. Company Max Capacity (million sqm/ year) Actual Capacity (million sqm) In Stock (million sqm) 1 Mikado 1.5 1.07 0.1 2 Viet Y 1.8 1.30 0.25 3 Granite Trung Do 3.5 2.43 0.4 4 Prime 99 74 5.5 5 Catalan 15 10.5 1.3 6 CMC 5 4 0.3 7 Vinh Thang 9 6.5 0.6 8 Vitaly 4.5 2 0.3 9 Thach Ban 2 1.2 0.2 10 Toko 15 10.5 2 11 Viglacera 25 20 2 (Vietnam Ministry of Construction, 2013) From Table 6, it is clearly seen that those 11 manufacturer of tiles in Vietnam did not reach the maximum target capacity of them, and also had a large quantity of tiles in stock which is very difficult to clear. Regard to building glass products, Vietnam has 7 companies producing over-size building glass with maximum capacity is over 150 million square meter. However, in 2012, the goods in stock was approximately more than 60 million square meter of standard glass. It slightly equaled 4 month capacity of all manufacturers. Moreover, in that 60 million, there was 57 million meter of float glass, respectively 5 month production output. Besides that, imported glass from China and ASEAN countries with lower price also impacted on Vietnamese firm’s consumption. Therefore, some factories had to temporary stop producing for a while, for instance, Viglacera Dap Cau glass factory was closed from middle 2012 to September 2013 due to oversupply. In 2013, consumption of bricks and roofing tiles experienced a 70% of overall capacity. The actual produced quantity of brick was estimated of 17 billion units, but the purchased quantity just reached 14 billion bricks, about 80%. Table 7: Bricks manufacturing capacity and consumption in 2012. Product Maximum Capacity Actual output Consumption Factory standard brick 14 billion 12 billion 10 billion Manual brick 6 billion 5 billion 4 billion Total 20 billion 17 billion 14 billion Unit: brick. (Vietnam Ministry of Construction, 2013) A new kind of brick (or block that is non-fired) which was started to produce in Vietnam not long ago, is Autoclave Aerated Concrete (AAC) blocks. It also has been struggling with output clearance because of low demand in construction, especially no new projects tend to implement this kind of brick. Beside the unstable quality, lack of synchronous building solution also one of the stand-out issues. Therefore, there was not many construction contractors in Vietnam using this building material. As a result, consumption of AAC is limited, it reached just around 60-80% of total capacity and some fresh-built factories are facing perfunctory production or threat of bankruptcy. However, according to non-fired products development program of the government, the prime minister signed the decision that AAC will replace 30-40% traditional bricks, and it is mandatory for building higher than 8 floors. So, with this policy the future of AAC in Vietnam is valuated as brightest among other material s. Table 8: Vietnam AAC Factories production and consumption in 2012. No. Company Location in Vietnam Capacity (m3/year) Actual Consumption (m3) Total 9 factories 1.500.000 1 Viglacera AAC Bac Ninh 200.000 150.000 2 Vinema Ha Nam 100.000 60.000 3 Song Da Cao Cuong Hai Duong 200.000 100.000 4 Phuc Son Hoa Binh 150.000 90.000 5 An Thai Phu Tho 300.000 240.000 6 Truong Hai Hai Duong 200.000 110.000 7 Vinh Duc Lam Dong 100.000 50.000 8 Vuong Hai Dong Nai 100.000 60.000 9 Ky Nguyen E-block Long An 150.000 70.000 (Vietnam Ministry of Construction, 2013) Concerning cement market in Vietnam, it has been even worse than other materials. Due to government policy on lowering inflation, stabilizing market price and macroeconomic, from 2008 to present, cement price just increased about 30% while input materials, coal price raised 4 times. In addition, electricity, fuel price also rocketed continuously. Moreover, from 2010, the exchange rate between VND-USD rose and the access to banking credit was difficult, so cost over cement price jumped up 20-30%. According to Vietnam Cement Association, total cost of manufacturing is 60% of selling price, exchange rate increased, loan interest is about 20%/year, almost all cement companies in 2011, 2012, 2013 suffered losses. For example, Cam Pha and Ha Long cement factory had accumulated debt of 1200 billion VND (about 56 million USD) and 1090 billion VND (51 million USD) respectively. Reports of Vietnam Cement Association said 48 million tons of cement was manufactured in 2012, the number decreased 5% compared to that of 2011. Domestic consumption recorded a figure of 40 million tons, around 18% of decline. The designed capacity is approximately 70 million tons, but the actual production just hit 52 million tons (72% of capacity). Vietnam steel and metal industry has stayed in the same situation. However, the troubles are not only oversupply caused by frozen construction sector, but also the limited capital, numerous debt from loans, raw input ingredients relied on importing sources, out-of-date production technology. All of those reasons led to weak competitive strength on its own home-market. According to Vietnam steel association’s 2013 report, about 30% of Vietnam steel manufacturers were using old technology, more than 40% with average technology, and just less than 30% of steel firms had new technology for production and management. Moreover, 2013 growth rate was 7%; total capacity reached 10 million tons, 8.5% y-o-y growth but the actual domestic consumption poorly hit 1/3 of capacity. In summary, Vietnamese building materials companies have been endeavoring to find solutions to overcome domestic crash since crisis happened. Although the government provided some supporting actions for the sector since 2011 and then ratified $3.3 billion economic package in early 2014 (Dieu Tu Uyen, 2014), the building materials industry seems to be difficult to recover. In 2013, there were 10077 construction and real estate companies went bankruptcy, while other firms were struggling in tackling the oversupply issue. 1.2.3 Export international business situation Due to the difficulties of local market, many companies have tried to enhance exporting activity. However, the majority of products is still mainly used for consuming inside the country and export’s profits could not cover the losses of domestic sale. It happened to all kind of building materials. In general, export turnover of building materials in 2011 hit slightly over 766 million USD, that was an 86.45% increase compare to 2010. See the table below: Table 9: Export turnover of building materials in 2011 and percentage of increase. No Type of building material Turnover (thousand USD) Percentage of increase (%) 2010 2011 1 Building Stone 105.646 131.715 24.67 2 Tiles 109.656 185.144 68.84 3 Sanitary ware 46.481 64.343 38.42 4 Glass 40.135 49.027 22.15 5 Clinker and cement 96.887 319.101 229.35 6 Raw materials 12.027 16.682 38.70 Total 410.832 766.012 86.45 Regarding building stones, top ten companies accounted for more than 66% of total exporting revenue of stone. The top consuming markets of Vietnam stone are Belgium (29.21%), Australia (13.38%) and United States (9%). Referring to ceramic products, just about 15% of total manufactured goods was exported. Top ten companies constituted 56% of total revenue, and the biggest markets are Laos, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, etc. Besides that, tiles and sanitary ware have been imported with lower price than Vietnamese firms, most of them come from China. It has pushed domestic manufacturers to face high pressures and challenges in selling products in the country market. Table 10: Import and Export situation of tiles and sanitary of Vietnam. Consumption 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Export (million USD) Tiles 77.16 80.88 69.57 109.66 185.14 190 Sanitary ware 35.7 41.3 37.4 46.5 64.3 65 Import (million USD) Tiles 33.65 22.4 70.16 95.5 46.4 46 Sanitary ware 4.2 6.8 6.7 8.07 12.54 12 (Vietnam Ceramic Business Association, 2013) According to top exporting countries of ceramic tiles, Vietnam was ranked the 12th with 28 million square meter exported in 2010, that accounted for 0.3% and 1.5% on the world consumption and the world export respectively (Stock, 2010). However, in terms of money, the total value of exported tiles of Vietnam is much lower than Thailand and Malaysia (not mentioned China here). The Vietnam Association for Building materials A said that the reason is because the competitive strength of Vietnamese firms is lower than Thailand, Malaysia, and China. Regarding to glass, total value of glass and glass related products was $0.54 billion in 2012. It was a 46.7% rise compare to 2011. However, because of the domestic downturn, this increase could not cover the loss in glass sector. For example, Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan said in the interview that Viglacera Corporation still had to close their glass factory in the north for more than 12 months in spite of having foreign customers. About cement sector, in the last 10 years, Vietnam cement generally had the lower selling price than other countries in ASEAN. It stayed at around $50/ton, while the ASEAN average cement price fluctuated from $65 to $75/ton (Vietnam National Cement Association, 2013). In 2012, exporting volume levelled up to 1.7 million tons of cement and 7.3 million tons of clinker. After that, in 2013, total cement and clinker exported increased to nearly 14 million tons. This was a big leap in Vietnam cement industry on international business. It is clearly seen that building materials products such as tiles, sanitary ware, glass, cement, or steel have had a stable increase in export. However, these improvements could not help to overcome the downward trend in domestic market. According to building materials business community, the ASEAN market is considered as similarities and has strong points for Vietnamese companies to expand businesses. So, most of building materials manufacturers in Vietnam has focused mostly on this areas. The imposed tax for goods from Vietnam is 0%, but the technical barrier and quality is highly required. Especially, ASEAN countries also strictly control and apply the anti-dumping policies. Together with the competition with China, it makes the profits of exports stay relatively small. However, if Vietnam succeeds in signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, Vietnamese firms will have greater chances to expand their business into different nations outside ASEAN. Currently, Vietnam companies are paying import tax for members of TPP such as Mexico 25%, Chile 6%, Peru 5%, etc. Therefore, when Vietnam joins TPP, import tax equals 0%, companies will have more incentives to exploit these potential markets. This also true for other trade agreements Vietnam is negotiating. 1.3 Conclusion The financial crisis did have an extremely negative impact on construction and building materials industry. Factories had to cut down their capacity around 30% in general. The goods in stock increased and was difficult to sell, especially for tiles sector. Many companies went bankrupt, some have to close their factories, and many of them suffered losses. The export volume and value of building materials products have kept rising recent years. However it can not cover the huge losses in domestic market. On the other hand, the state-owned enterprises have dominated the sector over the private companies.

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Stages of Enlightenment in Buddhism

Stages of Enlightenment in Buddhism MODULE 9: The Planes of Realization (stages of enlightenment) Enlightenment is a concept and a word that is commonly used and associated with mediation, the practice of Buddhism and its benefits. Most of the time, it is used in connection with the concept of Nirvana. In most Buddhist texts and literatures, enlightenment can be read to have started with the Buddha himself, thus the term samma-sambodhi is used to apply to the attainment of enlightenment of bodhis or meditators aiming for it. This is the goal of the paths of meditation based on most Buddhist traditions. In the original context, the word bodhi is a Pali and Sanskrit term that is used to refer to a person who has figuratively woken up and understood things. It is also used to point out to a specific level of understanding or knowledge that the Buddha has gained when he experienced his own awakening. This understanding gave him knowledge on to the natural causes of things that contributes to how human and other sentient beings come into their specific existence and also the workings of the mind that contributes to keeping human and other sentient beings trapped into concepts such as suffering, rebirth and cravings. In this sense, the word bodhi can then be connected to gaining a deeper level of understanding on how a person can liberate him or herself from the things that causes him or her to be imprisoned on the three concepts mentioned above. Enlightenment in the Buddhist Traditions The Buddha Siddharta Gautama, is the first recorded being to have attained a level of full enlightenment. This level that he has successfully achieved is written as sammasambuddha in the Pali language (samyaksambuddha in Sanskrit), or what is called as the perfect form off Buddhahood. In the Theravada tradition of Buddhism’s chronicles or the sutta pitaka, there are numerous texts and descriptions about how the Buddha has experienced awakening or enlightenment himself. This can be seen in the seventeeth chapter of the Vanapattha Sutta, the Majjhima. In this specific chapter, it is described how the Buddha has lived his life in the jungle and how from there, he was able to attain a state of awakening or enlightenment. This, the texts show, was done after the Buddha has successfully destroyed the disturbances that occurred in his mind, allowing him to achieve concentration of the mind. This has resulted into him attaining the Vidhyas or the the knowledges. This includes the presence of insight into his past lives, attaining insight into the workings of reincarnation and karma and insight to the presence of the Four Noble Truths. In the texts, the attainment of insight into the Four Noble Truths is what gave enlightenment the other term awakening. This means that any meditator practicing it has already achieved a level of attaining a security from bondage on a supreme nature. Moreover, awakening is also related to having reached the stage of Nirvana, where sufferings are ended and the process of being reborn no longer occurs. In the texts, the Buddha has claimed that the liberation he got from this is certain because the presence of knowledge happening to him has allowed him to develop insight. This have then given him certain freedom, rendering him to be free from rebirths. In teaching this concept to a meditator, the teacher must stress that the presence of awakening means gaining insight into the concepts of rebirth and karma, into the presence of the Four Noble Truths and the elimination of all things which contribute to attaining the state of Nirvana. Only in experiencing this would liberation be certainly experienced by the student. Attaining Awakening or Enlightenment The attainment of enlightenment or awakening at its fullest capacity can be achieved by a meditator by becoming a Buddha and entering into Buddhahood. When faced with this concept, the teacher must first explain to the meditator the various meanings and context of the word Buddha in the Buddhist traditions. Moreover, another term Tathagata should also be explained to the student. This term means â€Å"the thus-gone† and is used as an equivalent to the word Buddha. Reaching full awakening or enlightenment is considered in the Theravada Buddhist tradition to be equated in reaching the stage of Nirvana. This means that when a meditator starts practicing, the teacher should set his or her path to have the ultimate goal of reaching Nirvana. This is also true in other Buddhist traditions as well. This path involves the meditator abandoning the then fetters of his existence and working toward the ceasing of suffering or dukkha. This full awakening or enlightenment is attained by the meditator in four stages. Moreover, Budhaghosa, another authority in the Theravada Buddhist tradition has described another path to attaining enlightenment. In the Visuddhimagga or the Path to Purification, he has described what he calls the Seven Stages to Purification which is based on the Noble Eightfold Path originally described by the Buddha. The difference, however, lies on the fact that Buddhaghosa has emphasized on insight based on the three characteristics of life which are dukkha, anatta and anicca. These concepts are what distinguishes it apart from the four stages of enlightenment where the ten fetters or human existence are abandoned in a gradual manner. The Four Stages of Enlightenment In Buddhism, there are four stages of a progessing nature that is related to the four stages of enlightenment. These stages are important in resulting into the full enlightenment of a meditator as an Arahat. The people who are into either one of the four stages of enlightenment are referred to by the Buddha as the ariya-puggala or the noble people. Conversely, the people within the community of the bikkhu-sangha are called as the ariya-sangha or the noble sanghas. The four stages of enlightenment are the Sotappana, Sakadagami, Anagami and the Arahat. These four stages of enlightenment and their teaching to meditators are central elements in the Buddhist schools such as Theravada tradition. This was chronicled in the sutta pitaka, and how each level are attained were described as well. Apart from the four stages mentioned above, the teacher would have to tell his or her students that there are also other types which describes other stages as well. However, the focus of this module is on the four stages of enlightenment so these four would be the ones that are to be described in detail here. As mentioned in the previous sections, the four stages of enlightenment are the end product or result of the seven purifications that a meditator goes through. This was discussed at great lengths in the Visuddhimagga. The teacher can encourage his or her student meditators to read on excerpts from the Visuddhimagga about the seven purifications, their sequences and how each of these are related to four paths and fruits. Moreover, in the Visuddhimagga, prajna and its importance is also described in detail, as well as gaining insight into anatta and how these are related to liberation and can be attained in the practice of Insight meditation or Vipassana. The four stages of attainment or enlightenment are also associated with occurring in pairs of path and fruit. The following are the path and fruit pairs of the four stages of attainment: The path to stream entry and the fruition of stream entry The path to once returning and the fruition on once returning The path to non returning and the fruition of non returning The path to becoming an arahant and the fruition of becoming an arahant Each of these are described below in their relation to the attaining of enlightenment: The Sotapanna. This is the first stage of enlightenment and is derived from the Pali language (written as Srotapanna in Sanskrit). This term means or is translated to mean the person or the one who enters the streams (apadyate sota). The stream being described here is the super mundane representation of the Noble Eightfold Path and is regarded as the highest form of Dhamma as well. The person who is this stage is also considered to be one who was able to open the eye of the Dhamma (or dhammacakkhu in Pali and dharmacaksus in Sanskrit). The meditator who enters the stream is said to be able reach the state of being an arahant in a span or seven rebirths after he or she has attained opening the eye of the Dhamma. Another aspect that the teacher needs to stress out in teaching this is that the meditator can attain a grasp of the Buddhist doctrines on an intuitive level or what is known as the right view (samyagdrsti in Sanskrit or sammaditthi in Sanskrit). Moreover, the meditator can al so have a complete confidence, or Sadha on what is considered the three jewels of practice namely the sangha, dharma and Buddha. This means that when the meditator passes away, he or she will not undergo rebirth in any plane that is categorically lower than the human plane such as the animal or in hell. The Sakadagami. This is the second stage of enlightenment which is also called the stage of the once returner. The origin of this word is Pali (Sakrdagamin in Sanskrit), which when translates means the once who once comes (sakrt and agacchati, respectively). When explaining what this means, the teacher should tell the student that people who belong in this stage will return once more to the human plane or world one more time in most instances. A person who progresses in this stage after going through the first is said to have abandoned the first three of the ten fetters. Meditators who are in this stage are also seen to display a weaker sense of lust for things, milder feelings of hate, and even weakened delusions. This means that anyone who is considered to be a once-returner would be experiencing rebirths fewer than seven times and that these rebirths usually occur in the higher planes although there would occur a rebirth in the human plane at least one more time. Also, their rebir ths can occur in multiples in the five pure abodes. The Anagami. The third stage, the Anagami (Pali; also Anagamin in Sanskrit), is also known as the stage of the non returner. The word Anagami means one who does not come. These are meditators who have been successful in overcoming sensuality and are deemed not to lower planes such as the human one even after their death. These are those who were rewarded with being reborn in the Suddhavasa worlds or Pure Abodes, which are one of the five special worlds in the Rupadhatu. In these worlds, the meditators are able to attain Nirvana or can even be reborn for another time in a world that is considered to be higher than that of the Pure Abodes. A person who is considered to be a non returner is said to have been able to abandon the five lower fetters of the ten that binds humans to the cycle of rebirth on the human plane. When a meditator has reached the level of the Anagami, they are considered to be well-advanced already. The Arahant. The fourth stage of enlightenment, the Arahant, is related to a person who is fully awakened. This stage is where the individual is seen to have been able to fully abandon all the ten fetters. When this happens, the person would not be experiencing rebirth on any plane or world even after his or her death (Parinibbana in Pali; Parinirvana in Sanskrit) because he or she have escaped samsara wholly. This stage will be attained by a meditator when he or she would follow the path that is given by the Buddha himself. In teaching this, the teacher should tell his or her students that in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism, the word Buddha is reserved for use with Siddharta Gautama Buddha, the first who discovered the path to enlightenment. The Path and the Fruits of Enlightenment Attaining each stage of the path to enlightenment has its subsequent fruit, as mentioned in the previous sections of this module. This is necessary to be included in the teaching of the paths to enlightenment since the fruit of each path and their attainments has to be present and seen in the life of the meditator. This ensures that the attainment of knowledge is set on the right paths as well. In the Theravada tradition, there is a belief that gaining understanding is a sudden process, that it does not come gradually as other disciplines believe it to be. This means that once a meditator enters on a path to enlightenment, its fruits should be realized as well. So when a meditator enters the stages and becomes an Arahat (the liberated one) in the process, it can be said that according to the Vipassana tradition sudden changes should characterize the entire process. The Benefits of Enlightenment An endless cycle of samsara traps an ordinary person who does not have enlightenment (puthujjana in Pali; prthagjanai in Sanskrit). This means that a person is endlessly reborn, live and dies and the cycle is repeated numerous times over. This occurs not only on the human plane but in other various planes as well such as the animal. This can be ended when a person enters the Dhamma and aims for gaining insight and enlightenment. This means that the person would not have to be experiencing this endlessly and be miserable for the rest of his or her existence. As the teacher guides the student into this path he or she would have to set it in their minds that the aim of the entire process, apart from gaining insight is to realize attaining Nirvana. In doing this, the meditator would be transformed from someone who is considered to be an uninstructed being who is oblivious to the truths that practicing the Dhamma brings into an arahant (or the liberated one). This stage of liberation enables the individual to have comprehension of the Four Noble Truths fully and to have experience of Nirvana in the present life. Moreover, in attaining this stage, the concepts that were discussed in detail in this module should be reinforced by the teacher with proper actions and words from someone who has experienced them in a personal level. References: Gomez, Luis O. (1991),Purifying Gold: The Metaphor of Effort and Intuition in Buddhist Thought and Practice. In: Peter N. Gregory (editor)(1991),Sudden and Gradual. Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited Warder, A.K. (2000),Indian Buddhism, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Mahasi Sayadaw,The Progress of Insight (Visuddhià ±ana-katha) Bhikkhu Nanamoli; Bhikkhu Bodhi (1995),The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya Park, Sung-bae (1983),Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment, SUNY Press Snelling, John (1987),The Buddhist handbook. A Complete Guide to Buddhist Teaching and Practice, London: Century Paperbacks Versluis, Arthur (2001),The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance, Oxford University Press Warder, A.K. (2000),Indian Buddhism, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers

Monday, August 19, 2019

Viruses :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Most of us swap disks with friends and browse the Net looking for downloads. Rarely do we ever consider that we are also exchanging files with anyone and everyone who has ever handled them in the past. If that sounds like a warning about social diseases, its right along the same lines. Computer viruses are every bit as harmful and destructive, and come in a vast variety of types and strains. Computer viruses, can tear up your hard drive and bring down your system. However, unlike social diseases, computer viruses are almost always curable, and the cures for new strains are usually a matter of days away, rather than months or years.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A computer virus is a program designed to replicate and spread, generally with the victim being oblivious to its existence. Computer viruses spread by attaching themselves to other programs such as word processors or spreadsheets, or to the boot sector of the disk. When an infected file is activated, or when the computer is started from an infected disk, the virus itself is also activated. Many times a virus will lurk in a computers memory, waiting to infect the next program or disk that is activated.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  What makes viruses so dangerous is their ability to perform an event. While some events are harmless like displaying a message on a certain date, and others annoying, like slowing performance or altering the screen display, some viruses can be disastrous by damaging files, and destroying data.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Most viruses are created out of curiosity. There are those out there who create them out of malice, but far more of the creators are just meeting a challenge, to see if they can do it or not. A common type of virus would be a Trojan Horse, a destructive program disguised as a game, a utility, or an application. When run a Trojan Horse does something harmful to the computer system, while appearing to do something useful. A worm is also a popular type of virus. A worm is a program that spreads itself across computers, usually by spawning copies of itself in each computer’s memory. A worm might duplicate itself in one computers memory so often that it causes the computer to crash. A worm is introduced secretly into a host system either for fun, or with the intent to damage or destroy information. Now I will explain some of the more major viruses, and how they function.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

The Champion Lands :: Free Descriptive Essay About A Place

The Champion Lands The former Champion Lands of Vermont consist of 132,000 acres in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. The Northeast Kingdom of Vermont has some of Vermont's most extensive areas of relitively remote and wild lands. A substantial portion of the Champion Lands are located in the the Nulhegan Basin, an extensive area of northern lowland forest and wetlands ringed by hills and mountians of moderatr elevation and drained by the Nulhegan River. The Champion Lands of Vermont are part of a larger system known as the Northern Forest. Stretching 400 miles from Lake Ontario to the Atlantic Ocean, the Northern Forest covers more than 25 million acres across New York's Tug Hill plateau and Adirondack Mountains and includes nearly all of northern Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The forest reaches north and east into Quebec and the Maritime Provinces of Canada. This extensive regional forest contains a range of forest age-classes, from early successional to, in a few isolated locations, mature forest, but it is by and large young forest, less than 100 years old. It provides important habitat for the large mammals native to the extensive northeastern deciduous, coniferous and mixed forests. These include black bear, bobcat, deer and moose. The lands are divided into three different ownership parcels, each area has its own unique features and area of interest The West Mountain WMA lands are dominated by three major features: in the center of the parcel, West Mountain rises to an elevation of 2,733 feet above sea level; to the north and east the land drains into a series of small ponds in the Wheeler Stream drainage, while to the west and south Paul Stream drains an area dominated by Ferdinand Bog. These two stream drainages, which are tributaries of the Connecticut River, contain what is thought to be the greatest concentration of glacial ice-contact deposits in Vermont. The result is a highly varied terrain containing kames, kame moraines, eskers, and kettles surrounding the resistant granite of West Mountain. Notch Pond Mountain, part of the Nulhagan Basin mountainous rim to the north of West Mountain, separates the Wheeler Stream and Paul Stream drainages from the Nulhegan River. The mountains and high hills on the West Mountain WMA are strongly dominated by northern hardwood forests, while the stream drainages are dominated by red spr uce-hardwood forest or lowland spruce-fir forests, and a variety of wetlands and ponds. The wetlands are predominantly northern white cedar swamps, spruce-fir-tamarack swamps, and alder-beaver meadow complexes.

Background Essay -- essays papers

Background Information Warfare is defined as, â€Å" the offensive and defensive use of information and information systems to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy, an adversary’s information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks while protecting one’s own. Such actions are designed to achieve advantages over military or business adversaries† (Goldberg). Cyber-Terrorism is defined as, â€Å"the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives in the worldwide network of computer and/or computer networks that use the TCP/IP network protocols to facilitate data transmission and exchange† (Doyle). The two definitions are not formal and are not the exact definitions of either two terms. The reason for this is that there is no exact definition that constitutes information warfare or cybe r-terrorism. From these definitions above, we can conclude that a cyber-terrorist will use information warfare techniques to reach his goal. For example, if the United States understands the system that operates the scud missiles of Iraq, then through Information Warfare (hacking / cracking) they could make the scud missiles useless. This protects the Untied States pilots on attacks of chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction by reducing the chances of the pilots actually being shot down. Information Warfare has been around since the creation of the NSA. The first machine that deciphered code was created by United States scientists and was calls the Fish. However, the greatest advancement in our technology came when the United States stole the Enigma machine fr... ...Terrorism Introduction. < http://www.survivalguide.com/cyber_terrorism_introduction.htm> [2002, October 16]. Deutch, J. (25, June 1996). Foreign Information Warfare Programs and Capabilities. [2002, Sept12]. Ensor, D. Garrett, M. Smith M., & Williams, D. (February 20, 2001). FBI assesses 'grave' damage from latest spy scandal. < http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/02/20/fbi.spy.impact/> [2002, October 16]. Goldberg, I. (December 2, 2000). Glossary of Information Warfare Terms. < http://www.psycom.net/iwar.2.html> [2002, October 16]. Johnson, D. (2001). Computer Ethics. Prentice Hall, NJ. (November 2001) Cyber Protests Related to the War on Terrorism : The Current Threat. < http://www.nipc.gov/publications/nipcpub/cyberprotests1101.pdf > [2002 September 12].

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Ikea Supply chain

How old are the students studying MU 123 ? Knowing that the number of students in MU 123 is 80 a questionair is been made to know the ages of those students as they are consider small segment from the AOU and we can from that know from this study know the avarage age of AOU students. 28 students were in the age of 18 – 21 18 student were in the age of 22 – 28 11 students were in the age of 25 – 28 9 students were in the age of 28 – 31 7 student s were in the age of 32 – 35 6 students were in the age of 35 – 40 1 student on were age above 40Part (b) Collect relevant data needed to answer your question (stage C). This will involve choosing samples or designing questionnaires and key the data into a spreadsheet. Most of the data you will need is secondary data that already exist in the internet or published literature and can be adapted for your investigation. You may refer to your text book, (Book A, pages 183 & 184) and learn more how to deal with data. When presenting your data it is important to provide the reference to the data source you are adapting. (30 marks).As it shows in the table below How old are the Students studying MU 123 Age Range 18-21 22 – 25 26-29 30-33 34-37 38-40 40 + Number 28 18 11 9 7 6 Percentage% 22. 50% 13. 75% 11 . 25% 8. 75% 7. 50% whenever the age increase the number of students decreases. 35% are the highest percentage with 28 students in their fresh years. 1. 25% are the lowest percentage with only 1 student enrolled above the age 40. 27. 5% are the number of students attending between 30 to 40 Part (c) Analyse the data that have been collected (stage A).This stage involves steps in summarising and measuring the collected data. The associated measures that we expect you use in your TMA are the mean, the mode, the median, range, interquartile range and standard deviation. You can use Microsoft Excel in presenting your data in bar charts or graphs as part of summarising your data. (mo re details on how to draw statistical pictures are explained In book D, Unit 1 1) (30 marks) calculating the mean: 1+6+7+9+11+18+28= = 1 1. 4 Calculating the meadian: Arrange the numbers by order: 1 6 7 9 11Range = 28-1 = 27 QI-6 18 IQR= 18-6=12 Standard Deviation: Meadian Deviations (d) d (power of 2) 1-114 . = -10. 4 108. 6 = -5. 4 29. 16 -4. 4 19. 36 = -2. 4 5. 76 11-11. 4 . 4 0. 16 18-11. 4 = 6. 6 43. 56 28-11. 4 = 16. 6 275. 56 The mean of d(to power of 2) 108. 6 + 29. 16 + 19. 36 + 5. 76 + 0. 16 + 43. 56 + 275. 56 = 462. 8/7 66. 11 = 8. 13 is the standard deviasion = 66. 11 Square root of At the end we realize from all the above charts how the number of students will decrease as the age increases.

Friday, August 16, 2019

Compensation

Compensation is an important motivator when looking to achieve desired organizational results. Money is thought of s a powerful motivator, however that only holds for sometime until the next pay increase is due. Compensation strategies reinforce the organizational culture that you desire, this enables the culture where pay is linked to performance. To ensure this process works, it must be reflected in the strategic business objectives. The objectives must clearly be defined, must be communicated as soon as decision has been reached.By doing this proper, the organization can motivate employees and make them want to perform better. CONTENT An incentive plan is defined as a formal scheme used to promote or encourage specific actions or behavior by a specific group of people during a defined period of time. So what are the reasons so many companies would find a need to offer such incentive plans? Some of the top reasons are, for motivation, company morale, company loyalty, increased prod uctivity, increase achievement, reduced absenteeism, reduce company cost, decreased turnover and to create more team work.The organization I am employees with created for both union and non- urn employees an incentive compensation plan. When developing this plan it was to focus on two major points, safety and waste reduction. It was then also decided that a third element would also be counted, improved productivity. In order to receive the incentive there were requirements; you need to be a full time Compensation-Bemires 3 employee, employed for the last three (3) consecutive months and be actively employed at the time of payout, which was quarterly.There are also goals that need to be reached in order to collect the incentive for that portion of the goals. The safety component is that the TRIP (total recordable incident rate) needs to be low. Following the guidelines as noted: Greater than 1. 50 payout was O 01 -? 1. 50 payout is 1% of quarterly wages less than 1. 01 payout is 2% o f quarterly wages As a company this component is important because the safety of the employees is and will always be the most important thing to the company. Their safety should come first not only to Bemires but also to the employees.It was after looking at these aspects that a separate incentive plan needs to be created just for the non-union/salary employees. The SHIP (salaried performance incentive plan) needs to be created for salary personnel of the Bemires Company. It is intended to provide an incentive for employees to perform their jobs at the highest level possible to facilitate achievement of division and Compensation-Bemires 5 the plant goals, contributing to overall profitability.This plan was designed to reward individuals with additional annual cash compensation in recognition of their individual and collective efforts to meet or exceed annual goals. Unlike a merit increase which is an increase to your salary based on demonstrated ability to meet job responsibilities over an extended period Of time, incentive award is based on annual performance, targeting specific areas which may change from year to year. Employees must be regular full time employees, must be active employees t time of distribution.Eligibility does not necessarily entitle a participant to an award and does not constitute an agreement with the company. In making the requirements for this SHIP incentive it will depend on many factors which include, the individual base salary earnings for the eligibility period, normal reward percent, performance rating given by employees superiors, all targets/measurements are meet, and funding scale. The following are the factors to determine each of these. Base salary earnings: amount of pay a participant received throughout the plan year in eligible base earnings excluding all other forms of compensation.Normal award percent: each participant is assigned a normal award percent for his/her position; employees will be notified of this percentage . Normal award: is the base dollar amount of incentive eligible to the participant, it is then impacted up or down by individual performance rating and the results Of the profit and other targets set for the plan year. Individual performance rating (l PR): this will be given by the supervisor and can range from . 500 up to 1 250, the PR should correlate to the overall performance of the Compensation-Bemires 6 employee based on their yearly appraisal.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Essay

The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Kesey, 1962) is narrated from the point of view of a character called â€Å"The Chief† who is an inmate of the mental asylum in which the story takes place. The book opens with a scene where the Chief is sweeping the floor and ends with the Chief escaping from the asylum, and so the changing perceptions of the Chief are a key to the main messages of the book. The character who occupies most of the action in the book is a rebellious newcomer called McMurphy. It is McMurphy who is the catalyst for the change in the Chief, showing him a both a different way to see the asylum and a number of strategies of resistance which ultimately allow the Chief to break free. This paper will analyse how the Chief perceives the asylum in the early stages of the book, focusing especially on the concept of â€Å"the Combine†. After that Murphy’s view of the world will be presented, along with his various resistance strategies. In conclusion the Chief’s revised view of â€Å"the Combine† will be analysed, showing what has changed in his understanding of the world of the asylum, and of the world in general. At the start of the book it is not immediately evident that the Chief is mentally ill. He explains that he is half Indian and chooses to be deaf and dumb: â€Å"I’m cagey enough to fool them that much† (Kesey, p. 9) His separation from the world of sound is presented as a deliberate defence against oppression, but the reader may suspect that it is a symptom of a mental illness like paranoia or schizophrenia. It is a feature of the book that medical descriptions are avoided, and the reader is left to figure out for him or herself whether or not, or to what extent the characters are ill or mad. The Chief imagines the Big Nurse having powers that extend via wires which only he can see: â€Å"I see her sit in the centre of this web of wires like a watchful robot, tend her network with mechanical insect skill†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Kesey, p. 27). He imagines that she is working to control the world outside the institution also, suggesting that there is a huge conspiracy against him and the other inmates called â€Å"the Combine† which he defines as â€Å"a huge organization that aims to adjust the Outside as well as the Inside† (Kesey, p. 27). This analogy works both as a description of a delusion, with no basis in reality, and as an artistic representation of an institution (the asylum) and a wider authoritarian society (conservative American society in the early 1960s) which operates on a rigid and inhuman basis. At the start of the book the Chief, and through him the reader, feel this cold, hard, oppressive force and see the inmates as victims of its power. One way of making this chilling force constantly present in the narrative is the Chief’s use of vocabulary relating to machinery to describe all of the asylum personnel. The three â€Å"black boys† who are orderlies working for the Big Nurse speak with the â€Å"hum of black machinery† (Kesey, p. 9) and the most frightening of all is Nurse Ratched herself: â€Å"She works the hinges of her elbows and fingers †¦ She starts moving,†¦when she rumbles past she’s already as big as a truck, trailing that wicker bag behind her in her exhaust like a semi behind a Jimmy Diesel†¦ and her smile’s going out before her like a radiator grill. † (Kesey, p 79). These are inhuman images used to describe the leaders of an inhuman regime. The arrival of McMurphy into the story makes a huge impression on the Chief who, despite his huge size, is cowering and fearful of the cold and all-controlling power of the Combine. The first impression is of McMurphy’s â€Å"loud brassy voice† (Kesey, p. 14) Chief significantly makes a connection between this voice and the voice of his Indian father: â€Å"He talks a little the way Papa used to, voice loud and full of hell†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Shortly after this the ward is stunned by the sound of McMurphy’s laughter, which is strange to them because no one ever laughs in this oppressive place. So much of McMurphy’s verbal behaviour is a surprise to the ward: his laughing, singing and ironic banter are all examples of a language the inmates have forgotten the meaning of. This is one of the most important aspects of McMurphy’s influence. He reminds the inmates of a different kind of communication with authority and with each other that is free and spontaneous, unconcerned about the hierarchies of the asylum context, and taking everything less seriously than the authorities intend things to be taken. McMurphy mocks people, including his friends, in order to show that there is more than just one way of seeing things, and that the asylum’s regime is ridiculous when viewed from outside perspectives. He argues with the Big Nurse, and he laughs at her rants and rages. This is a subversive attitude, and it sparks new thoughts in all the inmates, setting off a chain reaction of awareness that cannot be stopped. The first meeting of McMurphy and the Chief is also an important moment in the book, and this time the Chief is struck by the touch of McMurphy’s hand: â€Å"It rang with blood and power† (Kesey, p. 25). Later, when sweeping out the sleeping area, the Chief notices a smell that he has never encountered before in all this time on the ward; â€Å"the man smell of dust and dirt from the open fields, and sweat, and work. † (Kesey, p. 83). It is as if the Chief is rediscovering through the presence of McMurphy, all the natural human senses which had been dulled or switched out of commission by the Combine. Just by being himself McMurphy reawakens the warm, human qualities of the inmates and shows them how to use these qualities against the hard, cold machinery of power. The world that McMurphy represents is offered as a contrast to the regimented, controlled environment of the ward. There is nothing particularly radical about what he represents, for example setting up a voting process to determine the television viewing schedule for the inmates, but in the upside-down regime of the Combine this appears to be a shocking suggestion. Drinking, smoking marijuana and sex with prostitutes are, in the world outside the asylum, quite ordinary and natural expressions of normal masculine behaviour in large sections of the community. It is the abuse of power by the Big Nurse in talking to Billy Bibbit’s mother that turns the antics of the inmates from a prank into a tragedy. In every society it is common for young males to push boundaries and experiment with things that are forbidden by teachers, parents and authority figures. It is part of normal growing up. The irony of the asylum is, that it takes an oppressed youngster like Billy and then just when he catches a glimpse of sexual and other kinds of freedom via McMurphy, crushes his spirit so completely that he takes his own life. The book depicts a struggle for power over the inmates: â€Å"As the many symbols and images indicate, the central theme of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the restoration of the inmates’ individual and collective potency. (Lupack, 1995, p. 94). Whether as group, or as separate individuals, McMurphy encourages the inmates to take back the power that has been unjustly stolen from them by the institution. Some critics have seen McMurphy in religious terms, as a character who sacrifices himself in order to save his brothers: â€Å"The fishing scene is an extended figure of Christ and his disciples, and instance of McMurphy as fisher of men. † (Hicks, 1981, p. 174). Hicks points out that there are images of the cross and the crown of thorns in descriptions of the electric shock table, and that McMurphy’s men are â€Å"physically cannibalizing him† (1981, p. 5) by wearing him out more and more as he transfers his power and energy over to them. It is true that as McMurphy’s influence grows, more and more of the inmates rebel or discharge themselves, or in the case of the Chief, make a spectacular escape but this is a book that does not come with a happy ending and salvation in a heavenly future. McMurph y is turned into a lobotomized shell of his old self which the Chief kills out of mercy, as an Indian would kill an injured animal. The future of the other characters is not known. The freedom that the Chief gains is a freedom from the real and imagined â€Å"wires and connections† (Kesey, p. 254) that he rips up when he throws the control box out of the window. In conclusion, then, it appears that the Chief has changed his view of the Combine. He leaves the delusions and the asylum behind but he still must navigate his way in the outside world. It remains to be seen how he will tackle the Combine-like injustices and oppressive forces in the wider world. He does not have his mentor McMurphy with him, and must only go back to where he started and try to reintegrate into a community that has been oppressed and exploited by the building of a great dam. The great difference at the end of the book is that that he wants to go back to his old haunts â€Å"just to bring some of it clear in my mind again† (Kesey, p. 254) and thanks to the example shown by McMurphy, he can now do this with courage and clarity, seeing possibilities of collective resistance rather than just being isolated and crushed by overwhelming institutional power.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

“I’m A Fool” by Sherwood Anderson Essay

â€Å"I’m A Fool† by Sherwood Anderson takes the reader into the mind of a lying, ambivalent, uneducated and somewhat foolish youth. It is a story of a foolish incident in which he lies to a beautiful girl in attempt to win her love. His plan backfires when he realizes that she likes him for who he is, not the imaginary character whom he claimed himself to be. The theme in â€Å"I’m A Fool†, deals with the consequences associated with dishonesty and deceitfulness, and he is able to effectively reveal this theme with the use of dramatic irony. The narrator believes that stealing, swearing, getting drunk, and bandaging horses is of far greater importance than a high school diploma or university degree. Anderson is implementing irony because what the narrator says is not what the reader knows to be true; the reader knows that these skills are of little or no importance in our society. Another example of irony is when the narrator believes the whiskey and the well-dressed dandy caused him to lie to Lucy Wesson. We know, however, that the narrator lied in fear of rejection. One aspect of â€Å"I’m A Fool† is its incorrect grammar and simple, unexpressive and reoccurring descriptive words. The story is riddled with simple adverbs and injections that are used to describe the narrators emotions such as ‘Gee whizz!’, ‘Peachy’, and ‘gay’. The primitive vocabulary in some ways prevent the reader from receiving an accurate portrayal emotion therefore making the reader guess what the narrator is feeling in certain situations. For instance, â€Å"Gee whizz!† is used to describe four seemingly different emotions: enjoyment (paragraph 8), amazement (paragraph 10), regret (paragraph 38), and love (paragraph 55). Throughout the story, we see the narrator being deceptive and dishonest to others and him self on several occasions. For instance, he shows resentment towards the educated claiming that they ‘don’t know nothing at all,’ however he presents us with a new perspective towards the educated saying that ‘There are some†¦ that are all right.’ His ambivalent attitude is emphasized when he expresses thankfulness towards  his mother for teaching him ‘not be noisy and rough like a gang you see around a race track.’ If he was thankful for the morals that he was taught by his mother, one might wonder why he disobeyed his mother and became a swipe in the first place. The narrator dealt with his emotions in an immature way. Dealing with the self-disappointment resulting from his dishonesty towards Lucy Wesson, he convinces himself that he is worthless and undeserving of his job. Tragically, the narrator does not learn from his consequences. Most of us know that being dishonest towards other people is wrong and carries a consequence, yet we may deceive ourselves without realizing it. We should understand that before we can be truthful to others, we must be truthful to ourselves.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Literary Elements of a movie of your choice Essay

Literary Elements of a movie of your choice - Essay Example so included, albeit with blatantly racist overtones, a historical narrative that explored the racial tensions that occurred during the pre and the post-Civil War period in American history. Through an examination of these elements, this essay explores the literary qualities in D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation. While Birth of a Nation is undoubtedly a landmark and influential work of art my personal response to it is less than one of great admiration or enjoyment. It’s clear that its depiction of the blacks during the Reconstruction period as terrorizing the South and preying on the Cameron girl is a highly biased interpretation of events. I believe that the film’s overarching intention is entertainment, but I also recognize that there is a strong racist subtext that characterizes the narrative and makes the film’s true meaning one of glorifying racism and the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, the necessity of the Klan during the Reconstruction period comes to represent the film’s central moral and theme. I ultimately appreciated the film for its significance to the evolution of film, but was only moved by the film negatively in response to its racist themes. At the time of the film’s release filmmakers weren’t certain that audiences would be able to grasp the complexity of the storyline if it were muddied by techniques that disrupted the linearity of the narrative (Everson 1978). This editing style had long been a literary technique and was a mainstay in novels; its implementation in Birth of a Nation gave the film a literary quality that led critics to proclaim it a masterpiece. In Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith uses parallel editing, or intercutting, to great effect during the climatic encounter between the Ku Klux Klan and Silas Lynch. After Gus is depicted as causing Flora to fall off a cliff, because of her fear of his advances, the Klan decide to take measures into their own hands and set out to seek revenge. They find Gus and murder him and then leave

Monday, August 12, 2019

Human Beings are Causing Global Warming Research Paper

Human Beings are Causing Global Warming - Research Paper Example According to the research findings, it can, therefore, be said that the majority of researchers have concluded that the earth is undergoing major climatic changes. Further, they also agree that carbon dioxide levels are increasing gradually. It is an evident form of satellite images that ice caps are melting quickly, the sea levels are rising in addition to severe weather conditions such as extreme temperatures, floods, drought, etc. This has led to increased water shortages, frequent hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons. It is without a doubt that deserts will expand and the world will eventually experience food shortages and this is why human activities have to be regulated. Few scientists claim that the earth is going on well but for the case of dealing with global warming, we should advocate for the implementation of the precautionary principle which states that â€Å"†¦if any potential consequences of any action are irreversible or severe, in the absence of full scientific c ertainty the burden of proof is blamed on those who advocate taking the action†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . The earth has undergone various climatic cycles during its history. The scary part is that human beings are causing unbelievable climatic changes at an abnormal rate. The combustion of fossil fuels produces greenhouse gases at a high life-threatening rate thus resulting in global warming. Global Warming, Climate Change, Greenhouse Effect†¦. All are happening just now and this is as a consequence of human activities. After sunrays reach the earth some heat is absorbed by earth while the rest is refracted back to the atmosphere at the longer wavelength. These wavelengths are absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before they disappear into space. The absorption of these wavelengths increases the atmosphere temperature.

Information policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Information policy - Essay Example More and more people turned to the internet for almost anything and everything they need, whether for academic research, for checking celebrity activities, for commerce such as buy and sell, ordering and ticketing online and the likes. Even real time communications have found its way into the homes connecting two or more people from different parts of the world through email, chat, web calls, video conference, etc. As the usage and the advantages of the internet to information and communications technology could not be undermined, it also became susceptible to misuse and abuse by unscrupulous individuals who also saw the opportunity to perpetuate crime and evil through the world wide web and prey on unsuspecting victims usually children even from half way round the world. â€Å"Child pornography, bestiality, excessive violence or sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use, and/or material that advocates (and incites) terrorism acts† (Foo, 2009) are among the common types of abuse in the internet. Often, the victims are minors or those who are under 18 years old. This became the foundation of the clamour of some citizens to censor some information available in the internet and to filter the content of websites. This is basis of the Australian government’s move to filter the information that comes in to the Australia through the information network. And the debate about internet censorship has ensued. The advocates of internet censorship promotes that this is the only way to protect the citizens from the malevolent crimes that abound the internet. They are specifically targeting the welfare of the children and the minors who are more susceptible victims because of their innocence and naivetà ©. The pro-censorship group claims that the internet has been made safer for the users because of the commonwealth government’s Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999. The other side

Sunday, August 11, 2019

Systems Analysis and Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Systems Analysis and Design - Essay Example Sitting meditation along with the appliance of mindful awareness in daily activities can also be considered as mindfulness. Mindfulness can be used in children’s treatment to decrease anxiety as well as a coping means when we face emotional pain or distress. There are several methods of meditation: Yoga, breathing exercises, and guided meditations. In general, mindfulness can be used as a tool for improved self-care as well as professional growth. Social liberation needs an increase in social alternatives or opportunities, particularly for people who are quite oppressed or deprived. For example, empowerment procedures should be used to encourage people to use contemplative practices as a way of relieving stress. The benefits or advantages of deploying contemplation techniques in daily life should be advertised all over to so that people may log into the website and learn more about contemplation. So as implementation of contemplative practices system is effective, all obstacles that may hinder its users’ accessibility should be removed. An example is a persuasive system which influences users’ perceptions, behaviors, and various strategies towards different results and behavior change. The website should be easy to log into and view the practices. Besides, the web page should be attractive so as users can stay on the page for long time and also invite other friends to view the page. This will increase the effectiveness of the system. Reinforcement Management offers consequences for moving towards a positive direction. It relies more on reward than punishment. To deliver this contemplative system effectively, users are supposed to be reinforced by thanking them for using the â€Å"mindful† techniques in improving their cognition. For instance, those who book for yoga classes should be encouraged and given extra time or decreased payments so as to encourage them to attend more classes. The

Saturday, August 10, 2019

Helping Abused and Traumatized Children Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Helping Abused and Traumatized Children - Article Example Dr. Gil presents three models of hers; expressive, cognitive-behavioral, and family therapy The article is basically complementing the book written by Dr. Eliana Gil hence it provides specific material provided in the book to prove that the book written by Dr. Gil is a special piece of work that would help the people in the related field. The book is full of interesting and effective case studies that give a practical touch to the book. Though the book is a very detailed and informative resource on the subject but the reviewer does agree that books of this type that deal with complex issues such as traumatized and abused children have natural limitation and challenges. As this book contains qualitative theories and models but does not have the capacity to enable the reader to implement these models and theories in practical situation this proves to be a natural limitation because all books of this type have the same limitation. The book contains terms that are technical to the extent that a beginner would have difficulty in comprehending them. Although in depth case studies have been provided within the book but the book would have been better if more case studies would have been provided. The article tells us that Dr.

Friday, August 9, 2019

QUANTITATIVE METHODS FOR BUSINESS Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

QUANTITATIVE METHODS FOR BUSINESS - Assignment Example Lastly, Epstein in his research tries to oppose Hooton, by implying that there is no clear connection in intelligence compared to the head size but found a slight connection in the two. The main purpose for the research paper is to establish the intelligence measure. It studies on how ones intelligence can be measured and by use of what methodology. If the measure of intelligence can be established, then an individual’s cognitive level can help in various ways. For instance, cognitive level of an individual, can be used in the area of education to rate the level of a particular grader and the capability. The main purpose of this study is to clarify the exact means through which intelligence levels can be rated. It tries to compare various aspects of life in relation to intelligence or the brain capacity. As stated in the abstract there many school of thoughts and arguments about the research problem. Therefore, the core issue of the research is establishing the most appropriate of testing for one’s intelligence. Normally, there is always a specific question that does arise in the physical development of human and the cognitive level. It is believed by many development conscious people that there is a relation between cognitive level and physical level. Though both journalists and scientists have rushed to claims that are unjustified on cognitive development, they have left interesting findings on this. Research on this has shown pitfalls and essentials of the study. Epsteins in his studies found out that as a child grow into another level the growth is accelerated than when w ithin the stage itself. Although it’s rare to have the measures on how the brain grows, studies have data on how the brain grows its circumference that closely relates to size of the brain. The data analysis confirmed Epsteins hypothesis. Children began to show head growths at