Exam paper---read the requirement I send you carefully Essay

Exam paper---read the requirement I send you carefully - Essay Example This writing will focus on markets that are perfectly competitive in nature. This writing will focus on various characteristics of perfectly competitive markets and how buyers and sellers behave in such markets. The first section of the assignment will focus on the reaction of sellers to changes in demand for their goods and services. The second section of the writing will compare and contrast the characteristics of a perfectly competitive market with the characteristics of New York Stock exchange (NYSE). Body According to the law of demand when the demand for a product increases, the price of the product even elevates and vice-verse. Due to these changes in demand the marginal revenue that is being earned by a particular industry even alters. In order to analyze the changes that organizations in a perfectly competitive market experience as a result of changes in demand for a product, let us assume that the product being sold is bread. Let’s assume that according to research, eating brown bread helps individuals in preventing diabetes. Such revelations positively impact the demand for particular product. Let’s assume that the bread industry is a perfectly competitive industry and is currently experiencing long-run equilibrium at a price of $1.7 per loaf of bread and the value of the economic profit is equivalent to zero. Figure 1 Figure 1 is a depiction of short as well as long run adjustment experienced by a firm as well as market under perfect competition. The figure shows that in case of market the price of a loaf of bread is $1.7 when the quantity demanded for the product is at Q1 and in case of an organization that sells loaf of bread the market price of $1.7 is the organization’s marginal revenue which is at MR1. The figure shows that currently there is only one organization in the market. Since the new research suggests that there is health benefit of brown bread, the demand for brown bread increases which is depicted in figure 1 thr ough a shift in the demand curve from D1 to D2. Due to this increase in demand, there is an increase in the price of the product and the price of the product elevates from p1 ($1.7) to P2 ($2.3) and this leads to an increase in the marginal revenue of a single firm operating in a market from MR1 to MR2. Due to this increase in price, the organization even increases its output from q1 to q2 in order to meet consumer demand in the short run (Douglas, 2011, p.615). Notice that the shaded region represents the economic profit that is experienced by the organization in the short run and similar profit will be experienced by other firms in the market in the short run. Since the market is perfectly competitive in nature and there are no barriers to entry or exit, the high stream of economic profit will attract more organizations to enter the market so they can even earn the profits being offered by the recent increase in demand. New organization s will enter the market and this would lead to an increase in the quantity supplied by the entire industry as more and more organizations will enter the market, more and more supply will elevate. New entrants will continue to enter the market as long as their entrance is resulting in an economic profit. Figure one depicts a shift in the supply curve from S1 to S2 which is a reflection of more firms entering the market. Due to this increase in supply, the price of the loaf of bread will start declining in the longer run

Oil Extraction Essay Example for Free

Oil Extraction Essay When extracting lipids or fats from foods, both the method as well as the solvents chosen to perform a complete, or close to complete extraction are important. If these two elements are not taken into consideration, the extraction may not be complete, or the extract may contain a large quantity of undesired impurities. The natural fats and oil are mixtures of glycerides of fatty acids. Fats and oils are naturally occurring organic compounds which belong to a large group of water insoluble substances called lipids. Lipids are relatively non-polar molecules, they can be pulled out of a sample using relatively non-polar solvents. With a non-polar solvent, only non-polar molecules in the sample dissolve while polar ones do not. A solution to the problem of extracting trapped lipids is to use an extraction procedure such as the soxhlet that will help break up the polar barriers and allow the solvent to reach the non-polar compounds and extract them. In this experiment, soxhlet extraction was used. Soxhlet extraction is an extraction method that uses chemical solvents. Oils from the algae are extracted through repeated washing, or percolation, with an organic solvent such as hexane or petroleum ether, under reflux in a special glassware. Copra, dried kernel of the coconut, was the sample used. Often though, the sample must be ground and prepared prior to the extraction procedure in order to break up the cell membranes and other structures that would make extraction difficult. In this experiment, petroleum ether was used as the solvent due to its low boiling point, relatively non-toxic nature (when compared to chloroform or methanol), and of course because it is quite non-polar. When talking about ether, two kinds can be used in lipid extraction: anhydrous diethyl ether CH3CH2OCH2CH3 and petroleum ether, which is a mixture of pentane (CH3CH2CH2CH2CH3) and hexane (CH3CH2CH2CH2CH2CH3). Petroleum ether is more non-polar, cheaper and less flammable than diethyl ether. Due to its greater non-polarity, petroleum ether will yield a more specific extract than diethyl ether because it will only extract the most polar molecules. However, as petroleum ether may not be able to break apart some of the more polar shells surrounding some lipids and give a near complete lipid extraction, diethyl ether is usually used despite its higher flammability and cost.

Examples Of Some Best Leaders And Managers Commerce Essay

Examples Of Some Best Leaders And Managers Commerce Essay Leadership and management are one of the most discussed topics in business corporates and organizations. It is highly unlikely to switch on any media (radio, internet, etc.) and not run into a number of topics that do not link back to leaders and managers. By definition, the two systems are not the same; however, they need to be utilized complementarily to achieve one common goal and any effort to separate the two will cause more problematic issues than it will solve. In attempt to point out the difference, this report will address different areas of both leadership and management, such as; different characteristics of a leader, theories of leadership, management and its skills, and some examples of effective managers. There may be some intersections, but the essential difference between the two systems is that leaders are born and managers are made. Though leadership comes as a natural talent this is not enough to make a fully qualified leader as there must be a constant improvement at every step of their career by investing tons of efforts and energy into their work to truly accomplish the definitions of leadership qualities. On the other hand, in a nutshell managers are problem solvers depending on the reasonableness and control and they administer what has been innovated by leaders. Leadership and Management It has become quite a common practice to differentiate between leadership and management. The most significant part off all these differentiations is that they are all orientated towards change. This idea is well outlined by John Kotter in his book who came to a conclusion that management is about coping with complexity whilst leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change (John Kotter, 1990, p104). He stated that good management brings about a degree of order and consistency to organizational processes and goals, whilst leadership is required for rapid change. The differentiation of leadership from management as outlined by Kotter evidently inspires a change in emphasis from the moderately inflexible, administrative processes characterized as management to the more rapid and strategic processes categorized as leadership, yet even he concludes that both are of equal importance for the effective running of an organization:, Leadership is different from management, but not for the reason most people think. Leadership isnt mystical and mysterious. It has nothing to do with having charisma or other exotic personality traits. Its not the province of a chosen few. Nor is leadership necessarily better than management or a replacement for it: rather, leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary activities. Both are necessary for success in an increasingly complex and volatile business environment. (Kotter, 1990, p103). Even though there are a quite number of business writers such as John Kotter and his contemporaries who argue that there is a difference between leadership and management, however, these arguments cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt, especially when we put practice into consideration, therefore some people doubt as to whether they are really quite as separate as this in practice. Firstly, there has been an increment in the rejection to the way in which studies tend to disparage management as a system that is tedious and uninspiring. Gosling and Murphy (2004) propose that upholding a sense of steadiness during times of rapid change is a key to successful leadership. Thus the leader must safeguard that systems and structures remain in place whose purpose is to give workers a sense of security and a sense of balance, without which it would be hard to maintain levels of motivation, commitment, trust and psychological wellbeing. Secondly, research has shown that the two systems are far from being separate thus the practices labeled as management and leadership are an essential fragment of the same task. From the exhaustive interpretations of what managers really do, Mintzberg (1973, 1975) identified 10 key roles, and among the roles leadership is one of them. He further came to a conclusion that far from being separate and different from management, leadership is just one dimension of a multidimensional management role. The most difficult thing and which causes confusion that are derived from comparing leadership and management is the method in which they are often charted to different individuals. Therefore, we often refer to managers and leaders as if they were different and incompatible people we look at leaders as individuals who respond to rapid changes quite easily thus dynamic, charismatic individuals with the capacity to inspire others, whilst managers are seen as administrators who just focus on th e current task. Such an interpretation, however, does not concur well with an individual who is experienced as a manager. People are generally employed into management, instead of leadership positions, and are expected to complete a pile of tasks extending from everyday planning and implementation, to longer-term strategic planning. None of these are done in isolation, and throughout, it is essential to work alongside other people to motivate and inspire them, but also to know when to relinquish the lead and take a back seat. Most of us have become so enamored of leadership that management has been pushed into the background. Nobody aspires to being a good manager anymore; everybody wants to be a great leader. But the separation of management from leadership is dangerous. Just as management without leadership encourages an uninspired style, which deadens activities, leadership without management encourages a disconnected style, which promotes hubris. And we all know the destructive power of hubris in organizations. (Gosling and Mintzberg, 2003). Leadership Theories Even though individuals who are practically involved hands-on within the leadership field, they see practice being different from theories, but they are inseparably related. Traditional leadership theories were more fixated on what qualities differentiate between leaders and followers, while contemporary theories looked at other variables such as situational factors and skill levels.  Both of these types of theories of leadership have an impact the current practice, education and policy and offer a useful guideline for the selection and development of leaders in other words: theories are too good to be practical. I will discuss some of the most prominent leadership theories, which offer a valuable context for the consideration of wider issues about defining leadership capabilities and development approaches. Leadership Traits For a long time it was presumed that it would be feasible to recognize and separate a limited set of traits, which can then be used to employ individuals in the positions of leadership. These qualities include but not limited to; -strong drive for responsibility, -focus on completing the task, -vigor and persistence in pursuit of goals, -originality in problem-solving, -drive to exercise initiative in social settings, -self-confidence, -sense of personal identity, -willingness to accept consequences of decisions and actions, -readiness to adsorb interpersonal stress, -willingness to tolerate frustration and delay, -ability to influence the behavior of others, and -capacity to structure social systems to the purpose in hand. This method was strongly based on the great man theory that concentrated on how many records occupy and maintained positions where they have the capacity to influence. The hypothesis was that these individuals were born to be leaders and would grow by quality of t heir personality alone. Ralph Stogdill (1974) carried out a study to extensively revise the traits, and concluded that some qualities appeared more often than others. Other studies were carried out as well (e.g. Bird, 1940; Stewart, 1963) but did not identify the same set of traits. Since then the list has been growing, therefore it is now widely accepted that no such decisive set of traits will ever be identified. Leadership styles and behavior An approach which is an alternative to the traits approach was to look at what leaders actually do instead of just looking at their fundamental characteristics. Attention in this approach came about by the work of Douglas McGregor (1960), who suggested that leadership and management style is affected by the each individuals views about human nature. He briefly contrasted two theories of managers which he called Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X managers fairly look at human nature negatively, thus trusting that the average employee has an in-born dislike of and will not do the job at hand if it is possible. Managers who perceive in this view believe that employees need to be closely supervised and controlled to make sure that tasks are successfully completed. Theory Y managers assumes employees may be striving and self-motivated and exercise self-control. Expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest, and that the average human being, under proper cond itions, learns not only to accept but to seek responsibility. Such leaders will endeavor to enhance their employees capacity to exercise a high level of imagination, cleverness, and creativity in the answer to organizational problems. It can be understood that leaders holding diverse assumptions will show different methods to leadership: Theory X leaders preferring an autocratic style and Theory Y leaders preferring a participative style. Contingency Theories These theories concentrates on particular factors associated to a specific environment that might govern which particular leadership style will most suitably be fit for a particular situation. The theory states that there is no one leadership style that is suitable in all situations, thus making success to be dependent on a number of factors including the style of leadership chosen, qualities of the followers and features that defines that particular situation. Situational Theories At the same time as behavioral theories presented the idea of different leadership styles, they provided little direction as to what is needed for effective leadership behaviors in diverse situations. Researchers have proven that there is no one leadership style is best suited for every manager under all situations. Therefore, the concept of situational theories was developed to give direction that the style to be used is dependent upon such environmental variables factor. Fiedler (1964, 1967) suggested that there is no single best way to lead; instead the leaders style should be selected according to the situation. He differentiated between managers who are task or relationship oriented. Task oriented managers concentrate on the task at hand have a tendency to do better in situations that have good leader-member relationships, organized tasks, and either weak or strong position power. Such leaders have a tendency to show a more indicative leadership style. Managers who are relations hip oriented do better in all other situations and show a more participative style of leadership. Transformational Leadership This concept of transforming leadership was first developed by James MacGregor Burns. According to him, transforming leadership is a process by which leaders and followers help each other elevate to higher morality and motivation (Burns, 1978). At the center point of this concept is the importance of the leaders ability to motivate and empower his/her followers and also the moral dimension of leadership. Burns notions were then developed into the idea of transformational leadership where the leader transforms followers: The goal of transformational leadership is to transform people and organizations in a literal sense to change them in mind and heart; enlarge vision, insight, and understanding; clarify purposes; make behavior congruent with beliefs, principles, or values; and bring about changes that are permanent, self-perpetuating, and momentum building. (Bass and Avolio, 1994). In closing, leadership styles depend on the situation of the business or organization, there is no single style that is suitable. Also, blending leadership with team building, a leader can create an ideal team thus team members may become more involved and ask questions like; who does this? Who did that? How am I helping to achieve a common goal? Characteristics of a Leader Every individual is inspired or motivated in a different way; it is for this reason that being a leader will require a cautious combination of different leadership characteristics and skills. Personality traits and characteristics will determine the kind of leader one is. These characteristics that make up a leader are vast and they are all influenced by the followers, meaning depending on who he/she is leading, a leader will have different characteristics; ranging from being self-confident to being initiative. The United States Marine Corps teaches more than ten leadership traits, such as being dependable and enthusiastic. Below is a full list that is taught by the US Marine Corps: Justice Judgment Dependability Initiative Decisiveness Tact Integrity Enthusiasm Bearing Unselfishness Courage Knowledge Loyalty Endurance Retired General Colin Powell believes a good leader has the quality to make decisions that everyone can understand. In his own words, lesson number 14 teaches that Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand. Effective leaders understand the KISS principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid. They articulate vivid, over-arching goals and values, which they use to drive daily behaviors and choices among competing alternatives. Their visions and priorities are lean and compelling, not cluttered and buzzword-laden. Their decisions are crisp and clear, not tentative and ambiguous. They convey an unwavering firmness and consistency in their actions, aligned with the picture of the future they paint. The result: clarity of purpose, credibility of leadership, and integrity in organization. Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, marks another great leadership quote and amongst those quotes is Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, its amazing what they can accomplish. In the following paragraphs I am going to bold some of the key skills a leader is required to have. Emotional Intelligence is another concept that serves as a quality a leader should possess and was introduced by Daniel Goleman. Its the ability to perceive, control and then evaluate emotions (Daniel Gloeman, 1998). The people who have researched about emotional intelligence say that it can be learnt and some say that it can be produced also. In 1990, Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer defined emotional intelligence as the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor ones own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide ones thinking and actions. There are four branches of emotional intelligence: Perceiving Emotions, Reasoning with emotions, Understanding Emotions, and Managing Emotions. According to Nitin Nohria, a professor at Harvard Business School, communication is really what a leader does most of the time. He proposes that great leaders follow or should follow oratory communication fundamentals. He believes that a leader can communicate any type of message no matter how complex it is. Aristotle said that people can be reached in by means of different methods; people can be treated in a way that it will charm their emotions and we can make arguments on their sense of value but the great leaders spend a lot of their time communicating. According to Joe Badaracco, another professor at HBS, Simplicity is very essential at every step of communication, that no matter how complex the message, a great leader can convey a message as simple as possible and in fewer words. Communication can however be more efficiently and effectively be conveyed if the correspondent knows the audience. Great leaders always understand the worth and position of their audience. They know th eir audience well and in this way they can communicate with their audience in a far better way. He further states that being a good communicator is not enough to be a good leader; since it will be a two way communication the leader must also be a good listener to avoid misinterpretation from the audience. Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder of Amazon.com says that one of the key elements of being a good leader is the ability to tell the hard truths and realities. All these examples come under better communication. As I have mentioned before, organizations are rapidly changing, thus making them dynamic. Great leaders are those who can manage and cope with these organizational rapid changes and all its employees or members. They know and comprehend the value of change and accept the common vision of desired results. Empowerment is also important in managing the change process. Managing the change successfully makes ordinary humans the great and effective leaders. People often resist change for reasons that make good sense to them, even if those reasons dont correspond to organizational goals. So it is crucial to recognize, reward, and celebrate accomplishments. (Kanter). In this current age, technology is one of the things travelling on the fast lane. It is reported that a technological of most things such as information systems evolve every six months. It is for this reason that a great leader must keep him informed and aware of such evolutions. Knowledge is the key to success and they key element of effective leadership. Great and effective leader must have knowledge about everything that he is interacting with. Joe Badaracco says that in the previous days, the leaders had to rely on their subordinates for collecting and implementing the knowledge but now a days, the leaders must be good enough in knowledge so that they can cope with different situations well. Another consequence of fast changing technology is that managers are required to be creative. Creativity is becoming one of the key elements and quality of a great and effective leader. This is one quality that can distinct a leader from a great and effective leader. Examples of some best leaders and managers It is not easy to find a great leader, especially when the organization plays great game of blaming each other on anything that goes wrong within itself. Few companies have good, solid leadership from people who are willing to stick to their word. Glen Stansberry a writer, in his online article he has identified the following 5 of 10 leaders considered to be good examples in our society. James Parker Southwest Airlines Southwest is recognized for their great customer service in an industry considered to be bad at customer service. Southwest stands out from other airlines by putting the customer first, regardless of the situation at hand. After 9/11 terrorist attack, airlines were not operational for number of days. As a result, all airline passengers, flight attendants and pilots were stuck with the planes across the country unable to travel to their destinations. Instead of merely sitting and waiting, Southwest employees were encouraged to take passengers bowling or to the movies to pass the time. Also, other airlines were retrenching their employees by 20%, but James Parker decided to keep all the employees and even announced a profit sharing payment of US$179.8 million. Jim Lentz Toyota In the year 2009, circa Toyotas 2.3 million vehicles were recalled for faulty brakes. Outrage ran rampant across the media and public. Instead of letting a Public Relations team deal with the problem with only press statements and interviews, Toyota offered a live conversation on one of the most aggressive and popular communities on the web known as Digg. They were all caught by a surprise when the Toyota CEO Jim Lentz appeared on Digg Dialog to be questioned all sorts of queries about the company and the recall. Over a thousand hard questions were submitted from consumers and even past employees, and Mr Lentz answered as many as possible in the given time. The questions were asked in order of votes, and none were filtered therefore making it a totally transparent interview. Even though the number of recalled vehicles skyrocketed, Toyotas honesty and transparency will help with lessening the damage to the companys reputation. Glenn Kelman Redfin Redfin is an online real estate brokerage firm that gives back two-thirds of the commission that traditional agents charge. Real estate agents hated it, and started blacklisting anyone who used the service. So, instead of keeping the problem quiet, Kelman started a company blog that focused on many of the awful aspects of the real estate business. He also posted about internal struggles within the company, and even criticized himself on many occasions. The blog was raw and authentic. Customers loved the transparency. They appreciated the fact that a CEO could make fun of himself and the dirty parts of his industry. Since starting the Redfin blog in 2006, business has grown dramatically. (Glen Stansberry, 2010). Costco Jim Sinegal Costco net worth value is ranked at U$2 billion, but the CEO Jim Sinegal only gets US$350,000.00 per annum. In general, most employees tend to get de-motivated by the fact that their bosses earn a lot of money and do not really care about them. It even gets worse when an employee does not see the head of the company. In Jims case, he has a simple office, on the same floor with his employees and without any walls and decorations, and answers his own telephone. His employee turnover rate is the lowest in the retail industry, over five times less than rival Wal-Mart. In an age where CEOs are paid in the millions and would never be seen in the trenches, Jim Sinegal is an anomaly. And his workers love him for it. Howard Schultz Starbucks Starbucks is known for its exceptional treatment of employees, offering things like insurance to even part-time workers. In 1997 three employees were killed in a bumbled robbery of one of their Washington D.C. stores. Instead of issuing a press release or calling legal counsel, CEO Howard Schultz flew straight to D.C. and spent the entire week with the employees and their families in the area. Schultzs compassion and incredible leadership helped heal those closest to the tragedy. Conclusion Regardless of the extensive research about the importance of management and leadership in terms of individuals, organizational performance, and national performance there is still a lack of realistic evidence. According to the economic analyses, even though management and leadership are the integral part in influencing national competitiveness, their influence is just another factor of many others. Strictly at organizational levels, it may seem like leadership and management are the only factors that have a direct influence on results, however they are just part of Human Resource Management activities. The influence of Management and Leadership development (MLD) at an individual level, it seems to be affected by the type of intervention and the wish and the chance of individuals to take on leadership responsibilities. These however may not reflect positively on the influences of management and leadership with regard to performance. This report may show how important it is to consider leadership in the broader context of any organization. Separately, there is no assurance that leadership development will improve the individuals performance, however, if we look at leadership development as the main thing within and organization and human resource management (HRM) processes its influence becomes obvious. Similarly, the availability of effective leadership and management processes inside an organization raises the probability of additional training and development becoming a success. Regardless of the lack of conclusive evidence indicating the relationship between management, leadership and performance it has been widely accepted that this are the key elements of effective performance of groups, individuals, organizations, etc. The fact that this relationship cannot be linearly measured indicates that there is a need for more research to be done. The way in which enhanced management and leadership leads to improved performance is complex and thus when looking at the benefits that are raised from the interventions a much wider idea of performance needs to included instead of just looking at improved productivity/profit.

Nuclear Fusion :: essays research papers

Nuclear Fusion For a fusion reaction to take place, the nuclei, which are positively charged, must have enough kinetic energy to overcome their electrostatic force of repulsion. This can occur either when one nucleus is accelerated to high energies by an accelerating device, or when the energies of both nuclei are raised by the application of very high temperature. The latter method, referred to the application of thermonuclear fusion, is the source of a lot of really cool energy. Enough energy is produced in thermonuclear fusion to suck the paint of 1 city block of houses and give all of the residents permanent orange Afros. The sun is a example of thermonuclear fusion in nature. If I was a atom, I could only wish to be in a thermonuclear reaction. Thermonuclear reactions occur when a proton is accelerated and collides with another proton and then the two protons fuse, forming a deuterium nucleus which has a proton, neutrino and lots of energy. I have no idea what a deuterium nucleus is, but is must be 10 times cooler than just a regular nucleus. Such a reaction is not self sustaining because the released energy is not readily imparted to other nuclei. thermonuclear fusion of deuterium and tritium will produce a helium nucleus and an energetic neutron that can help sustain further fusion. This is the basic principal of the hydrogen bomb which employs a brief, controlled thermonuclear fusion reaction. This was also how the car in the Back to the Future movie worked. It had a much more sophisticated system of producing a fusion reaction from things like, old coffee grounds, bananas, and old beer cans. Thermonuclear reactions depend on high energies, and the possibility of a low-temperature nuclear fusion has generally been discounted. Little does the scientific community know about my experiments. I have produced cold fusion in my basement with things like: stale bread, milk, peanut butter and flat Pepsi. I have been able to produce a ten-megaton reaction which as little as a saltine cracker and some grass clippings. But enough about my discoveries. Early in 1989 two electrochemists startled the scientific world by claiming to achieve a room- temperature fusion in a simple laboratory. They had little proof to back up their discovery, and were not credited with their so-called accomplishment. The two scientists were Stanley Pons of the university of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton in England. They described their experiment as involving platinum electrodes an electrochemical cell in which palladium and platinum were immersed in heavy water. These two losers said that

Introduction to Linguistics Essay

What is meant by the field of linguistics? This introductory chapter concerns some dimensions of linguistics, which give us a general idea of what linguistics is, including the history of linguistic, grammar, and other disciplines of linguistics study. What does grammar consist of and what are the relationship between one and another? How many languages do human beings have the capacity to acquire? What other studies are made in recent centuries? Each of these aspects are clearly described, and other chapters will go into further details. While in this chapter we will provide some less detailed information on the various aspects of linguistics mentioned so far. 1. 1 Defining Linguistics There is nothing that can be said by mathematical symbols and relations which cannot also be said by words. The converse, however, is false. Much that can be and is said by words cannot successfully be put into equations, because it is nonsense. C. Truesdell Linguistics is a study to describe and explain the human faculty of language. There is no doubt that linguistics has changed through human development. 1. 1. 1 History of linguistics The history of linguistics can be divided into three periods: antiquity, middle ages and modern linguistics. Antiquity Dating back to earlier period of linguistics, linguistics is often associated with a need to disambiguate discourse, especially for ritual texts or in arguments. Ancient Indians made a big contribution to linguistics development. Similarly, ancient Chinese played a key role in improving linguistics development. Around the same time as the Indian developed, ancient Greek philosophers were also debating the nature and origins of language. During this period, syntax and the use of particles developed fast. In addition, scholars proposed that word meanings are derived from sentential usage. 1. 1. 1. 2 Middle Ages In Middle East, in terms of expanding Islam in 8th century, a large number of people learn Arabic. Because of this, the earliest grammar came to being gradually. At the same time, Sibawayh, a famous scholar, wrote a book to distinguish phonetics from phonology. In the 13th century, Europeans introduced the notion of universal grammar. Modern Linguistics Modern linguistics’ beginning can date back to the late 18th century. With time passing by, the study of linguistics contains increasing contents. Meanwhile, it is used in other fields, computer, e. g. , has come to be called computational linguistics. The study of applications (as the recovery of speech ability) is generally known as applied linguistics. But in a narrower sense, applied linguistics refers to the application of linguistic principles and theories of language teaching and learning, especially the teaching of foreign and second language. Other related branches include anthropological linguistics, neurological linguistics, mathematical linguistics, and computational linguistics. However, linguistics is only a part of a much larger academic discipline, semiotics. It is the scientific study of language. It studies not just one single language of any one society, just like Chinese or French, but the language of all human beings. A linguist, though, does not have to know and use a large number of languages, but to investigate how each language is constructed. In short, linguistics studies the general principles whereupon all human languages are constructed and operated as systems of communication in their societies or communities. 1. 1. 2 An Interesting Comparison Linguistics is a broad field to study, therefore, a linguist sometimes is only able to deal with one aspect of language at a time, and thus various branches arise: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, applied linguistics, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, lexicology, lexicography, etymology and so on. Suppose that the study of linguistics can be considered to be a computer, so linguistics is equal to the CPU, which supports all the other parts. Moreover, sound card would stand for phonetics and phonology, and then morphology and semantics are like the memory of the computer. What’s more, syntax plays as an important role to translate single words to a whole sentence which is full of meaning, just like a graphics card, which uses picture to make sense of the idea of memory stick. Finally, everything is ready, it’ s time to use computer and the same goes for language acquisition. Very interestingly, the properties of computer are amazingly similar to human language. from www. iflytek. com/english/Research-Introduction%20to%20TTS. htm Above all, linguistics is concerned with the study of verbal language– particularly speech and written language. What’s more, language is a system and there is a set of options of which one must be chosen depending on the purpose and context. (Marie E. & John P. , 1991, p. 64). 1. 2 The broad study of language Language is a highly complex system of communication, so it sometimes will be called a ‘system of systems’. It is used to construct, exchange, express, and record information and ideas. It performs these functions effectively because it is based upon systems that are understood by those using the language. In this chapter, four topics will be concerned. They are phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. In this section, some overall definitions and interactions among the four parts will be talked about. 1. 2. 1 Phonology In order to assist learners at the early stages of literacy, it is very important to understand the relationship between sounds and letters. The sounds of speech are studied in phonetics and phonology. (Marie E. & John P, 1991) 1. 2. 1. 1 Definitions of phonology and phonetics Phonology is the study of sound systems- the invention of distinctive speech sounds that occurs in a language and the patterns wherein they fall. In other words, we study the abstract side of the sounds of language, a related but different subject that we call phonology (Peter, 2000). In short, it is about patterns and roots. On the other hand, it is more strict linguistics. Phonetics is the science which studies the characteristics of human sound-making, especially sounds used in speech, and provides methods for their description, classification and transcription. In common, speech sound is used everywhere, and it can be divided into three parts: articulatory phonetics, auditory phonetics, and acoustic phonetics. . 2. 1. 2 The difference between phonology and phonetics It seems that phonology and phonetics are similar. That is why both of them make learners confused. In fact, they have great difference. Phonology pays attention to how speech sounds of a language pattern are put together according to regular rules. On the contrary, phonetics focuses mainly on description of how speech sounds are made. For instance, if someone says â€Å"we should get our two lips close together and then push them open with a strong air†, that means he or she is relevant to phonetics field.

Walmart Diversity Essay Example

Walmart Diversity Essay Example Walmart Diversity Paper Walmart Diversity Paper | Wal-Mart’s Diversity| Course Research Paper| | Alicia B. Clennan| 647 Pilgrim Dr. San Antonio, [emailprotected] com210-912-4537GM 591: Leadership and Organizational BehaviorProfessor Marco  Faggione| 12/12/2010 | Wal-Mart’s Diversity Introduction The organizational that will be the topic of discussion in my final project paper is Wal-Mart Corporate. Wal-Mart was founded in 1962, with the opening of the first Wal-Mart discount store in Rogers, Ark. The company incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc on Oct 31, 1969. The company grew to 276 stores in all states by the end of the decade. In 1983, the company opened its first Sam’s Club membership warehouse and in 1988 opened the first supercenter. Wal-Mart became international company in 1991 when it opened its first Sam’s club. Wal-Mart serves customers and members more than 200 million times per week at more than 8,692 retail units under 55 different banners in 15 countries. With fiscal year 2010 sales of $ 405 billion, Wal-Mart employs 2. 1 million associates worldwide. I am a sales associate at Wal-Mart in the jewelry department. I was hired in June of 2010 and I was not familiar with the corporation yet. However, I recognize how well the organization performs. Wal-Mart believes that business wins, when everyone matters and the true strength of diversity is unleashed, when each associate is encouraged to reach their full potential. As for as with Wal-Mart’s Diversity, personally I am not so familiar and only experience in a not so much with their purpose due to being employed in a span of four months. Research shows other issues with Wal-Mart’s ethical diversity. Wal-Mart is always under the microscope when it comes to discrimination. Evidence shows that there are complaints about favoritism, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination. These unethical issues are a problem in today’s occupation society. Problem Statement Wal-Mart has been a target of criticism for its employment practices and its effect on the larger economy and community. There are several incidents mentioned on the web and in court cases. At my Wal-Mart, I have noticed favoritism. Favoritism between managers and employees is a big problem in Wal-Mart. One way of thinking of favoritism is getting called to do the more responsibility type of work. This is like trying to be friends with the boss to get higher in the employment ladder. The managers seemed to have certain picks between subordinates about who gets the special attention. Like I said, I have noticed this act at my Wal-Mart. Most of the night shift girls are friends with one of the night managers at my Wal-Mart. I noticed them going out of their way to please this supervisor. There is an organization called Wal-Mart Watch which began a nationwide public education campaign to challenge the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, to become a better employer, neighbor, and corporate citizen. This organization lets employees (former and present) leave blogs on â€Å"Wal-Mart Speaks Out† discussing issues they see in their Wal-Mart. One individual with the initial RR wrote writes: I was passed over at least five times for promotions because the only people that were getting promotions were the drinking buddies of a manager. She has since been fired; I was a union steward for 20 years in California and have never seen such disregard for labor laws. In this town, in retail if you are injured at work you are fired; this doesn’t only happen at Wal-Mart in [Colorado], it happens at all the grocery stores. I am outraged that they aren’t being forced to treat their employee’s better. With this information, it is unaccepted in the workforce. This can be considered unprofessional relationship in the workforce. It is almost as serious as a manager or a supervisor is having an affair with one of their workers. Favoritism also leads to other problems. These other problems have been reported of happening. Sexual harassment and discrimination for males vs. females have been reported about Wal-Mart. Several cases have been seen through the court systems. One example that will be mentioned later on in the report is of a sexual harassment case that took place in Crosby, TX. Another example that I will mention about in the discrimination of female workers, is about a gender discrimination lawsuit that was the largest in U. S. history. It happened to be about women not getting promoted and pay equally to men. Sexual harassment in the workforce is unacceptable. Wal-Mart has its share of complaints. In Crosby, TX, a former Wal-Mart employee had sued Wal-Mart for sexual harassment from her supervisor. Theil (2008) reported that a former employee named Jenna Aryain of Wal-Mart was sexually harassed by her supervisor. The incident happened on February 25, 2005 as a cashier. Aryain said that for four months her supervisor, Darrel Hays allegedly subjected her to appalling remarks every day. Her supervisor committed her about her looks and made sexual advances to her. Ms. Aryain allegedly complained to another supervisor and no action was taken by Wal-Mart. On June, 20, 2005, her supervisor allegedly yelled at her during work. She left work early that day and told her parents what had happened. Her father called the store manager, Gwendolyn Furr and Chelly Whiddon, an assistant manager, to arrange a meeting to discuss what was going on. Supervisors are much as guilty as the employee. Most supervisors have favorite employees that they count on with certain tasks. When an energetic employee is in your organization, most supervisors call upon them to do the task because they know that it will get done. Your other employees may have the same qualities as the energetic person so they felt left out. (Bielous, 1997) Literature Review Sexual Harassment Prevention Training Manual for Managers and Supervisors by Gibson (1998) guides the upper management on the importance of a sexually harassed free work environment. It lets managers know that the best defense for the sexually harassment subject is an offensive approach. There are actions that companies must take in order to eliminate sexual harassment. By creating a zero tolerance policy against sexual harassment and other inappropriate conduct by company managers and supervisors. Why is it important that managers and supervisors learn this subject? There is an automatic liability on the company if a manager or a supervisor is accused of sexual harassment or doesn’t stop it from happening. There is a law that makes it clear that prevention and elimination of sexual harassment is a must in the workplace. Gibson (1998) also writes that if a victim started the conversation of sex talk that they can claim sexual harassment at any time. A hostile work environment can be considered abusive if the behavior becomes severe or pervasive. Flirting or vulgar language is merely annoying and may not be hostile enough to take legal action, but it usually considered prohibited by company policy. Also a romantic relationship between management and subordinates is not against the law. If one does exist it cannot get out of hand. Getting out of hand may be determined as favoritism in the workforce. The relationship must be consensual between both parties in order to prevent harassment. A hostile environment in the workplace can consist of sexual play while on the clock. In the handbook that Gibson (1998) wrote, he mentions steps a company can take in preventing sexual harassment. First off, a company needs to have a strict written policy prohibiting sexual harassment. The policy should also define, provide examples, outline a procedure for reporting with several avenues to bypass his or her supervisor, mention assurance that all cases will be taken seriously, guarantee all cases have adverse consequences like discharge to the harasser, and all supervisory personnel to immediately report and sexual harassment. Along with a written policy, the company must train each employee on sexual harassment to avoid any pitfalls. The company needs establish an effective procedure for handling sexual harassment complaints. One good idea mentioned is to designate two individuals, one male and one female, in handling the complaints. Some individual feel more comfortable talking to someone of the same sex. Monitoring your management staff for anti-harassment behavior is a good idea or even including EEO preventive practices in daily routines. The organization should quickly investigate all claims and observed conduct. Feel free to give the victim time off to gather their thoughts to prevent them from quitting or suing the company. Separating the victim from the harasser may sound like a good idea, but be careful in where you put the victim. If the victim doesn’t like the area because of disadvantages of moving, it could be considered retaliation. The organizations should take all complaints seriously, even though it did happen five years ago. The employee can’t sue because of the time length; still the organization can make sure that the incident still needs to be controlled. The organization needs to have all sexually harassment cases documented for legal reasons. Valid documents may consist of statement from witnesses, complainant, and the alleged harasser. Other documents may include what the employer did to resolve the conflict. The company should make sure all confidentiality be taken to prevent further liability. Upper management should make sure that no retaliation takes place. In chapter eight, Gibson (1998) mentions an effective way to handle the complaint of sexual harassment. The organization needs to take the complaint seriously. Don’t be judgmental about the case even if the complaint comes from a chronic complainer. The company can be liable on how they handle the sexual harassment complaint. Try to put the victim at ease and assure with confidentiality. Assure the victim that non-retaliation is intolerable and should be reported. Handle all cases with action even though the victim asks that no action should take place to the harasser. The company can still be held reliable. Conducting an in-depth sexual harassment investigation can be difficult Gibson (1998) mentions. An immediate investigation by a neutral person should be handled as quickly as possible. This person is usually a member of the HRO or EEO. Other managers or supervisors should know what is going on in case they are asked to assist. Keep an investigation under general guidelines such as treating all cases separate, keep them valid until proven frivolous, protect the victim from further harm, document complete and accurate, keep all fact a â€Å"need to know† basis, limit the number of people who have access to the information, tell all parties to keep the case confidential, and never broadcast the facts as a training tool. If the case of the harassment to be found true, take prompt corrective action. Consider case by case on the severity of punishment to the harasser. If the victim doesn’t get discharge, warn them that next time a discharge will occur. Inform all results to effective parties in order to protect privacy. Make sure you follow up on all cases to make sure no one has been retaliated. Sometimes the investigator may come to some special circumstance when trying to resolve situations. If the accused wants a lawyer, assure them that there is no need for one and they are not required to have one. Also if there was no witness to the alleged claim, the investigator must take the credibility of the parties when determining the outcome. If the claim can’t be determined if it happened or not, then education to both parties must take place about sexual harassment. Further assure the victim that his or her employment conditions won’t be retaliated. Make sure the complaint is filed for legal reasons. If the claim turns out to be false, determine if the person deliberately lied or simply misread the conduct. Disciplining someone who misinterpreted the action may think they were retaliated, and the company could be held responsible. The law for gender discrimination makes it clear on what is expected in the workforce. Corporations are abided to follow laws and regulations in the United States. US Code Section 2000E-2: Unlawful employment practices (a) Employer practices It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individuals race, color, religion,sex, or national origin; or (2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individuals race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Analysis Ethical concept in the workforce keeps the organization is regarded as good character and conduct. We need to make ethical decisions based on focuses of moral dilemmas. Moral problems is that of an ethical consequences of a decision that was made. Ethical leadership is a responsibility that managers and supervisors must abide by. These responsibilities may include caring, honesty, principled, fairness, and balanced choices. Favoritism, does not match under those qualities. Favoritism is the soul issue that Wal-Mart faces today. I have seen favoritism in my workplace. Also favoritism is being viewed at all Wal-Marts around the world. With the other issues that Wal-Mart faces, sexual harassment and gender discrimination, favoritism is usually the root of the problems. Favoritism is more likely to be inevitable in any organization. Organizations should try to reduce them as much as possible. Emotional conflict is difficulties within oneself that arises because of anger, mistrust, dislike, fear, and resentment. Emotional conflict can the energy out of a person and can be distracting. You may see this emotional distress in teams, among co-workers, and in superior-subordinate relationship. There are certain levels of the conflict. One level of conflict you may have is interpersonal conflict. This is a conflict between two or more people. Sexual harassment may become an interpersonal conflict. When your supervisor makes sexual remarks or advances to an employee, conflict arises. When sexual harassment occurs it puts emotional stress on the victim. The victim feels anger toward the incident. Sexual harassment is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. That person will start feeling resentment in that did she do something wrong to cause the harassment. Effects of sexual harassment can vary depending on the individual, and the severity and duration of the harassment. Often, sexual harassment incidents fall into the category of the merely annoying. However, many situations can, and do, have life-altering effects particularly when they involve severe/chronic abuses, and/or retaliation against a victim who does not submit to the harassment, or who complains about it openly. Indeed, psychologists and social workers report that severe/chronic sexual harassment can have the same psychological effects as rape or sexual assault. Stereotyping is a commonly held popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of stereotype and prejudice are often confused with many other different meanings. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups based on some prior assumptions. Gender diversity is the proportion of males to females in the workplace. Corporations may have more of an even distribution or the employee pool is composed of mostly males or mostly females. This can have an effect on how people interact and behave with one another in the workplace and would impact culture and social environment. Similarly other demographics such as population, racial characteristics and such all contribute to the work environment. Though gender discrimination and sexism refers to beliefs and attitudes in relation to the gender of a person, such beliefs and attitudes are of a social nature and do not, normally, carry any legal consequences. Sex discrimination, on the other hand, may have legal consequences. Though what constitutes sex discrimination varies between countries, the essence is that it is an adverse action taken by one person against another person that would not have occurred had the person been of another sex. Discrimination of that nature in certain enumerated circumstances is illegal in many countries. Currently, discrimination based on sex is defined as adverse action against another person that would not have occurred had the person been of another sex. This is considered a form of prejudice and is illegal in the United States. Wal-Mart’s reports on gender discrimination of women in their corporation are illegal and should be taken care of. Like every class-action ruling, the certification should not be construed in any manner as a ruling on the merits or the probable outcome of these cases. When these cases arose back in 2001, women were getting 79 cents to every dollar a man made. (Friedman, 2010) Solutions There are solutions that could be used in order to correct the problem Wal-Mart faces. Training, discipline, and monitoring of all employees of Wal-Mart are the best steps in the right direction. If done right, Wal-Mart can start becoming a more successful corporation that others can follow. The corporation needs to take steps in training everyone in the organization on the right and wrong things to do when it comes to diversity. Having quarterly training will give each employee an implant of the things that are wrong. Being an ethical corporation involves everyone. First, start with training your supervisors about the right and wrongfulness of favoritism in the workforce. Tell them that even the little things may be perceived as playing favoritism. Cautioned them about the negative reactions of an extra relationship between supervisor and a subordinate can lead in the wrong direction. Also keep reminding your employees the zero tolerance policy about sexual harassment. Assure people that there will be consequences if supervisors abuse their power. Wal-Mart needs to let their employees that there will be no retaliation if reports are being filed. Let your employees know that gender discrimination is all in the past. Your employees would like to know if they are being paid the same amount. Let you employees know what the pay scale is in your organization. Train your employees on the right and wrong of gender discrimination. Training has its pros and cons. The good thing about training the material is that it gets the information out there to the right people. A people need to here that there are rules and regulations that corporation has to abide by. The bad thing about training is that it can take up a lot of time while people are training. Discipline is another possible solution. Strict guidelines and closure of all cases will ensure everyone is treated equally. Make sure that if someone is sexually harassed that the supervisor or anyone in the organization will be punished. Make sure the punishment is fair and justified. Treat each case upon severity of the case. Like training, discipline also has its pros and cons. Discipline will let everyone in Wal-Mart know that the company is not playing around when it comes with sexual harassment. One thing bad about discipline is that one person may view the severity differently than another person in your organization. Then punishment may be differently and the victim may think that the harasser got off scot free. Frequent monitoring of all your employees is another way we can solve the problem at Wal-Mart. Managers should more frequently review those security cameras. Make rounds to your entire departments and ask questions about how everything is doing. Make sure you not just talk to the supervisors; also talk with all of your staff, even the janitor. The good thing about monitoring is that you can interact to your staff and it lets them know you care about them. Sam Walton would love this idea. The bad thing is that the manager will lose valuable time in his office handling paperwork. Reflection Viewing Wal-Mart after writing this report has a much more meaning to me when I go to work. I can start using my ideas to make a difference in the work place. I can spread my knowledge to my fellow workmates. I can let them know how important it is too seek help if there are any problems. Alvarez, F. , Moser, A. (2010). Targeting Employers for Gender-Based Pay and promotion Discrimination: The Next Big Thing?. Employee Relations Law Journal, 36930, 46-53. Retrieved from Business Source Complete database. Bielous, G. (1997). Do you play favorites?. Supervision, 58(8), 9. Retrieved form MasterFILE Premier database. Friedman, E. (2010, April). Appeals Court Rules Wal-Mart Sex Discrimination Case Can Go to Trial. Retrieved from http://abcnews. go. om/WN/Business/wal-mart-sex-discrimination-case-trial/story? id=10480510 Gibson, P. , (1998). Sexual Harassment Prevention Training Manual for Managers ans Supervisors: How to Prevent and Resolve Sexual Harrassment complaints in the Workplace. Employment Human Resources management Professional Series. Chicago CCH Incorpated. Ozbilgin, M. Pringle, J. (2009). Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Work: a Research Companion. Cheltenham,UK, Northampt on, MA Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. Thiel, J. (2008). Harassment Claim Advances. HRMagazine, 53(10),99. Retrieved from Business Source complete database.

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buy custom Health and Social Services essay As discussed earlier the community of Borough makes up Flatbush and it is situated in Brooklyn part of New York City. There are 37,132 housing units with 106,154 people living in them according to the 2000 census (Wikipedia, 2010). Twenty three percent of the residents live below poverty level while close to seventy percent are in the middle class. The community air is not severely polluted but it is not also the best in New York. This is as a result of dumping sites and other environmental conditions in the area. The housing facilities are not enough for the people. This can be seen with the crowding in the area. Most houses are apartment and row houses are also a character in Flatbush. The blocks have close to fifty houses together. The institutions present are Erasmus Hall High School at the borders of Flatbush, the reformed church and the Brooklyn College. There are several notable parks in Brooklyn most common is Brooklyn Botanical Garden and Prospect Park. The community shares all these resources and it is evident that the resources cannot cater for the community adequately. The environment waste collection programme is managed mostly by courtesy cleaners, J S Cleaners and other small establishments. They collect waste from the area and also look at the environmental conditions of the community. They also offer household services to the community. Flatbush is served by Home Healthcare services in Brooklyn and also social volunteer services are available. There are several and the most notable one is Flatbush centre which offers primary health care services, social services and other health needs for the Flatbush community. There are also Adult social services and health care, convalescent homes. East Flatbush Senior Citizens services offer these services. The New York Community Hospital of Brooklyn is the major health care facility that serves the residents of Flatbush and offers most health care needs of the community. This mentioned facilities are faced with challenges of the growing size of the community and lack of necessary resources. They are overwhelmed by the health needs of the Flatbush community (Preferred Health partners, 2010). Economics The median household income of Flatbush community is $38,091 and the median per capita income generated is $13,052 per year. There are several shopping stores and most common is the Johnson family store. There is a high rate of unemployment although there are few industries in Brooklyn. There are employment agencies helping people to find job opportunities. The community has several shopping stores that serve the big community. The economic challenge is majorly unemployment and high living costs. Transport and safety The community of Flatbush has a good network of transport. It i served by a subway network that is mostly used by the community. It is used by over twenty thousand of the members of the community. Then there are bus routes which serve at least six thousand of the community members while another close to six thousand also drive their own car. The rest use available ferryboats, bicycles and foot. Taxis are also available but it is not very common mode of transport for the people. The cleaning services are run by some few companies for example JS Cleaners. They are in charge for the sanitation of the area. The police department of New York and Fire department have a facility that acts as their post in Flatbush. They serve the precincts of Flatbush. The crime rates are also high in this area. Due to the diversity of culture and vast unemployment it is evident crimes like burglary, car theft and grand larceny will be high. Burglary and car theft are the leading crimes in Flatbush. Politics and Government The state senator is called Kevin Parker and he is facing challenge by a city council man in his bid for re election. His challenger Kendall Stewart is also faced with a claim against his aides who embezzled fund. The politics of Flatbush is mainly for the hot seat of state senator. The Federal Government of New York governs Flatbush and its community. The community advocates are not very much influential at the community level. They are only given deaf ears. Communication Communication in Flatbush is mostly informal. With the growth of the internet and social networks like face book, MySpace and twitter most people utilise this platform for communication. Mobile phones are also a form used by many. Most Flatbush residents own a mobile phone. Informal language is also widely used. This area is having many African Americans hence slang is also common. Newspapers are a common feature in the shopping stores and streets. It is evident that most adults can get a copy and read but the young people are rarely interested in the newspaper contents. They use internet to get updated with current issues and also depend on grapevine. Education There are various public and primary schools in Flatbush. There are also high schools and institutions. Erasmus Hall is the most common high school with various campuses in Flatbush border. The other is a private called New Vistas Academy. The schools are available but some students are not interested in studying because of their lifestyle. Female students are highly prone to drop out of school as a result of teenage pregnancy. The schools do not perform very well. Flatbush community students lack the motivation and spirit of studying. This is as a result of lack of discipline. There is a public library in Flatbush. It is available and accessible but it lacks many books. It is the bbuilding that can be seen but materials in the library are very old. The lack of educational resources is a major educational issue. Schools need to be upgraded and information materials have to be put in the library. Thus the resources minimally meet the educational needs of Flatbush community. Recreation Sport is the most common feature of recreation in Flatbush. The community tennis courts, basketball courts and pitches for football. There are also parks where the community can go and relax for example in Ditmas Park there are a variety of activities for recreation. Dance classes and other games are also widely available. The youths are mostly the ones involved in recreational activities. Basketball and tennis are more common. A few find dancing classes a priority. Not so many adults participate in the sports activities. The sports needs of Flatbush are partly met since good sports infrastructure lacks in Flatbush community. The facilities need to be improved. Perceptions The community leaders feel that the community services and programs are not adequate to cater for the large community in Flatbush. They are urging the government and also private initiatives to add more facilities and also try to improve the ones present. The facilities wear out fast for example the schools and transport system. They have served many years but they are rarely refurbished and improved. The population has grown and the capacity for the facilities has not been improved. The community elders feel there is a lot to be done regarding the health living of the community. Security is an issue as crime rates have increased. More substance abuse and alcohol is sold to those below the stipulated age. The community of Flatbush needs immediate attention of the authorities. Analysis The Flatbush community has been involved in many programmes to try and improve the health of the community. There are organizations that have come up to provide ways of having a safe community. The first line of defence in Flatbush can be assumed to be organizations that help the community to live a healthy life. Brooklyn Bureau of community service is one of the organizations. They offer a range of services that contribute to building a healthy social life for Flatbush community. The training offered by this organization is vital in forming the normal defence line of the community. Having these programs enables the community to face many societal problems positively and also avoid. When children go through the programmes they are not likely to be indulged in crime and negative behaviour, adults are going to be more conscious of their health and behaviour. They have also self help groups to curb the poverty levels in the community. This helps them meet their day to day financial requirements. Buy custom Health and Social Services essay

Free Essays on Train Lab

Train Lab Problem- What's the acceleration of the L train? Materials- Measure meter, stop watches, L train Procedure- First, the person in charge examines the platform briefly. Then he takes 11 people and places that at approximate. equal distances from each other over the entire platform. These are not going to be exactly accurate, as they are just a quickly formed hypothesis of the â€Å"equal† distance people people. Once the people are in their positions, they are handed a stopwatch by the safety people and are to remain in these spots until told to do otherwise. The person closest to the â€Å"beginning† of the platform (the first place the train passes coming into the station) is given the measure meter. Next, as the train enters the station, all stoppers get ready. As soon as the train starts to move out of the station, all stoppers start their watches and stop their watches when the back of the train passes them. Then, the person with the measure meter measures the distance between each person to get the displacement. With the time and displacement, one can get velocity. Then, we calculate the changes in velocity to find the accelerations and initial V and final V. Results/Calculations- Please see attached for calculations Total Displacement: 148.11 m Total Time: 17.90 s Total Velocity: 8.27 m/s Total Acceleration: .46 m/s 2 Observations: According to our research, the L train didn’t seem to have a very high acceleration. Discussion: - Why did we omit certain intervals to make our lab as accurate as possible? - Certain intervals were omitted from this experiment in order to ensure that we were providing the most accurate lab we could. Between some intervals, the numbers for time and/or average velocity were so radically strange that to use them in the lab would onl... Free Essays on Train Lab Free Essays on Train Lab Train Lab Problem- What's the acceleration of the L train? Materials- Measure meter, stop watches, L train Procedure- First, the person in charge examines the platform briefly. Then he takes 11 people and places that at approximate. equal distances from each other over the entire platform. These are not going to be exactly accurate, as they are just a quickly formed hypothesis of the â€Å"equal† distance people people. Once the people are in their positions, they are handed a stopwatch by the safety people and are to remain in these spots until told to do otherwise. The person closest to the â€Å"beginning† of the platform (the first place the train passes coming into the station) is given the measure meter. Next, as the train enters the station, all stoppers get ready. As soon as the train starts to move out of the station, all stoppers start their watches and stop their watches when the back of the train passes them. Then, the person with the measure meter measures the distance between each person to get the displacement. With the time and displacement, one can get velocity. Then, we calculate the changes in velocity to find the accelerations and initial V and final V. Results/Calculations- Please see attached for calculations Total Displacement: 148.11 m Total Time: 17.90 s Total Velocity: 8.27 m/s Total Acceleration: .46 m/s 2 Observations: According to our research, the L train didn’t seem to have a very high acceleration. Discussion: - Why did we omit certain intervals to make our lab as accurate as possible? - Certain intervals were omitted from this experiment in order to ensure that we were providing the most accurate lab we could. Between some intervals, the numbers for time and/or average velocity were so radically strange that to use them in the lab would onl...

Overall, the spread of the internet has actually had a negative effect Essay

Overall, the spread of the internet has actually had a negative effect on non-western societies. Using existing literature - Essay Example The answer is yes, though the internet has immensely influenced the development of these countries, the politics and cultures of these countries have also been negatively impacted as a result (Anne, 2009). In terms of the culture of these non western countries, the introduction of the internet can be said to have done more bad than good to their existence as a result of the alterations that have occurred as a result. Whereas in the past the culture of these countries were held in great esteem by the youth as a result of the teachings that were passed on from the older generations, they are now viewed as backward and non significant by many of the youth whose main information is retrieved from the internet (Clay, 2008). This can be said to be mainly because of the availability of the internet which has introduced the younger generation to different, and in their view, more attractive modern cultures mainly practiced in the westernized countries that has led them to abandon the teachin gs of their own cultures for these foreign practices (Harris, 2008). A good example of such change is the treatment and views of parents by the youth in these non western countries. Whereas in the past a child dare not disobey their parents wishes, the introduction of the internet has revealed countries such as America where an individual is capable of suing their parents in court and do not hold them in such esteem. This has led to the degeneration of the level of respect that was once accorded to these parents as a result as the youth ask themselves that if the American’s are doing it why shouldn’t they? Thus, it can be said that the introduction of the internet has led to the slow disappearance of a country’s culture as he youth give them up for more modern views on life and society (Yochai, 2006). The introduction of the internet has also affected the culture of non western countries cultures in terms of moral values that had previously played a large role i n the society of these nations (Steven, 2005). The number of moral beliefs that were previously upheld by then youth has decreased drastically as a result of the internet as well. The World Wide Web has opened up the gates of information and practices that were previously considered taboo are now accepted the younger generations in these non western countries as a result (Anne, 2009). This can be said to be due to the discovery that though such acts were forbidden in their countries they are widely accepted in the western lands and thus as a result, they become accepted as well as the youth strive to emulate the western lives that they see via the web. An example of such moral beliefs is the cohabitation of different genders (That is boyfriends and girlfriends) before marriage. Whereas in the past it was unacceptable for a boy and a girl to live together unless they related or married it is now a widely accepted role in many non western countries, something that was not the case bef ore the introduction of the internet (Sherry, 2011). Sex before marriage is also another subject that was unthinkable before the intro

Employee Reward (Executive Reward) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Employee Reward (Executive Reward) - Essay Example The executive compensation system helps in the improvement of the existing system that helps in accomplishment of goals and objectives. A well structured compensation system helps in the attraction of dynamic and talented pool of executives who can help the company in gaining competitive advantage over its competitors (Browning, 2012).An integrated approach of designing a reward structure helps in developing a system which is directly related to the growth of the company . Executive reward system in a company is the result of a high level interaction between the company executives and the director to maintain an acceptable return on the investment at all times. The executives expect some kind of salary based on daily or annual basis. It also includes employment contracts, portable retirement benefits and deferred compensation (Haygroup, 2013). The company management instead wishes that the executive achieve specific goals and also include developing capabilities (Edge and Davis, 2004 ). A well constructed EC system is only feasible with the development of a leadership framework in which the responsibilities, duties and capabilities are clearly identified and sorted out as per the executive level. In the leadership framework the level, responsibility, capability and results are clearly defined which helps in identification of the opportunities and the development of a strategy. The traditional executive compensation system was developed by Mirrlees and Holmstrom in the year 1975 and later it was modified by Holmstrom and Tirole in the year 1993 (Haygroup, 2013). This theory was developed to help in building an incentive scheme which focuses on trade-off risk sharing and incentive, reward consideration. The theory was also formulated keeping in mind whether the management would be able to pay back the invested amount or not. The author laid emphasis on the fact that stock prices not only reflected the fundamental value of the organization but also signified a shor t term speculative amount. The various constituents of the executive reward systems are as follows: Direct Pay Base Salary The entire executive system would include the annual based salary which would be replaced by the executive salary plans. As per the leadership framework the executive total rewards system would be as follows. Base Salary Annual Incentives and Perks Long Term Incentives Career Development Responsibilities Short Term Success Long Term Success The capability and short term success would be considered The executive salary planning would start as per the market pay data and the desired competitive range would be decided based on the competitive performance of the executives. It also includes the inputs and growth in individual responsibility and the high level performance for the individual (Armstrong, 2002). The salary plans are developed on the assumption of the consistent performance for the executive reward system. Annual Incentive The executive reward system, an nual incentive plan also forms an important part of the total reward and incentive system for the executives (Lepak, 2013). It helps in benchmarking the total work as per the quantitative and qualitative performance standards (Lepak, 2013). To ensure individual accountability the incentive system is designed in such a way that executives are able to accomplish the goals

IS CPHL214 A PHILOSOPHY COURSE OR WHAT Assignment

IS CPHL214 A PHILOSOPHY COURSE OR WHAT - Assignment Example In the second paragraph, unsubstantiated attributions are made to the professor. While the professor might have said â€Å"critical thinking skills are good things to have†, he did not seemed to have said that â€Å"its good to be picky, argumentative, always finding something wrong with whatever students write, and cynical†. The latter is merely an interpretation on part of the writer as to what the professor meant by his comment. This interpretation comes across as exaggerated and negatively biased against the professor. Moreover, while there is a link between critical thinking courses and the broader philosophy courses, whether or not the courses are â€Å"good† is an irrelevant deviation from the argument. The last two lines of the second paragraph are also display an error in syllogism. It doesn’t stand to reason that all critical thinking courses are philosophy courses, just because this claim cannot be proven false. In the third paragraph, the perusal of hear-say evidence of Bertha weakens the argument. Moreover, Bertha’s friends don’t represent the entire student population, in order that sweeping conclusions could be made based on the evidence provided by her. That Bertha’s friends’ course did and CPHL214 did not talk about the â€Å"meaning of life† doesn’t make the two courses incompatible – they could just be two variations of a common theme. In the fourth paragraph the assertion that â€Å"meaning of life is interesting† appears arbitrary, unsubstantiated as it is with any rationale. Likewise, â€Å"there’s no way CPHL214 is interesting† is also a subjective judgment and not an indisputable fact. Defining philosophy as the â€Å"study of human life† is too simplistic and vague for the purposes of classifying CPHL214. Coming to the fifth paragraph the fact that the professor works for money and that he has a stake in the functioning of the

MGT599 - Strategic Management, Mod 5 SLP Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

MGT599 - Strategic Management, Mod 5 SLP - Essay Example It managed to expand its business on a large scale mainly due to its acquisition of AirTran Holdings in the year 2011 and as at December 31, 2011 the company operated a total of 698 aircrafts that includes 88 Boeing 7171s and 610 Boeing 737s. AirTran Airways is now operated as one of the wholly owned subsidiaries of Southwest Airlines. The company is regarded to be one of the lowest fare domestic airlines in United States and is committed towards providing best Customer Services in the airlines industry. The company encourages employees to express individual ideas to improve performance of the company. Employees are treated as greatest asset for the company and they have the independence to present their feedback in front of management of the company. The company encourages employees to compete against each other to meet performance standard but the competition level is always maintained as a healthy practice to develop personal skills. Although the organization structure works in a centralized manner but communication line follows both top vertical and horizontal approach. Organizational hierarchy of the organization has minimum number of layers to decrease the time for communication process. For example, flight attendants clean the flight themselves in order to save money and time. It is evident from the above mentioned organization structure that vice presidents report to their respective senior vice presidents and senior vice presidents report to CEO of the company. Multiple rol es playing by individual employee is the specialty of the company. The company gives importance on creating separate task force for various activities. They use guidelines for employees to perform daily work and work schedule is prepared according to the requirement. For example, top managers of the company perform as ticket agents, reservation agents or cabin crew member once in every

Heathrow Airport Project Evaluation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Heathrow Airport Project Evaluation - Essay Example This meant some of the Star Alliance airlines having their operations at terminal 2 and 3 would have to move to terminal 1. Completion of this project on time would enable Heathrow Airport, which currently caters for 90 airlines, to rise up to more than 180 airlines worldwide. Though completing the project on the laid timeline was one of the most important things, there were other factors that had to be considered, including the safety and health issues (BAA, 2012). This was important because the terminal was to be used by passengers, and their needs came first. All factors had to be considered so as to maintain the reputation of BAA to the stakeholders , the public, and the media. The passage of terminal 1 may lead to delays which could cause not only significant penalties but also loss of other clients. A project manager, David Buisson, was chosen to manage the project as he was a certified project manager who also had more than 13 years of working experience as a manger in various challenging and complex projects (BAA, 2012). Mr. Buisson had worked with teams of professionals from various places around the world, including professionals from industries who were skilled enough to tackle major transport and communication projects. Using the experience developed from many years of experience and meeting different people around the world, Mr. Buisson had the required sufficient knowledge to choose a team that would be able to complete the project in the required timeline. The teams chosen would be required to collaborate and make the success of the project the most important thing they do. They should also remember the safety of the project as it is supposed to serve millions of people and for decades of years to come. Planning Approaches Planning and survey are a continuous process wh ich may take time before being implemented. There are three proven planning approaches for projects which include top-down execution and responsibility; top-down policy and bottom-up planning and execution; and bottom-up execution and responsibility (Kerzner, 2000). The top down execution and responsibility is the department responsible for coordinating and planning of procedures and policies. The management in this approach is centralized as it involves a few people making decisions for the rest of the team (Cooke-Davies, 2000). In this case, the stakeholders are informed of the proceedings of the project and they make the decisions of whether the project would still be done or not. They decide whether the request for time extensions would be necessary, whether additional resources would make any changes to the project and they make conclusions without consulting the teams doing the project. This approach has its disadvantages as various departments may not get the special attentio n required to complete the project on time. Different teams may also not understand how they should relate to each other while trying to complete the project. The other approach is the bottom-up execution and responsibility which encourages each department to develop or come up with their ideas and implement plans without much supervision (Morris, 2004). In this approach, there is a manager in charge of them, but they only report to them in critical circumstances. In our case, the project manager encourages the team members to use the collaborative approach while solving various problems. This approach involves training various people as well as having different parties which can be expensive especially to big projects such as refurbishing Heathrow Airport Terminals. The last planning approach is the top down policy and bottom up planning and execution which have overall planning rules or guidelines which are

Literature review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 16

Literature review - Essay Example The study revealed that the patients’ wellbeing improved with better nurse staffing ratios such as skills and the hours of work spent on the patients (Castle & Anderson, 2011). Nurse staffing is an imperative aspect in determining the quality of services offered in hospitals and patient outcomes. Nurse Staffing Ratio and Quality Outcome in long-term care. I selected this topic because of the existence of research gaps on the topics investigating the existence of inefficient services in many health facilities and homecare due to understaffing. However, before examining the connection between clinical outcomes and nurse staffing, it is imperative to note that this research faces common challenges that are likely to crop up during the process of designing the staffing outcomes. For instance, the issue of getting suitable data sources that are reliable; correct measures for patient outcome and staffing and the problem of establishing authentic linkages between the two variables to come out with valid conclusions. According to Spilsbury et al. (2011), nurse staffing is a primary responsibility of the hospital administrators. The researchers go ahead to pinpoint budgetary constraint considerations and the nurse labor markets as some of the factors that influences nurse staffing ratios in hospitals. Moreover, according to the agency nursing staff model the hours assigned to each staff in a subunit within the facility and nature of supervision form another set of elements that significantly influences the nurse staffing (Spilsbury et al., 2011). The quality of care provided by the nurses is greatly influenced by the characteristics of the individual nurse such as fatigue, knowledge, and experience. The quality of care is also, affected by the system in which nurses work because it involves staffing levels and the needs of patient under care; organization of colleague officers, their availability, support services as well as

MGT599 - Strategic Management, Mod 5 SLP Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

MGT599 - Strategic Management, Mod 5 SLP - Essay Example It managed to expand its business on a large scale mainly due to its acquisition of AirTran Holdings in the year 2011 and as at December 31, 2011 the company operated a total of 698 aircrafts that includes 88 Boeing 7171s and 610 Boeing 737s. AirTran Airways is now operated as one of the wholly owned subsidiaries of Southwest Airlines. The company is regarded to be one of the lowest fare domestic airlines in United States and is committed towards providing best Customer Services in the airlines industry. The company encourages employees to express individual ideas to improve performance of the company. Employees are treated as greatest asset for the company and they have the independence to present their feedback in front of management of the company. The company encourages employees to compete against each other to meet performance standard but the competition level is always maintained as a healthy practice to develop personal skills. Although the organization structure works in a centralized manner but communication line follows both top vertical and horizontal approach. Organizational hierarchy of the organization has minimum number of layers to decrease the time for communication process. For example, flight attendants clean the flight themselves in order to save money and time. It is evident from the above mentioned organization structure that vice presidents report to their respective senior vice presidents and senior vice presidents report to CEO of the company. Multiple rol es playing by individual employee is the specialty of the company. The company gives importance on creating separate task force for various activities. They use guidelines for employees to perform daily work and work schedule is prepared according to the requirement. For example, top managers of the company perform as ticket agents, reservation agents or cabin crew member once in every

Literature review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 16

Literature review - Essay Example The study revealed that the patients’ wellbeing improved with better nurse staffing ratios such as skills and the hours of work spent on the patients (Castle & Anderson, 2011). Nurse staffing is an imperative aspect in determining the quality of services offered in hospitals and patient outcomes. Nurse Staffing Ratio and Quality Outcome in long-term care. I selected this topic because of the existence of research gaps on the topics investigating the existence of inefficient services in many health facilities and homecare due to understaffing. However, before examining the connection between clinical outcomes and nurse staffing, it is imperative to note that this research faces common challenges that are likely to crop up during the process of designing the staffing outcomes. For instance, the issue of getting suitable data sources that are reliable; correct measures for patient outcome and staffing and the problem of establishing authentic linkages between the two variables to come out with valid conclusions. According to Spilsbury et al. (2011), nurse staffing is a primary responsibility of the hospital administrators. The researchers go ahead to pinpoint budgetary constraint considerations and the nurse labor markets as some of the factors that influences nurse staffing ratios in hospitals. Moreover, according to the agency nursing staff model the hours assigned to each staff in a subunit within the facility and nature of supervision form another set of elements that significantly influences the nurse staffing (Spilsbury et al., 2011). The quality of care provided by the nurses is greatly influenced by the characteristics of the individual nurse such as fatigue, knowledge, and experience. The quality of care is also, affected by the system in which nurses work because it involves staffing levels and the needs of patient under care; organization of colleague officers, their availability, support services as well as

McDonalds Review B-TEC Essay Example for Free

McDonalds Review B-TEC Essay McDonalds is an international franchise which welcomes 58 million customers in over 31,000 different locations worldwide and over 1.5 million employees. The company serves an average 47 million customers each day throughout the 119 countries you can find McDonalds in. The franchises main purpose is to deliver products like food and drink putting it in a secondary sector. Founded in 1940 in Illinois, USA by Dick and Mac McDonald the company has since become the largest fast food retailer in the world. Although McDonalds has received a lot of criticism from people that campaign for healthy eating, the company have since introduced a healthy eating range including salad vegetables and have cut down on advertising of the more unhealthy range of foods it supplies. Along with the eat healthily phenomenon McDonalds have adopted, inspired by the new worldwide need for encouragement of keeping fit, the company have introduced R Gym which is equipped with childrens gym equipment and video games. The company has a Market Capital of around à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½42 billion and (2006) profits of $3.544 billion, which was nearly a 300% rise from 2002 ($893 million). McDonalds is becoming increasingly popular in Asia (which is currently the fastest growing business region in the world) and the franchise is set to open 100 new drive-thru locations in China. McDonalds has a range of restaurants in many countries. The most popular being the counter service and drive-thru service located in many well-populated towns cities. The other types include the McDrive, simply only a drive-thru service found near highways. You will also find a walk-thru service in some downtown-areas although these are quite rare. Also, to keep up with the cafà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ market, McDonalds decided to introduce a Starbucks-type named The McCafà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ which was started in Melbourne in 1993, being a concept of McDonalds Australia and are usually located in most McDonalds restaurants throughout the country. Sales have risen 60% in some stores with the new McCafà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ look and feel and they are found at 600 different regions in 2006. McDonalds are also located at truck stops, shopping malls and in Wal-Mart/Asda stores. McDonalds products include; hamburgers, French fries, chicken sandwiches, soft drinks, breakfast meals, desserts, McFlurrys, muffins, milkshake as well as salads and vegetarian options.  McDonalds currently uses various ways of advertising, including on T.V, the radio, in magazines, newspapers through door-to-door leaflets. Throughout the U.K, they are offering a buy-one-get-one-free offer on Big Macs and happy meals which should increase sales for the short term and gain more popularity. They also advertise a healthier option to appeal to new customers looking for a healthier choice. The corporation also advertises its competitions such as the Best Win Monopoly in which customers can win prizes and McDonalds have also supplied free toys and games with the childrens happy meal. This has been known to bring in a large amount of custom. McDonalds isnt always owned by franchisees 15% of McDonalds stores is owned by the corporation itself. However, in the U.K, less than 30% of stores are owned by franchisees. The corporation earns revenue by operating restaurants, franchising restaurants, and being an investor in properties. 85% of McDonalds restaurants are run from a variety of franchise agreements joint ventures. McDonalds use a slightly different form of modelling their business; they collect franchise fees and marketing fees as well as rent which can be determined by sales. The corporation is currently sponsoring London Olympics 2012 the

Persuasive Power of Neuroimages

Persuasive Power of Neuroimages Neuroimage effect and repeated exposure:  The contextual origin of neuroimage’s persuasive power Bethany Waites Erica Chastain If you were to open up a newspaper, or visit an online news source, there is good chance that you will come across a media coverage story of a scientific research study, and that article will probably contain an image to help facilitate complicated scientific information to the reader (McCabe and Castel, 2008). Many of the popular media articles describing the latest scientific research simplify the findings for the general public, accompany these findings with neuroimages, and more often than not, these findings are oversimplified or misrepresented (Morling, 2012, p.18). In 2008, it was suggested that judgments on the credibility of scientific reasoning behind research conclusions can be positively influenced (or persuaded) by the supplementary presence of neuroimages depicting cognitive processes described in the scientific research presented by media research articles (McCabe and Castel, 2008) – a finding which many have focused on replicating and discovering the for this p ower (Schweitzer et al., 2013; Weisberg et al., 2008; Schweitzer et al., 2013). If the contextual origins of the documented significant power that neuroimages exert on the credibility judgments of the scientific reasoning (henceforth called the Neuroimage Effect or NIE) can be discovered, there would be implications not only in the fields of psychology but across the scientific field in general. The scientific community is dependent on the popular media to correctly facilitate scientific information and findings to the general public, and if there are in fact contexts out of which NIE can arise, it would be imperative for the scientific community to discover and prevent them from occurring in popular media so that scientific information has a better opportunity of being correctly conveyed to the general public. In 2008, McCabe and Castel’s groundbreaking study introduced the idea of NIE after explicitly examining the persuasive power neuroimages had on the perceived credibility of cognitive neuroscience data and argued that the tendency for images to be intuitively interpreted as scientifically credible representations of various cognitive activities may be due to the reductionist nature of humanity. In their tri-experimental study, they: (1) examined whether the presence of the neuroimages led to higher ratings of flawed scientific reasoning in cognitive neuroscience research compared not only to their absence, but also to the presence of another widely-used visual representations of data such as bar graphs and a text-only control group; (2) examined whether brain images affected credibility judgments because they were more visually complex than bar graphs and whether it was this complexity that influenced judgments, and (3) attempted to generalize the findings of the first two expe riments by using a real news article with scientifically sound reasoning to depict material encountered in the real world (McCabe and Castel, 2008). They concluded that the presence of neuroimages had a statistically significant positive influence on judgment ratings of the credibility of scientific reasoning (NIE) than with the presence of bar graphs and text-only groups, and that they may be more persuasive not because of their visual complexity but because they provide tangible physical explanations of cognitive processes appealing to the reductionist nature of humanity. Following the publication of McCabe and Castel’s study, several research studies have attempted to replicate these findings, some with over-exaggerated success (Michael et al., 2013), while others failed to do so overall (Michael et al., 2013; Schweitzer et al., 2013). While a general failure to replicate the original findings of McCabe and Castel’s original study is prominent, these failures were not complete and have produced interesting and surprising results that have prompted the exploration into finding the origin of the marginal persuasive influence of the presence of a neuro-image on the judgments of scientific reasoning (Schweitzer et al., 2013). There are a handful of speculated contextual sources of the persuasive power of neuro-images including: the methodological design of repeated measures (Schweitzer et al., 2013; Weisberg et al., 2008), the quality of the article’s scientific reasoning (Schweitzer et al., 2013; Weisberg et al., 2008), and the pres ence of criticism, which calls into question the validity of the article’s conclusions (McCabe and Castel, 2008; Michael et al., 2013). The first two speculated sources of NIE previously mentioned were examined in the fifth experiment of the Schweitzer et al. (2013) study. The repeated measures effect (RME) is the suggested underlying contextual variable which produces NIE by introducing a comparative opportunity for participants in which they base their judgments of scientific reasoning in subsequent articles on the quality of scientific logic presented in the initial article (Schweitzer et al., 2013, Weisberg et al., 2008). The second mentioned underlying source, the quality of the article’s scientific reasoning, has been argued by Weisberg et al.(2008) to play a role in the influential power of neuroscience information and that the optimal condition for NIE was the use of non-scientific language, a weak argument, and high-impact images (Schweitzer et al., 2013) Schweitzer et al. (2013) designed the fifth experiment to satisfy the optimal conditions presented by Weisberg et al. and others as well as to test RME, and argued its presence would be found in the 2nd block of the experiment, as participants would have been previously exposed to scientific reasoning of the 1st block. They concluded that the study demonstrated a significant NIE in the presence of weak scientific reasoning, but only in the 2nd block after participants were presented with a comparison on which to base their judgments of scientific reasoning credibility, indicating RME as a critical contextual origin. Because there was not a significant NIE in the first block, the authors concluded that faulty arguments were not a critical contextual source. However, it is noteworthy to again mention the fact that McCabe and Castel (2008) used faulty scientific reasoning as a control within their first two experiments which did produce a significant NIE, and coupled with the arguments of Weisberg et al. (2008), it would be unwise to not deem it a potential source of NIE. The final potential source of NIE within the scope of this study is effect that the presence of criticism has on NIE which was introduced by McCabe and Castel (2008) but was iterated upon by Michael et al. in 2013. The original study’s design allowed the researchers to control the participant’s level of reasonable doubt about the credibility of scientific reasoning behind research conclusions by the presence of obviously flawed scientific reasoning within the first 2 articles, and by the presence of criticisms in the last experiment which called into question the validity of the article’s conclusions and counteracted NIE (McCabe and Castel, 2008; Michael et al., 2013). McCabe and Castel (2008) reported that the presence of criticism did not influence the participant’s ratings on the credibility of the article’s conclusions, but upon further investigation of the original data, Michael et al. (2013) discovered that the brain images were more influenti al when critiques were present to question the validity of conclusions – a notable find which counteracted the claims made by the original investigators (Michael et al., 2013). While Michael et al. discovered the discrepancy regarding the role criticism played in NIE and conducted five experiments that included a criticism manipulation, they did not elaborate on the effects of criticisms as they performed a meta-analysis of the original 2008 data and the data from their 10 experiments, to more precisely estimate NIE (Michael et al., 2013). Because this interesting discrepancy was not explicitly investigated, it does pose an intriguing possibility that neuroimages are more influential as they provide evidence against a criticism contradicting the article’s conclusions. The present study attempts to not only examine the persuasive power that neuroimages exert on the perceived credibility of the conclusion’s scientific reasoning (or the Neuroimage Effect; NIE) but also the relationship between NIE and the three potentially critical contextual origins. It is our goal to demonstrate that neuroimages exert a statistically significant positive influence on participant’s ratings of scientific reasoning, and based on prior research, expect to find a significant NIE in each of the three contextual variables. It is also our goal to discover which of those variables produces the most significant NIE, and purpose that NIE is the most influential when participants are presented with a comparative opportunity in which they are able to base their ratings on the credibility of scientific reasoning in subsequent articles on the quality of the reasoning presented in the initial article. References McCabe, D. P., Castel, A. D. (2008). Seeing Is Believing: The Effect of Brain Images on  Judgments of Scientific Reasoning. Cognition, 107(1), 343-352. Michael, R. B., Newman, E. J., Vuorre, M., Cumming, G., Garry, M. (2013). On the  (non)persuasive power of a brain image. Psychonomic Bulletin Review, 20(4), 720-725. doi:10.3758/s13423-013-0391-6 Morling, Beth. Research methods in psychology: evaluating a world of information. New York,  NY: Norton, 2012. Print. Schweitzer, N. J., Baker, D. A., Risko, E. F. (2013). Fooled by the brain: Re-examining the  influence of neuroimages. Cognition, 129(3), 501-511. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.08.009 Weisberg, D., Keil, F. C., Goodstein, J., Rawson, E., Gray, J. R. (2008). The Seductive Allure  of Neuroscience Explanations. Journal Of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(3), 470-477.