Mobile Phones: Resource or Distraction in Studies

Mobile phones: a resource or distraction in education Mobile phones are one of the greatest inventions of mankind. Through his invention he has created his own world at his fingertips. He has removed the hindrance of distance between him and the world. But the important question which needs to be answered now is what should be the role of mobile devices in the learning process? It has been a key factor contributing to bad grades, also several health related disorders among students, but on the other hand, mobile devices can help students with quick research and provide a vital communication link to their, classmates, and even teachers.Students who do subjects which require field work research will need cell phones while in the field. All modern cell phones can be used to take pictures in the field, create reports using simple word processing applications, save and submit data back to their schools. If their school has a remote storage facility, students can easily back up their field work notes, videos and picture on that server while in the field. Most mobile phone service providers offer cheap internet subscription packages, so students will find it easy to transfer data or make more extensive research online using their cell phone.Both parents and teachers will need to stay in touch with their children and students, so cell phones will make this communication simple. Also students use cell phones to join peer to peer discussions which can help them ask any thing educational during this discussion. This discussion can be hosted on online educational social networks like Piazza. com, this network has mobile phones apps which a student can install and join any academic discussion using their mobile phones. It is very important for students to be in position to learn from anywhere at any time.The education world is changing and many scholars are attending virtual classrooms. Online education is now becoming so popular than before, mobile phones have also helped in the growth of Mobile-Learning. Since today’s cell phones have more than one application, students will always get distracted in the quest of trying to discover and try out new cell phone applications. Female students are more likely to get distracted by mobile applications like Pinterest, Facebook or twitter, then for the male students, they can get distracted by cell phone game applications or video streaming applications.This continuous distraction will affect a student’s concentration in the classroom, and it can also distract other students around them. When it comes to exam time, they will resort to cheating. So they can decide to scan their notes on their cell phones or use text messaging service to cheat exams. Then some students can Google exam questions and copy whatever they find online, and in most cases this data published online is not correct which results into exam failure.This trend will only increase, and it's up to parents and teachers to balance t he pros and cons of using cell phones as part of the learning process. While there is no single solution, perhaps there are lessons to be learned from the early internet era. The internet was at first seen as a new frontier with dangers lurking behind each click, whereas today schools and parents have universally embraced the web as a medium for research, education and efficient communication. With appropriate safeguards and reasonable policies, perhaps cell phones and web-enabled smart phones can run a similar course.

Development of the Periodic Table

It’s a rarity that we should come across a laboratory, classroom, chemistry textbook or lecture theatre that doesn’t contain a periodic table of the elements. It required the immense research and determination of the scientist Dmitri Mendeleev to show us that all elements followed a natural form and provided us with the first decent periodic table. There are 111 elements recognised today by IUPAC and they are arranged in the periodic table in horizontal groups and vertical periods.The eight groups consist of the alkali metals, the alkaline earth metals, the transition elements, metalloids, non-metals, the halogens and the nobel gases. The development of the periodic table first began with Antoine Lavoisier. His job as a privatised tax-collector helped finance his scientific research. He was the first scientist to classified the elements into four groups. These groups consisted of gases, metals, non-metals and metal oxides. In 1789, he proposed the Law of Conservation of Mass. This law stated that the mass of the products of a chemical reaction is equal to the reactants.This led to the â€Å"chemical revolution† and sparked interest amongst other scientists which, in turn, led to the periodic table that we know of today. In 1817 Johann Dobereiner saw became aware that the atomic weight of strontium was exactly half of the sum of the atomic weights of calcium and barium, which were elements that possessed similar properties. It took Dobereiner another twelve years to propose the Law of the Triads, after extensive research into finding the triads of the halogen group and the alkali metal group.In 1829 he proposed that nature contained triads of elements, with the middle element showing properties that were an average of the other two elements when ordered by atomic weight. Slowly, Dobereiners views began to be taken up by other chemists who tried to complete the unfinished triads, as further knowledge of the elements was gained. Dobereinerâ₠¬â„¢s triads played an important role in Gmelin’s Hand Book of Chemistry, but besides their importance in this publication not much notice was taken of the triads until much later on.The first scientist to arrange the elements in a periodic system was not actually a chemist, but a geologist. Beguyer de Chancourtois proposed a three-dimensional representation of the list of known elements wrapped around a cylinder in a helical graph. Elements that appeared on the same vertical line on the cylinder had similar properties. His helical graph also contained compounds and ions as well as elements so Beguyer de Chantcourtois’ work was disregarded until the work of Mendeleev.In 1862, John Newlands wrote a paper in which he arranged the fifty-six known elements into eleven groups based on similar physical properties. He noted that many of the elements with similarities differed by some multiple of eight in their atomic weights. Newlands found his work unpublished by the Royal S ociety as there were many criticisms made about his classification of the elements. John Newlands left no places in the table for undiscovered elements which altered the flexibility of the scheme.He didn’t evaluate the best values for the atomic weights, which was a serious omission according to Mendeleev. Some of the elements didn’t obey the scheme, the metals Mn, Ti and Fe aren’t of any resemblance to the non-metals P, Si and s which are placed eight elements before them. He was so convinced of his Law that he tried to force the elements to fit into this system Newlands believed that the system of the octaves would remain valid despite the number of elements that should be discovered. His work was ignored and forgotten until the work of Mendeleev had become famous.Both Dmitri Mendeleev and Lothar Meyer produced similar results concerning the periodic table even though they worked independently of each other. Meyer constructed an abbreviated version of the peri odic table, with only half if the known elements included. Meyer did not separate the elements of the sub-groups and main groups as Mendeleev did, but he did include the transition metals. Meyer had already predicted that there were undiscovered elements that would fit in his system, and so he left vacant spaces for them to be added to the table as they were discovered.Meyer stated the Law of periodicity in 1868 which stated that ‘The properties of elements are largely periodic functions of their atomic weight, Identical or similar properties recur if the atomic weight is increased by a definite amount which is at first 16, then about 46, and finally 88 to 92 units’ Although Meyer’s table wasn’t used due to lack of certainty and flexibility, his colleague Seubert, from the University of Tubingen, republished his first papers in 1895, the year of Meyer’s death, so that students would be reminded of Meyers importance in the development of the periodic system.Dmitri Mendeleev published his first periodic table in 1869. He arranged the elements in order of increasing atomic weight. Mendeleev created cards, with each elements symbol, atomic weight and its physical and chemical properties written on the cards. When these cards were arranged in order of increasing atomic weight then a table of the elements was formed which gave rise to the periodic table of the elements. There were gaps present in the table but Mendeleev didn’t see this as a problem. Instead he believed correctly that the gaps insinuated that elements were yet to be discovered .From these gaps, he was able to predict accurately the physical and chemical properties of the undiscovered elements which he called eka-alumium, eka-boron and eka-silicon. The prefix eka- means similar to. He predicted that ten undiscovered elements existed and seven of these ten were discovered. Some say that his work and research was so brilliant because he wasn’t aware of the previous work done by Beguyer de Chancourtois, Dobereiner and Newlands. He didn’t accept the values for atomic weight without questioning the values.If the element did not fit into the scheme, he simply changed the weight and re-positioned the element in a group where its chemical and physical properties were more suited. He also made some of the periods longer to accommodate what we now know today as the transition metals. Mendeleev’s table is arranged in rows and columns. The elements that we see today in a horizontal period were shown on his table in vertical columns and vertical groups were shown in horizontal rows. Below is an example of the periodic table of Dmitri Mendeleev.Lord Rayleigh discovered a new inert, gaseous element in 1895 called argon. Although he knew of argon’s existence since 1983, it took him over a year to actually isolate the gas. Along with his colleague, William Ramsey, they noticed that this element didn’t fit into any of the known periodic groups. Ramsey made a suggestion that a new group should be formed and placed between chlorine and potassium in the periodic table. It was grouped with helium and a new family of elements was formed. Ramsey also correctly predicted the properties and identification of neon.These inert, gaseous elements were labelled as the ‘zero’ group because of the zero valency of the elements. They were also called the inert gases for many years because they almost completely lacked in any chemical reactivity. It was only when Neil Bartlett in 1962 successfully made a compound which included the element xenon, that the group became known as the noble gases. It was found that xenon bound chemically to oxygen and fluorine and so it showed that there is indeed, limited reactivity in this group of elements. Between the ears of 1911 and 1914, Henry Moseley established the atomic numbers of the elements in the periodic table. This atomic number refers to the number of elect rons in a neutral atom. He discovered the atomic number by using an experimental procedure which involved each element producing X-rays. He noticed that as the atomic weight increased, so did the energy of the X-rays. He didn’t understand this until he assigned numbers to the elements. This was a breakthrough in the development of the periodic table and gave rise to a periodic law.This law states that ‘The properties of elements are periodic functions of their atomic number’. This Law was better than that of Mendeleev. When Moseley arranged the elements in order of increasing atomic number instead of increasing atomic mass then the irregularities that existed in Mendeleev’s table were gone. It is because of Moseley’s work that the periodic table that we have today is in existence. The final crucial change to occur in the period table of the elements came about from the work of Glenn Seaborg in 1940.He discovered the transuranium elements 94-102, sta rting with plutonium. A year later, Seaborg and his team discovered the isotope plutonium-239. He found that this isotope could be used to construct a nuclear bomb due to the isotope being fissionable by bombardment with slow neutrons. The amount of the plutonium-239 was very little so he began working on how to increase the abundance of the isotope. This research led him to join the Manhattan Project to make bombs for the U. S. Army.When the war ended he began focusing on the other trasuranium elements. Seaborg noticed that the heaviest elements were placed in the main body of the periodic table and he made another change to the table once again. He removed these heavy elements and placed displayed them separately from the main body of the table. He named the elements the Actinide series. As well as identifying the transuranium elements, Seaborg and his team brought to light more than 100 isotopes of the elements in the periodic table.Seaborg received the honour of having an elemen t named after him in appreciation of his extensive research into the periodic table. This element is named seaborgium (Sg). A transition metal is one which forms one or more stable ions which have incompletely filled d orbitals. Members of the transition elements and their compounds are good catalysts, probably due to their ability to change oxidation state. In the case of transition metals, they act as good catalysts because they are able to adsorb other substances onto their surface.The 38 elements occur in groups three to twelve, and it is their valence electrons that occur in more than one shell that cause them to have many oxidation states. Most of the transition metals take a coloured form, as do some of their ionic compounds. Because of the electrons in the d subshell, they are separated into different energy levels, causing the elements to absorb the frequencies of white light. Hence they appear to be coloured. The discovery of new elements, largely due to research in radioa ctivity, has had an appreciable impact on the development of the periodic table.The discovery of radioactivity in 1896 by Henri Becquerel inspired Marie and Pierre Curie to devote themselves to researching this area of chemistry. They succeeded in isolated radium and polonium just two years later. Marie measured the radiation given out by compounds of uranium and noticed that there was a similar radiation emitted by thorium compounds. During this time, she made the unexpected discovery that pitchblende contains a miniscule amount of an unknown radiating element. Pierre realised the importance of his wife’s work and joined in her research.Over the next year they found two new elements and began work on isolating them so their chemical and physical properties could be established. The third radioactive element was found three years after the discovery of radioactivity when actinium was separated from pitchblende by Debierne. The discovery of these three elements and radon were not the only ‘new’ elements found. Approximately 35 more elements were discovered in the early twentieth century, but these were later identified as isotopes of elements that had already been discovered.The identification of these isotopes and elements give rise to the modern periodic table of the elements. Some would say that although the periodic table is informative and a great discovery, the table does have some limits. Questions were raised in connection with the nonexistence of elements heavier than uranium. There were two main questions raised: Was it possible for heavier elements to occur in other parts of the universe? Was the lack of these elements caused by the instability of heavier atomic nuclei?John Newlands was the only scientist associated with the periodic table to consider the possibilities beyond the limits of the atomic weights. He talked about its upper and lower limits and concluded that there was a simple association between the atomic weights and the ordinal numbers. Some scientists continued to leave vacancies ahead of hydrogen for the neutron, electron, alpha-particle or the hydrogen ion, even after it had been known that the order number was indicated by the number of protons in an atom of the element.So today we are left with a period table of the elements that looks like this. There are eighteen groups and seven periods along with the lanthanoids and the actinoids in a separate grouping underneath the main body of the table. The table is laid out in such a way that the electron configuration for each element is valid as you go across a period. The periods get longer in the periods 4 – 7 to accommodate their electron configuration with s, p, d and f sub orbitals.The periodic table that we have today is a valuable resource for means of education. It’s something that many people take for granted, not realising that it was built over centuries by many great scientists. The modern layout is easy to use and com prehend making the understanding of organic chemistry as a whole easier. Although there may be some doubts to the validity of the table, no one can deny the fact that this family tree of the elements is nothing short of a genius way to assist in the teaching and learning of chemistry.

The role of Mobile in Education Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The role of Mobile in Education - Research Paper Example It is evident from the study that mobile devices and technologies are inescapable and ubiquitous in many modern societies, and are progressively altering the nature of information and discourse in these cultures, at the same time becoming themselves the merchandises of numerous social, trade, and industry forces. This, sequentially, modifies both the nature of knowledge (official and casual) and changes in the habits that knowledge can be carried through. Learning that used to be distributed 'just-in-case,' can at the present be transported 'just-in-time,' 'just sufficient,' and 'just-for-me.' Finding statistics relatively and not retaining them turns out to be the defining characteristic of knowledge in general and of mobile learning in particular; and this possibly will take knowledge back into the community. Mobile technologies also change the natural surroundings of work (the powerful force overdue much learning and most training), particularly of knowledge effort. Mobile technol ogies adjust the equilibrium between training and presentation sustenance, particularly for many knowledge staffs. Meaning that 'mobile' is not simply a fresh adjective succeeding the eternal thought of 'learning'– 'mobile learning' is evolving as an exclusively firsthand and different notion combined with the 'mobile workforce' and the 'connected society.' Mobile devices generate not only new formulae of knowledge and innovative methods of retrieving it, but correspondingly fashion new formulas of art and performance, and innovative means of gaining access to them. (for instance 'pop' videos designed and traded for iPods). Mobile devices are generating new systems of buying/selling and economic activities also. Different tutors and disciplines will have different

Customers Insurance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Customers Insurance - Essay Example That said, Social Media such as Facebook and LinkedIn are now far more widely used than conventional advertising platforms by ‘smaller’ customers, so focusing our marketing and sales effort on Social Media should, therefore, be very seriously considered.It must also be recognized that our competitors will be proceeding in a similar manner - on the other hand, if they are not, Our Company will have an immediate, and perhaps decisive, competitive advantage, at least temporarily!This Outline Proposal constitutes the Executive Summary for a much more extensive document which will set out the detailed requirements for the proposed personal Insurance Risk Management facility, which will be compiled should the Board consent to this project.In order to address this new market segment, Our Company will need to fundamentally review it’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) procedures, particularly in view of ‘small client’ purchasers of our products, particul arly small business enterprises, sole traders, and individuals. In addition to this, small business enterprises, sole traders and individuals, lacking even a meaningful fraction of the commercial and financial resources available to our existing corporate clients, will be paying particular attention to a particularly competitive price for our products, which will relief on the ability of Our Company to achieve this in terms of our portfolio of insurance products responding to price reductions offered by our competitors.

The Caroline Doctrine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Caroline Doctrine - Essay Example As a result, they believed the conduct of the British force had been, under the circumstances, justifiable by the Law of Nations1. Harrison administration was of the opinion that while the Constitution of the United States created very clear fields of jurisdiction, Federal Government was the one concerned with foreign relations and as a result it was to intervene with the State of New York and obtain the release of a foreign national. NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE POLICY "What an immense mass of evil must have result from allowing men to anticipate what might happen" Leo Tolstoy. Hans Blix, Chair of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, stated that it would be a violation of international law to take military action against Iran in response to its pending nuclear weapons program because such action would fail to comply with the international law doctrine of self-defense against imminent attack2. However, if so, the international community should revisit this doctrine in the context of nuclear counter-proliferation to ensure that there is a legal and practical doctrine of international self-defense. This has influenced the Americans allot when Caroline doctrine was cited with approval by Iraq. Therefore, the Caroline doctrine was to be modified for purposes of counter-proliferation3. The practical inability to sufficiently eliminate a nuclear threat once a nuclear weapons program by an aggressor state has been fully developed. For instance, taking the actual words used in the NSS itself, various commentators describe the situation as preemptive self-defense or rather Bush doctrine. However, others think that the NSS can be interpreted as promoting the doctrine of preventive self-defense which a number of present writers are in agreement with. present writers hold a belief that the term anticipatory self-defense is well documented and

Digital Intellectual Property Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Digital Intellectual Property - Essay Example Digital intellectual property is a type of intellectual property, which is somewhat more technical and information technology oriented. Some of the most common digital intellectual property issues include plagiarism, reverse engineering, open source code, competitive intelligence, and cyber squatting. In this paper, we will discuss plagiarism, which is one of the most common digital intellectual property issues. Plagiarism In the simplest form, plagiarism means to use someone’s idea, conversation, writing, or any other thing without using the reference of that person. Plagiarism is not only associated with the act of copying someone’s written work or oral speeches without mentioning the source but also it is associated with all types of visual art works, music, and paintings. â€Å"A painting that is a direct copy of someone else’s work without permission is also plagiarism when the work is presented as one’s own† (Ellis-Christensen, n.d.). There ar e a number of ethical issues related to plagiarism, which make it one of the most common issues all over the world. â€Å"Plagiarism violates the law as well as individual moral codes† (Jorgensen, n.d.). ... 5). My personal point of view regarding the issue of plagiarism is that it is an act of copying and cheating which is totally against the creativity ethics. Rozakis (2007) states, â€Å"Plagiarism is a serious lapse in ethics as well as a cause for failure† (p. 118). Here, I would like to relate a personal experience in which my professor caught me for the act of plagiarism. My professor gave me an assignment in which I had to write a one-page paper on some topic of my interest. I wrote the paper on discrimination and submitted it to the professor. Unfortunately, the professor gave me no marks for the paper as he caught some plagiarism in that paper. Actually, I copied a couple of paragraphs from a website and tried to write them in my own words. My professor discouraged my act and asked me that I should have mentioned the source even for paraphrasing. Although I lost my marks in that assignment but I got some new information about plagiarism that one should not closely paraph rase two large paragraphs without mentioning the source. Some people say that paraphrasing is one of the ways to avoid plagiarism. However, if someone does paraphrasing of a small paragraph or a quotation, which is very close to the original version, it is also a form of plagiarism. â€Å"Paraphrasing someone else’s work too closely is another form of plagiarism† (Ellis-Christensen, n.d.). Plagiarism is cheating which cannot be tolerated in any case. Submitting someone else’s work as one’s own, doing close paraphrasing, not documenting the references properly, or copying personal work are such actions which do not find any base in the ethics of creative works. Some people use copyrighted work available on the internet

Moore's Law Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Moore's Law - Research Paper Example This is basically the same definition as the initial one, but using the phrase ‘more transistors’ is being more specific in the definition (Sami 23-29). As a self-fulfilling foresight and a target for industry Even though this rule was primarily created in the form of prophesy and observation, it became popular more widely, as it served as more as an objective for the whole industry. This forced both the departments of engineering and marketing of the manufacturers of semiconductors to put their attention on massive energy that aim for the specific rise in the power of processing that it was considered one or even more of their rivals would soon achieve. In this regard, we find that it can be perceived as a self-fulfilling foresight. The second law of Moore As the costs of the power of computer drops on the side of the consumers, the costs on the side of the manufacturers in fulfilling the rule of Moore goes in an opposite trend; production and costs of tests have gone u p considerably with each new invention of chips. The increasing costs of manufacturing are a critical consideration for the sustenance of the Moore’s rule. This had resulted in the establishment of the second law or Moore, known as the Rock’s law (Myslewski 2013). The law states that the semiconductor’s cost also rises significantly with time. ... Main facilitating factors and the future trends Several innovations by numerous engineers together with scientists have been considerable factors in the law of Moore’s sustenance since the start of the period of integrated circuit. While assembling a comprehensive list of such imperative contributions would be as interesting and attractive as it would be tough. The roadmaps of the industry of computer technology projects that the rule will continue being there for many chip generations to come. After the time of doubling that is used in the calculations, we find that this could imply that there will be up to about hundredfold rise in the count of transistor per chip in a decade. Nonetheless, the technology roadman of the industry of semiconductor uses a time of doubling of about three years for the microprocessors, resulting to a tenfold rise during the following decade. For instance, Intel, in 2005, was reported as claiming that the silicon chips’ downsizing with prope r economics would continue being there in the following decade, and also in the year 2008 as projecting the pattern all through to the year 2029. The law’s ultimate limit Gordon Moore, In April 2005, asserted that the rule cannot continue existing forever. He argued that the exponentials’ nature is that they are pushed out and a disaster eventually occurs. Moreover, he claimed that the transistors would ultimately attain the heights of minimization at the levels of atoms. When we look at the size of the transistors, we find that they are reaching that of which is a serious blockade, even though it will be two or even three generation chips before it reaches that far (Crothers 2013). However, that is as far as it has been able to be seen. Moore further stated that there are still

Dynamics of machine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Dynamics of machine - Essay Example can easily be determined especially if the equations are of the mechanical system or machine units, which usually consists of larger components of machines such as motors, transmission mechanisms, and control devices or in most cases a working machine. The concept of dynamic of machine consists of a number of equations that are equal to the number of degree of mechanical system’s freedom. For the equation to work or to enhance the ease of the mechanism operation, all forces or masses in a plane mechanism with a single degree of freedom are to be reduced to a single link which is normally called reference point or reduction link (89). And the subjective link that is to be applied to the reduction link is known as reduced moment of inertia. When the moment of reduction is equal to the aggregate of all moments and the forces applied to the links of the mechanism, the subjective moment of inertia is considered to be the reduced moment of inertia. The chain of the equation of dynamic of machines includes the determination of the kinetic energy, and when the kinetic energy of the reduction link is equal to the sum of the kinetic energy of all of the mechanism, the reduced force can be analogously (100). Through rational selection and placement of counterweights, that reduces the dynamic pressure in kinematic pair of mechanisms the concept of machines and mechanism can be easily balanced. Practically the machines are always balanced by reducing the vibrations and balancing the rotation of masses, while in modern high speed machines the inertia forces attain high values (100). The relation of the dynamic studies in machines is highly linked to the calculation of the strength and stiffness of the machine components that highly relates to the dimension and the designs of the parts. The studies are also performed through three dimensions mechanisms and with many degrees of freedom. Therefore it is important to notice that the operations performed by systems of high

Analysis of the Consumer Behaviour of University Students towards Dissertation

Analysis of the Consumer Behaviour of University Students towards Online Shopping - Dissertation Example Only hedonic orientation and convenience were agreed upon by the sample of university students. Thus, these are the drivers of their continued patronage of online shopping. Generally, consumers are attracted by the convenience of online shopping since customers could purchase items without leaving their place. Moreover, canvassing online could be done more efficiently, which enables consumers to make better decisions by purchasing items at the lowest price available. However, security concerns have affected the intentions of consumers to conduct online transactions. Certain consumers would prefer to gather information about a product rather than purchasing it online. Recommendations were then presented based on the gathered outcomes. Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1. Background of the Study Electronic commerce is widely considered to be one of the most fundamental components of Internet usage. Online shopping has also been noted as third of the most popular activities conducted through the Internet, after web browsing and messaging. Online shopping has gained much considerable attention compared to common Internet activities, such as obtaining news or entertainment information (Foucault, and Scheufele 2002). In 2001, almost 50% of Internet users made their purchases through online shopping with which more than half of these reported that they typically purchase 1 to 10 online goods annually. Establishing efficient interactions between consumers and websites has become an important concern for companies who utilize electronic commerce as a means of increasing the reliability of their online transactions. Understanding the needs of consumers along with the factors that can influence their intentions, attitudes, and behaviours with regards to online shopping is of great importance to establish efficient transactions. It is most likely that consumers will interact with and make use of websites in various ways, thereby having various perceptions. For instance, Cheung and Lee (2003) pointed out that the unique characteristics of an individual can influence behaviour towards online shopping. Wu (2005) also asserted that the goals of consumers are strongly associated with their intentions of purchasing and revisiting of the website. Because consumer characteristics are essential and are used to describe the consumer, such as demographic characteristics (e.g. culture, gender, age), these will highly influence their behaviour and attitudes towards exchanging business through the Internet (Wolfinbarger and Gilly 2001). Specifically, Mohd Suki et al. (2006) reported that Internet shoppers in developing countries are often young, have received a high level of education, and are wealthy. In addition, distinct personalities among consumers strongly affect their perceptions of their own online shopping behaviours, particularly the utilitarian and hedonic orientations. Previous studies, such as that of Muylle, Moenaert, and Despontin (2004), have pointed out th e advantages of online stores that are characterized by the thoughts and beliefs of consumers with regards to the possible offers of an online store, such as increased convenience and reliability. These perceived benefits have been shown to persuade individuals in making their purchases online, hence the need to understand as well the ways with which consumers

Why are you interested in pursuing this graduate program at the McColl Personal Statement

Why are you interested in pursuing this graduate program at the McColl School of Business - Personal Statement Example The degree would equip me the necessary skills to meet my professional goals. As such, the degree from this university becomes highly relevant in providing necessary skills and academic knowledge to become a successful professional in the field business management. Though I have no formal work experience but my four months’ training in a bank has made me realize the importance of acquiring professional qualifications in the business management. It will prepare me to face the challenges ahead of me in terms of new experiences and teach me to think strategically. I believe that it would help develop wider perspectives on relevant issues so that I could critically evaluate situations and resolve issues amicably. It would be especially relevant in the multicultural society where diverse ideologies could foster conflicts. Most importantly, the integrated business program would help me to work with confidence in global business with a global network of contacts and teach me how to collaborate as a team to meet the organizational objectives. The various modules of the course curricula are essential ingredients that provide students with a strong learning experience. I believe that the degree would hugely facilitate in meeting new challenges an d therefore significantly increase my job prospects. I have always been a highly self-driven person. I am also ambitious and would like to reach the highest level of professional excellence, both in terms of gaining knowledge and experience. The contemporary times necessitate versatility in the work ideology and functioning, thus making it vital that new skills and strategies are evolved to meet the emergent challenges with high efficiency and expertise. The new drifts in the professional areas have considerably impacted the socio-economic dynamics of the business. It has made work paradigms more competitive and at the same time more complex with the challenges of the diverse demands that have developed as a

Reaction Paper Related on Business Communication Essay Example for Free

Reaction Paper Related on Business Communication Essay Further, to fully use new pedagogical possibilities offered by ICT, profound changes in managers conceptions of learning and knowledge are required. Technical expertise alone is not sufficient for exploiting new pedagogical possibilities provided by ICT; insofar as ICT is used in the educational system as a purely technical innovation, it is not likely that significant pedagogical progress will be achieved. Several cognitive researchers (e. g. , Salomon, 1997; Salomon ; Perkins, 1996; Scardamalia ; Bereiter, 1994) have pointed out that many applications of educational technology support only lower-level processing of knowledge. Yet new pedagogical models of using educational technology, and particularly computer-supported collaborative learning environments, promise to provide new opportunities for solving pedagogical problems in the schools. Scardamalia and Bereiter (1994; in press), and others, have proposed that to meet the future challenges, schools be transformed into communities where productive working for advancing communal knowledge is a primary goal of both students and managers. Knowledge building refers to a process of advancing understanding by setting up, articulating, and answering research questions, searching and exploring information, and generating and evaluating explanations. In the present study, the sustained processes of advancing and building of knowledge characteristic of scientific inquiry and knowledge-creating organizations are called progressive inquiry. Several, concurrent, cognitive research projects share a common goal of fostering such research-like processes of inquiry in education.

Appropriate Responses to Prisoner Hunger Strike

Appropriate Responses to Prisoner Hunger Strike Imprisonment and Human Rights Discuss the appropriate response to a prisoner who goes on hunger strike. Is it ever justified to force feed a prisoner who refuses to eat? Hunger strike is a dilemma for prison authorities. It is like two sides of a coin, they have to make a choice, to save the life of the prisoners or to let them die. Prisoners hunger strike has been conducted for years in many parts of the world aimed to reach certain goals, solidarity, political struggle and to express opinions. States have the responsibilities to maintain prison security while at the same time preserving the health and well-being of prisoners on hunger strike. The relevant legal framework on state responsibility in the issue of hunger strike and force feeding is the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 2 on the Right to Life and Article 3 prohibition of torture, and for the United Kingdom Human Rights Act 1998 under the same articles. Other related provision would be Article 8 on the right to private life (ECHR). The duty of the prison authorities to preserve prisoners health and life, including conducting force administering food best described in  Leigh v Gladstone  (1909). During that period of time the Home Secretary had the obligation and the power to prevent prison suicide including force-feeding prisoners who went on hunger strike. Suicide, abetting and aiding of suicide was considered a criminal act. Lord Alverstone CJ states that it was the duty of prison officials to preserve the health of prisoners in their custody and that duty extended to force feeding In this case Article 2 prevails under the condition that suicide is an act of crime. In the case of R. , S. , A. and C v. Portugal, the European Commission on Human Rights found that it was certainly disturbing that such along time could have elapsed without the applicants being put under medical supervision There is a fine line to distinguish hunger strike from suicide, and it is not an easy task. Most philosophers argue that suicide can be accomplished by passive means, such as refusal to eat As hunger strike could lead to the possibility of death, it is still a question whether it is an act of suicide or merely an exercise of right of self determination. John Williamss hunger strike categorizations may give a clear description on the motive and the type of hunger striker. However, he also realizes that placing a prisoner within one of the categories is difficult particularly in analysing the situation when death is a possibility, although not an objective and death is the desired objective. Thus Annas observes that the courts have concluded that a refusal of treatment that inevitably leads to death is not a suicide. The most important example is the 1981 Irish hunger strike where it was carried out to achieve certain objectives and realizing that the result could lead to death. It was clear that the objective of the Irish hunger strikers was to get the political status which they desire, and the primary motive is not suicide. Dolores Dooley-Clarke pointed out an interesting question, if death resulted from prisoner political protest, could it be a suicide or murder? She elaborates that none of the above fits hunger strike categorisation. In the case of Irish hunger strike and other similar prisoner political protest, Dolores Dooley-Clarke suggests that the capacity to plan a hunger strike and state ones intention (†¦) is not characteristics of all suicide attempts-some suicides depend on impulse or diminished awareness of the full implications of the act. Thus, many psychiatrists support the statement that suicide does not fits to the categorisation of hunger strike. Robert Daly, professor of psychiatry at University College, Cork, believes that nothing is achieved or clarified by simply equating hunger strikers with attempted suicides related to schizophrenia or chronic drug addiction. In line with the above statement, British Medical Association states that a hunger strike lead to death cannot be regarded as suicide. Thus, it is tricky to implement the correct treatment to the prisoner who goes on hunger strike where motive could be deceitful. As Annas elaborates, motivation is the most crucial distinction between patients who refuse treatment and prisoners who refuse to eat. Because the latter generally seek either to manipulate the prison system for their own benefit or to commit suicide. If the motive is solely to die due to there is no other alternative method of suicide other than starving himself to death, than the suicidal motive is clear. If that is the case, the prison authorities have the power to intervene and save ones life. This responsibility to prevent prisoner suicides was considered by the House of Lords, in the words of Lord Hope: The duty of those who are entrusted with his custody is to take reasonable care for his safety while he remains in their hands. If it is known that he may engage in self mutilation or suicide while he is in their custody, their duty is to take reasonable care to prevent him from engaging in these acts so that he remains free from harm until he is set at liberty. This duty is owed to the prisoner if there is at risk, irrespective of whether he is mentally disordered or of sound mind. It arises simply from the act that he is being detained by them in custody and is known to be at risk of engaging in self-mutilation or of committing suicide. However, it became a complicated issue since most of hunger strikers have a specific objective, to protest or to change policy and demand their request to be heard or fulfilled by the competent authorities. Prison authorities rely on doctor or medical officer to decide whether the prisoners should be fed artificially, on the other hand, doctors have certain medical ethics not to force-feed them and must respect prisoners autonomy and right to accept or refuse medical care. World Medical Association Malta Declaration declared that force-feeding is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment. Article 5 of the 1975 World Medical Association Tokyo Declaration states that doctors must not undertake force-feeding under any circumstances: Where a prisoner refuses nourishment and is considered by the physician as capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such a voluntary refusal of nourishment, he or she shall not be fed artificially. The decision as to the capacity of the prisoner to form such a judgment should be confirmed by at least one other independent physician. The consequences of the refusal of nourishment shall be explained by the physician to the prisoner. Prisoners right to be informed on the risk that may cause from such treatment is protected by Article 8 ECHR. Force-feeding likely to be seen as inhuman degrading and amount to torture due to the painful method carried out in its procedures. During the Greek civil war force-feeding caused horror and led the prisoners to stop the hunger strike, not only it is terrifying but it could also result to death. In recent case, the horrific image of force-feeding again could be seen on the hunger striker prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. As Lawrence Altman stated, force-feeding is likely to involve dragging the prisoners to the site of feeding, and using physical restraints to present the removal of the feeding tube. Placing the tube may also be tricky and could result in fatal complications should it enter the trachea Taking into account the high stakes place into the shoulder of the medical officer, their ethical integrity must also be protected. The relation between prisoner hunger striker patient and the medical authorities thus become complicated. State has the obligations to preserve ones life and to prevent suicide, and at the same time to respect absolute right of freedom from torture. In the case of  Nevmerzhitsky v Ukraine, it was held that there had been a violation to Article 3 of ECHR, the force feeding of the applicant, without any medical justification (†¦. ), constituted treatment of such a severe character warranting the characterizations of torture. The medical necessity of force-feeding emphasized in this case. Looking into the judgement, it seems that force-feeding indeed can be justified in certain way. The term medical necessity amounted to a way for the prison authorities to place the burden on the medical officers to make the decision. This could be portrayed in the response of Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins (1975) in the case of force-feeding against Ian Brady: The responsible medical officer has decided, on the basis of his professional judgment that Ian Brady should be fed artificially. (†¦) I could not interpose myself between the clinical judgment of a doctor and his patient. The court found that there has been no violation to Article 3 of ECHR in the case of  A v Germany. In  A v Germany, the commission underlined that force-feeding is even obligatory if an obvious danger for the individuals life exist. Given the obligations of states parties to secure the right to life under Article 2 of ECHR, the commission justified the act of force-feeding. Personal mentality of the hunger striker thus become a focal point for doctors and physician to determine whether the person has the mental capability to make his own judgment and decision to hopefully end his actions in a reasonable time. In  Herczegfalvy v Austria, force feeding of a prisoner was justified on the basis of therapeutic and medical necessity. Mr Herczegfalvy was diagnosed suffering from paranoia  querulans, in the view of medical judgement he was incapable to make the decision for himself. Regardless his refusal to consent any medical treatment and examination that would be conducted upon him, the court on the above circumstances found no violations to Article 3 of ECHR against force administering food. Article 3 on prohibition on torture and Article 2 on the right to life (ECHR) conflicted with one another in this matter. In the case of hunger strike, medical treatment plays a key role, it has dilemmas when the treatment contrary to the patients wish, no consent given from the patient, and how far is such treatment could be amounted to violate one person dignity thus subject to inhuman, degrading treatment, and torture. Doctors have freedom to engage clinical judgment to its patients, however as Dolores pointed out, it becomes a dilemma as the freedom of clinical judgment is a two-edged sword: the ethical beliefs of the doctor may conflict with a prisoners patient expressed wishes not to be treated. Prison authorities and medical officers must in any way approach the hunger striker and inform them on the risk for pursuing hunger strike or the risk on force-feeding, here the right to respect the private life (Article 8) should be clearly engaged in situations concerning disclosure of information that will enable individuals to make decisions that may have an impact on their health. In 1981 Irish hunger strike, the British Government decided not to force-feed the hunger striker. Margaret Thatcher refused to give any concessions and stated We are not prepared to consider special category status for certain groups of people serving sentences for crime. Crime is crime is crime, it is not political. 10 hunger strikers died to defend their five demands. In  Robb v Secretary of State for the Home Department, the wish of the hunger striker, who had a sound of mind and the capacity to understand the risk and the consequences of his decisions, to refuse the medical treatment should be respected. J Thorpe stated: The first principle is that every persons body is inviolate and proof against any form of physical molestation. (†¦) Secondly, the principle of self-determination requires that respect must be given to the wishes of the patient. So that if an adult of sound mind refuses, however unreasonably, to consent to treatment or care by which his life would or might be prolonged the doctors responsible for his care must give effect to his wishes even though they do not consider it to be in his interest to do so. In contras to  Leigh v Gladstone  (1909) case, in  Robb  case the secretary of state was granted the declarations that medical and prison staff could lawfully abstain from their responsibility from taking force artificial food or prolonging the life of the patient in the basis of the patients refusal to the medical treatment. Here, Andrew Grubb suggested that in view of the above resulted to the decision in  Robb  case that theres no obligation for the prison authorities to intervene. State has the interest in preventing suicide and preservation of life. In  Airedale NHS Trust v Bland  refusal of a medical treatment is not a suicide or aiding a suicide. Sir Thomas Bingham M.R pointed out when the patient was adult and of sound mind, a doctor discontinues artificial feeding after three years and the patient dies. Has the doctor aided and abetted suicide? I think the answer plainly is that he has not. In  Re:W, the prisoner patient concern with a sound mind has the mental capacity to make decisions on his behalf and therefore his refusal to medical treatment will be respected even if it would lead to his death. As elaborated in the above cases, it was found that the right of an individual to refuse treatment strongly outweighs the interest in the preservation of life. Similar to the above cases, in the United States, Supreme Court of California in the case of  Thor v Superior Court  held that a competent patient (prisoner) has the right to accept or to refuse medical treatment even at the risk of death. Here, the right to exercise self-determination prevails in a condition of a competent patient. In R. v.Collins and Ashworth Hospital Authority ex p. Brady, Brady argues that the force-feeding was unlawful taking into account that he is mentally competent. As mentioned on the above case laws, a competent prisoner cannot lawfully be force-fed. However, in Bradys case, the hospital experts observation on his mental incapacity justified the lawfulness of the force-feeding conducted upon him. Personal motivation, mental capacity, and the consent of the prisoner hunger strikers is the main points that would be taking into account for the prison authorities and the medical staff to make their decision. Force-feeding of the prisoner who goes on hunger strike should be carried out in accordance to the points above. Motivation and sound of mind of the hunger striker determine the objective of such actions to differentiate it from suicide. As in  Robb  case, the prison authorities and medical staff are avoid from unlawful act for being abstain of conducting a medical treatment in the basis of refusal of prisoner with a sound mind. While in  Bradys case, force-feeding was conducted in concern of the prisoners motivation to commit suicide by starving himself to death. In regards to the patients with a sound of mind, the right of self determination prevails, and therefore to administer food in force is not justified. However, in certain cases such as Bradys, force-feeding is justified in the basis of preserving ones life. In view of prohibition of torture, it is clear that force-feeding is so horrific thus lead to inhuman and degrading treatment, therefore prison authorities and medical officers should inform the hunger striker patients on the risk of such action. Article 2 on the right to life would only prevails Article 3 on prohibition of torture if theres a definite reason on the basis of medical necessity and the inability of the patients to make a decision for them. In regards of cases where death is the primary objective, such as  Bradys, preserving ones life comes first before self determination. The prisoners right to refuse any medical treatment or force-feeding should be respected, nevertheless it should be noted that medical necessity and mental incapacity would play a key role on making the decision to outweigh that right. Bibliography Gudmundur Alfredson and Katarina TomaÃ… ¡evski (eds),  A Thematic Guide To Documents on Health and Human Rights  (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers) (1998) Human Rights Watch, Prison Conditions in the Soviet Union: A Report of Facilities in Russia and Azerbaidzhan (New York: Human Rights Watch) (1991) Kieran McEvoy, Paramilitary Imprisonment in Northern Ireland: Resistance, Management, and Release (New York: Oxford University Press) (2004) Human Rights Watch, Africa Watch Prison Project,  Prison Conditions in South Africa  (New York: Human Rights Watch) (1994) Fran Lisa Buntman,  Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) (2003) John Wadham, Helen Mountfield, and Anna Edmundson,  Blackstones Guide to The Human Rights Act 1998  (Oxford: Oxford University Press) (2003), p. 49. Barbara Harvey and John Marston,  Cases and Commentary on Tort (4th  Edition)  (Essex: Pearson Education Limited) (2000) European Convention on Human Rights and its Five Protocols, available at http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html#C.Art8 As cited in  R v Secretary of State for the Home Department v Robb  [1995] 1 All ER 677, available at http://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/legal/results/pubTreeViewDoc.do?nodeId=TAANAAEACEpubTreeWidth=23% Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in cooperation with the International Bar Association,  Professional Training Series No, 9 Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers(New York: United Nations Publications) (2003), p. 345 Norman L. Cantor George C. Thomas,  The Legal Bounds of Physician Conduct Hastening Death in the USA, in Yoram Distein (eds), Israel Yearbook on Human Rights (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers) (2000) John Williams, Hunger-Strikes: A Prisoners Right or a Wicked Folly,  The Howard Journal  vol. 40 no. 3 (2001) George J. Annas, Law and the Life Sciences: Prison Hunger Strikes: Why the Motive Matters,  The Hastings Center Report  vol.12 no. 6 (1982), p.21-22. Dolores Dooley-Clarke, Medical Ethics and Political Protest,  The Hastings Centre Report  vol. 11 no.6 (1981) British Medical Association, Medicine Betrayed: The Participation of Doctors in Human Rights Abuses (London: Zed Books) (1998) George J. Annas, Loc. cit British Medical Association, Loc. cit World Medical Association Declaration on Hunger Strikes (1991) (1992) (2006), Article 21, available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/h31.htm The World Medical Association Declaration of Tokyo, Guidelines for Physicians Concerning Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Relation to Detention and Imprisonment (1975), Article 5, available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/c18.htm Polymeris Voglis,  Becoming a Subject: Political Prisoners during the Greek Civil War  (New York: Berghahn Books) (2002), p. 193. David Rose,  Scandal of force-fed prisoners,  The Observer, January 8, 2006, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jan/08/usa.guantanamo Lawrence Altman as cited by George J. Annas, Law and the Life Sciences: Prison Hunger Strikes: Why the Motive Matters,  The Hastings Center Report  vol.12 no. 6 (1982), p.22 Nevmerzhitsky v Ukraine  , available at >http://www.westlaw.co.uk Jenkins, as cited by John Williams, op. cit, p.285  A v Germany,  available at http://www.westlaw.co.uk Ibid. Herczegfalvy v Austria,  available at http://www.westlaw.co.uk Dolores Dooley Clarke, op. cit, p.7 Jane Wright,  Tort Law and Human Rights  (Oregon: Hart Publishing) (2001), p. 66 http://www.inac.org R v Secretary of State for the Home Department v Robb  , op. cit Ibid. see http://medlaw.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/3/2/189.pdf As cited in Rosamund Scott,  Rights, Duties and the Body: Law and Ethics of the Maternal-Fetal Conflict  (Portland Oregon: Hart Publishing) (2002), p. 136

Strategic Planning In The Hospitality Industry Tourism Essay

Strategic Planning In The Hospitality Industry Tourism Essay The rapid development in the hospitality industry which has lead to importance of strategic planning required in order the firms can have a steady rise in the industry. The life standards of people have been improved due to globalisation which in deed contribute to the development of the hospitality industry. The diversification was a most important priority of the firms in order to utilise the high profiled customer base which they possessed .It is easy to target the customers who are in your door step and this lead to various formulation of strategic plans to target them. Key words: hospitality, strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization frame work of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats ) and PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis) or STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors) and EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatics, Social, Technological, Economic and Legal). Strategic planning is the official consideration of an organizations future course. All strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions: What do we do? For whom do we do it? How do we excel? The  hospitality industry  consists of broad category of fields within the service industry that includes  lodging,  restaurants,  event planning,  theme parks,  transportation,  cruise line, and additional fields within the tourism industry. The hospitality industry is a several billion dollar industry that mostly depends on the availability of leisure time and disposable income. A hospitality unit such as a restaurant, hotel, or even an amusement park consists of multiple groups such as facility maintenance, direct operations (servers,  housekeepers, porters, kitchen workers,  bartenders, etc.), management, marketing, and human resources. The hospitality industry includes a wide range of organizations offering food service and accommodation. The hospitality industry is divided into sectors according to the skill-sets required for the work involved. Sectors include accommodation, food and beverage, meeting and events, gaming, entertainment and recreation, tourism services, and visitor information. (wikepedia n.d.) Strategic planning for the hospitality industry (1) The increasing popularity of strategic planning in recent times is attributed to accelerating changes in industries and economies and increasing global competition. (2) The rapid development of strategic-planning that executives find useful. Firms that engage in strategic planning tend to have higher performance. (3) A recent study of hotels in the United Kingdom found that business performance was positively associated with the thoroughness, sophistication, participation, and formality of strategic-planning processes. (4) Strategic analysis the systematic investigation of a firm and its environment is the foundation of the strategic management process. STRATEGIC PLANNING IN JACK IN THE BOX Jack in the Box recently announced plans to open 100 to 150 restaurants combined with convenience stores over the next five years. The stores will feature full-size restaurants and also sell gasoline and other typical convenience store items such as bread and milk. How did Jack in the Box arrive at this decision? According to the companys CEO, Bob Nugent, an analysis of the convenience-store market indicated that there was plenty of opportunity, primarily because no individual company dominates. The largest player in the convenience-store industry which dominated the market, 7-Eleven, Inc., controls slightly over 4 percent of the market. Compare this to fast foods, where McDonalds controls 43 percent of the market and Jack in the Box a mere 4.6 percent. Nugent also justifies his decision on the basis of research which indicates that a convenience-store customer is twice as likely to eat fast food as a non-convenience-store customer. (5) Strategic analysis can provide excellent information on which to base long-range decisions such as this one. Knowledge is one of the most important competitive weapons a firm can possess. (6) As the Jack in the Box example illustrates, detailed knowledge about a firm and its environment can be used to generate new ideas for business  and to evaluate the feasibility of ideas before they are actually implemented. Strategic analysis also allows a firms managers to become more aware of the companys strengths and weaknesses and to understand the reasons behind successes and failures. Knowledge about the competitive environment can help to anticipate and plan for changes and predict how competitors or other stakeholders such as customers or suppliers will respond to new strategies or other organizational activities. Strategic analysis can open up channels of communication between high-level managers and subordinates, allowing them to share ideas and perspectives. The participative process will help subordinates to accept changes more readily after decisions are made. (Harrison April, 2003) STRATEGIC PLANS AT FelCor LODGING TRUST For FelCor Lodging Trust, one of the largest hotel real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the United States, a strategic planning exercise led the company to rethink its strategy. Calling itself the New FelCor, the firm has made dramatic steps toward repositioning itself. The firm business strategy is to dispose of nonstrategic hotels, including all of its Holiday Inn Hotels located in secondary and tertiary markets. After the sale, it will have lower exposure to markets with low barriers to entry. Other elements of the new business strategy are (1) To acquire hotels in high barrier to entry markets (2) To improve the competitive positioning of core hotels through aggressive asset management and the judicious application of capital in the industry (3) To pay down debt through a combination of operational cash flow and the sale of nonstrategic hotels. The company will become a lower leveraged company with a stronger and fully renovated portfolio of hotels. STRATEGIC THINKING AT STARWOOD When Starwood thought of expanding their business to a field which is relevant and easy to attract customers .They in hotel industry and had a close association with the luxury segment customers so they thought Expansion through Diversification strategy in order use their same luxury customer base to sell their newly introduced Heavenly Bed . Westin Hotels Resorts, with 169 hotels and resorts in more than 31 countries and territories, is owned by Starwood Hotels Resorts Worldwide, Inc The Heavenly Bed, first launched by the Westin brand of Starwood Hotels Resorts, has transformed the bed, a basic feature of any hotel room, into a luxurious object of desire, enhancing the revenues of the chain and leaving many hotel operators to follow suit with copycat linens and custom bedding of their own. The strategic process at Starwood began with consumer analysis and product testing. First, Westin conducted a study involving 600 business executives who travel frequently. The results showed that 84 percent said a luxurious bed would make a hotel room more attractive to them to enjoy the comfort. What is more, 63 percent said a good night sleep is the most important service a hotel can provide. Half of those surveyed said they sleep worse in hotels than at home. After testing 50 beds from 35 lodging chains, Westin developed its prototype all white Heavenly Bed with a custom designed pillow top mattress, goose down comforters, five pillows, and three crisp sheets ranging in thread count from 180 to 250. Once the product was designed and tested, the firm introduced the bed with a carefully planned marketing strategy are USA Today ran a story on the front page of its business section. The same day, 20 pristine white Heavenly Beds lined Wall Street up to the New York Stock Exchange in New York City. Inside the Stock Exchange, Barry Sternlicht, the then Chairman and CEO of Starwood Hotels Resorts rang the opening bell and threw out hats proclaiming, Work like the devil Sleep like an angel. Meanwhile, at New York Grand Central Station, 20 more beds graced one of the rotundas there, and commuters disembarking the trains were invited to try them out. Similar events were staged the same day at 38 locations across the United States, tailored to each city. Savannahs event featured a bed floating on a barge down the river with a landing skydiver. Seattle s event took place atop the Space Needle. To reinforce the message, a concurrent advertising campaign asked, Whos the best in bed? AN EMERGING RETAIL STRATEGY FOR THE HEAVENLY BED In the early stages of introducing the heavenly bed .In the first week of launching the Westin Heavenly Bed, 32 guests were interested to buy the bed. A light bulb went on. Westin executives put order cards with a toll free number in every room. They started placing catalogs by bedsides and desks and set up a web site. By June of 2004, Westin had sold 20,000 pillows $ 75 for the king sized version and 3,500 bed/bedding combos, at $ 2,965 each, enough to spread the idea throughout Starwood, with the Sheraton, St. Regis, and W lines all turning into retailers. The unanticipated success of the Heavenly Bed has spawned a new business companies that help hotels run their retail arms. Boxport, a spin off of San Francisco based hotel procurer Higgins Purchasing Group, operates web sites and catalogs for several chains that now sell bedding. In order to determine where it is going, the organization needs to know exactly where it stands, then determine where it wants to go and how it will get there. The resulting document is called the strategic plan. It is also true that strategic planning may be a tool for effectively plotting the direction of a company; however, strategic planning itself cannot foretell exactly how the market will evolve and what issues will surface in the coming days in order to plan your organizational strategy. Therefore, strategic innovation and tinkering with the strategic plan have to be a cornerstone strategy for an organization to survive the turbulent business climate.

Life, Love and Death: The work of Adam Fuss Essay -- essays research p

Life, Love and Death: The work of Adam Fuss Peanut butter and jelly, a common combination of two separate entities, most people have heard of this duo, many enjoy it, but only one manufacturer packaged them together in a handy snack. Much like the tasty treat that is Goobers is the tasty duo of Adam Fuss and Roland Barthes. Two separate men, Adam Fuss and Roland Barthes put together in one reading, complementing and accentuating each other. Fuss and Barthes, they share an interest in photography, they share an interest in the foundation and principles of photography, more over they share an interest in photography that is deeply personal. Fuss takes the camera out of photography. Barthes takes photography out of art. Both men want to get to the essence of what a photograph is, one by thinking and writing about it and one by doing it. In this paper I will show how Adam Fuss’ work matches up with and demonstrates the ideas of Barthes’ in Camera Lucida. I will look at one body of work at a time and show which parts of Barthes’ ideas are present in the work, in its creation and its theory. I will start with his first professional body of work, move through to his most recent work and then look back to some of his childhood pictures. Whether Barthes' ideas actually influenced Fuss’ work I am not sure of, I have not found any text or interview that leads me to believe that it is, however I would not be surprised if it has. Camera Lucida was Roland Barthes’ last written piece, published posthumously in 1980. This book deals with the topic of photography and the death of Barthes’ mother in 1977. The role of photography is questioned; he asks what about photography makes it a valid media? We read about the operator (the photographer), spectrum (the subject) and spectator (the viewer), also about the studium (what we see in the photograph) and the punctum (the unclassifiable, the thing that makes the photograph important to the viewer). According to Barthes the photograph is an adventure for the viewer, but it is ultimately death, the recording of something that will be dead after the picture is taken. This idea is the main focus of Barthes’ writing, the photograph â€Å"that-has-been†, in Latin â€Å"interfuit: what I see has been here, in this place which extends between infinity and the subject; it has been here, and yet immediately separated; it has been absolutely, irref.. . ...warns us about, by using it to document ideas and cause and effect. Barthes also warns us about color, but Fuss uses color judiciously and naturally in his work. Whether Barthes' ideas actually influenced Fuss’ work I am not sure of, however the similarities and differences between both men’s work suggest that Fuss has indeed been either directly or indirectly influenced by Roland Barthes’ Camera Obscura. Bibliography Allen, G. (2003). Roland Barthes. London: Routledge. Barthes, R. (1981). Camera lucida: Reflections on photograph (R. Howard, Trans.). New York: Hill and Wang. (Original work published 1980) Bleckner, R. (1992). Adam Fuss. In Betsy Sussler (Ed.), Bomb speak art!: The best of Bomb magazine’s interviews with artists (pp. 98-106). Australia: G+B Arts International. Crump, J. (1997). Visceral photography: The work of Adam Fuss. Afterimage, 25(1). Retrieved on 10/11/2004 from EBSCOhost database. Fuss, A. (1997). Adam Fuss: Essay by Eugenia Parry. Santa Fe, NM: Arena Editions. Kellein, T. (2003). Adam Fuss. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. Sand, M. (1993). Adam Fuss. In Aperture: On location (pp. 44-53). New York: Aperture Foundation, Inc.

The Spanish Revolution :: essays research papers

Ever since the fall of 1930 when the Spanish Revolution began there has been no surcease of the struggle in Spain. For a long time there was a deadlock of forces, an equilibrium in the tug of war between the property holders and the destitute. Now the equilibrium is being definitely broken. The issue before Spain is either Communism or Fascism. The matter is being fought out not with ballots but with bullets and ruthless civil war. Slowly the political revolution is being definitively turned into a social revolution. From the very beginning, the mass of workers of Spain, both in the city and in the country were the decisive elements. When the students rioted before the universities in 1930 it was only when the workers joined them with a vast general strike that the regime of the military dictator, Primo de Rivera, fell and the temporary regime of General Berenguer set up. When General Berenguer tried to hold fake elections without extending the franchise to all, it was another general strike that overthrew the regime, compelled new elections, forced the king to flee and established the republic in April 1931. At this point the Syndicalist and Anarchist workers began to miscalculate their forces. Syndicalism and Anarchism, in spite of their revolutionary phraseology were able only to overthrow the old regime and to allow the new democratic republic to be set up; but these movements could not go forward to the positive constructive tasks of setting up the rule of the workers. These antiquated movements were good enough to accomplish the negative and critical tasks of overthrowing an antiquated monarchy; they did not know how to deal with a modern bourgeois republic. In the course of the revolutionary movement there was set up what in fact amounts to a dual power, the masses respecting the authority of the unions and the revolutionary organizations, the government being forced at times to yield to the opinions of these mass organizations on vital questions. At one time the bourgeois government was even forced to declare that Spain was a workers republic and to feign friendliness toward the Soviet Union. The leaders of the toilers' organizations, however, did not know what to do with their power. The lending groups were composed of four principal elements: the Anarchists, the Syndicalists, the Socialists and the Communists. The Anarchists were powerful enough within the trade union movement to exercise decisive influence for a time upon the whole situation.

Lagos, Nigeria :: essays research papers

Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria. In 1989 the population was 1,274,000. It is still growing immensely as we speak. It is the former capital of Nigeria. It is located on the Gulf of Guinea. It occupies four islands(Lagos, Ikoyi, Victoria, and Ido). Lagos is Nigeria's largest city. It is the administrative and economic center of Lagos and also its main port. Main Industries include railroad repair, motor vehicle assembly, food processing, and the manufacture of metal products, textiles, beverages, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, soap, and furniture. The city is a road and railroad center and has an international airport. In Lagos, education is usually private. There are both Boarding Schools and Home schooling and both cost a lot of money. Public Schools are not that common in Lagos like they are here. The main source of transportation in Lagos is Buses and â€Å"tracks." Tracks are a simple version of street cars. In Lagos, power failures, water-supply interruptions and traffic jams is very common due to the huge population. Pollution is a very serious problem because of the surrounding lagoons have been used as dumps for the past few years and the increase in factories and cars. There are many national institutions located in Lagos, among them are the National Museum, the National Library, the University of Nigeria, and the University of Lagos. Brief History The Portuguese, was the first to visit Lagos in 1472. It was later established as a slave-trading center. The area was under the rule of the Kingdom of Benin from the late-16th to the mid-19th century then in 1861. It was later taken over by the British.

Ideal Student

With scholarship, one may subdue savants in court; Brave in spirit, one may fight courageous battles; Born a king, one might rule over an Empire; One may even land on the moon; But of what use are all these achievements, If one is not able to control the mind and the senses, And uphold eternal human values? My Teachers, Fellow Students, Boys and Girls! The world badly needs today ideal students with exemplary character instead of wealth and prosperity. The progress of the nation depends on such students alone. It is such sacred practices alone that have protected ideal students through the ages.My Teachers, Fellow Students, Boys and Girls! Unfortunately, Islamic values declined in the course of time among us. Today’s student has completely forgotten all about our Islamic culture and human values. We need to find them in our self and must spread in our society. We always speak truth and follow the path of honesty and justice. This is the most important factor to become an ideal student. Fellow Students, Boys and Girls! True Knowledge is another barometer against which we can measure in an Ideal Student.Knowledgeable students always respect by the society and admire by the world. His knowledge always makes pride to his parents, family and school. Fellow Students, Boys and Girls! We are the future citizens of this country. We all could become ideal students for the glory of our nation. It can be revived only if we become the torchbearers because falsehood, injustice, bad conduct, and evil are widespread in our country. We need to fight against them getting excellent knowledge and taking an active role to spread joy and happiness among our society. Thank You and God bless you all†¦!

Relationship to Background Research Essay

Researchers Dunbar and Waynforth (1995) carried out research into human differences in mate selection by focusing on 900 different lonely-hearts ads taken from four different American newspapers. The investigation aimed to see what characteristics males and females looked for in potential mates by analysing each ad and recording how each person described themselves and what characteristics they looked for in a partner. It was found that women were more likely to advertise themselves as physically attractive, whereas males tended to highlight their economic status, displaying their potential ability to provide. Darwin’s theory supports this, as stereotypically good looking women will be good child bearers and provide ample food and care for children, and therefore will be more likely to produce healthy children with good genes for the next generation. Similarly, by highlighting their economic status men label themselves as good providers for children and will be able to care and help throughout the child’s life, meaning chance of survival is higher. Furthermore, stereotypically good-looking men (big, muscley etc) will have a higher chance of survival and therefore pass on these good genes to their offspring. I am going to investigate Darwin’s sexual strategy theory similarly to Dunbar’s methods, by looking into the way in which people advertise themselves in personal advertisements and seeing if they relate with Darwin’s, Andersson and Cunningham’s ideas about physical appearance and also pervious research done by Dunbar. I would be interested in finding out if Dunbar’s results done in America are similar to results that I will find in Macclesfield (England). I would further be interested in seeing if results have changed over time as men and women’s perceptions of each other may have differed in the last few years. His research led to my directional hypothesis which is â€Å"Men will describe their resources more than youth and looks in personal advertisements, women will describe their looks and youth more than resources. â€Å"The aim of the experiment is to find out what characteristics men and women offer when advertising himself or herself as a potential mate and to investigate if there are gender differences between the way men and women make themselves attractive to the opposite sex through lonely hearts advertisements. inspiration My directional hypothesis therefore, as influenced by Dunbar, is that heterosexual men will be more likely to offer resources such as wealth and financial stability. Heterosexual women, however, are more likely to offer youth and physical attractiveness. The null hypothesis would be as follows: there will be no significant difference between how men and women advertise themselves to the opposite sex.

Susan Glaspell’s Trifles

Susan Glaspell’s 1916 play titled â€Å"Trifles† uses many elements of drama such as, diction and spectacle through the actions of the two women as they rummage through a unusually messy kitchen to develop complexity and hold the attention of the audience until the very end. Glaspell uses irony and common misconceptions to convey her powerful message â€Å"Trifles† is also a play that reflects a clear notion of gender and sex roles. Glaspell, a feminist writer, writes plays that are known for their development of deep, sympathetic characters that have strong principles that are worth standing up for (Holstein 288). Trifles† opens up in its setting, which is a rural area of Nebraska in a newly abandoned farmhouse kitchen belonging to the Wright family. The play is written from two different perspectives. The perspectives include a male’s, which include George Henderson, the county attorney, Henry Peter, the sheriff, and Lewis Hale, a neighboring farmer, and a female’s, which includes Mrs. Peter’s, the wife of Henry Peters and Mrs. Hale, the wife of Lewis Hale. The male characters enter the house as a crime scene. The county attorney carries out the investigation in an orderly way by interviewing the key witness and asking for the facts only. â€Å"The audience hears only male voices for the first quarter of the play as they go from room to room routinely until they left nothing out, ‘Nothing of importance’† (Holstein 283). The females of the play were very hesitant to enter the house. The beginning scene describes, â€Å"The women have come in slowly, and stand close together near the door† (Glaspell 958). The women enter the house as a home rather than a crime scene. They are there only to gather items for the imprisoned, Mrs. Wright. They are very nervous and timid, which can be determined by the diction that Glaspell uses. Many dashes are used as the women speak slowly and thoughtfully in the home where a man was just murdered. Seeing the bread outside the breadbox, the broken fruit jars, and the rocking chair that Mrs. Wright was sitting in before and after the alleged murder that Mrs. Hale almost sat in causing it to rock back and forth all startled and made the women uneasy as they wondered around the house (Glaspell 962). These details also play a role in the spectacle that Glaspell is creating. As the play progresses, they are able to put themselves in Mrs. Wright’s position, making them more comfortable as they explore the familiar kitchen. Mrs. Hale has been Mrs. Wright’s neighbor for years and knows how hard it is to keep up with the cleaning and womanly chores of the home, which is why she is angry when the men are snooping around and judging her (Glaspell 962). She recalls when â€Å"Minnie Foster, now Mrs. Wright, wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up in the choir and sang† (Glaspell 968). As the women find the birdcage and later discover the dead bird wrapped in a beautiful box and realize what has happened in the Wright’s home, they begin to sympathize with her. They first think about â€Å"the lonely quiet of her childless farmhouse† (Holstein 285). Mrs. Hale â€Å"mourns the loss of Mrs. Wright’s preserved fruit, remembering her own hard work during canning season† (Holstein 286). For the first time throughout the play, Mrs. Peter’s softens to Minnie’s situation remembering the time a boy murdered her kitten and whispered, â€Å"If they hadn’t held me back I would have—hurt him† (Glaspell 967). Holstein mentions, â€Å"She also contemplates the stillness of her old homestead after her first baby died and compares it to Minnie’s solitude† (286). It is clear that the women are able to sympathize with Minnie Wright because â€Å"they share her experience† (Holstein 286). The play begins to be ironic as the men tease and belittle the women by poking fun at their â€Å"trifles† such as whether Mrs. Wright would sew or knot her quilt. â€Å"Mrs. Hale says, resentfully, â€Å"I don’t know as there’s anything so strange, our takin’ up our time with little things while we’re waiting for them to get the evidence† (Glaspell 964). Holstein points out that evidence is nothing more than the â€Å"little things† (284). The first trifle that was discussed was â€Å"a neighbor’s visit†, which Mrs. Hale has ongoing guilt about throughout the play. â€Å"Mrs. Hale observes, â€Å"We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it’s all just a different kind of the same thing† (Holstein 287). Other examples of their trifles that are discussed are items such as the birdcage that no longer has a bird in it and the square of quilt that is not nearly as neat as the others. These â€Å"trifles† become major evidence in the murdering of John Wright, but are kept secret by the women. The women ironically become the main characters of this murder mystery, which was groundbreaking in the time that Glaspell wrote this play. The men seemingly disappear as the women instinctively uncover the mystery for themselves piece by piece giving them a certain power over the men. In the beginning of the play, the women are quiet from â€Å"powerlessness†, but by the end â€Å"Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters ultimately find power in being devalued, for their low status allows them to keep quiet at he play’s end. † The women are much like â€Å"servants and other discounted groups†, for they are allowed to have knowledge of subjects â€Å"because it is assumed they will not be able to make intelligent use of it† (Holstein 284). By not turning Mrs. Wright in, Mrs. Peters clearly makes a change from the start of the play to the end. Mrs. Hale is luckily able to change Mrs. Peters’ initial thought on the discovery of Mrs. Wright being a murderer, which was the idea that â€Å"The law has got to punish crimes† (Glaspell 968). The men enter the kitchen again after carrying out these investigations with no more knowledge of the murder than when they started. The county attorney overlooks the trifle of Mrs. Wright being afraid of cats when he questions the empty birdcage, which could have been possible evidence. Mrs. Hale lied and said, â€Å"We think—the cat got it† (Glaspell 697). Holstein mentions, â€Å"Perhaps Mrs. Hale’s remark is an oblique reference to the women’s silence, as in the old question ‘has the cat got your tongue? ’† The attorney is only interested in the â€Å"visible evidence† of the murder (Holstein 285). In the end the women’s silence is no longer a â€Å"silence of powerlessness†, but a power of â€Å"intention and choice† (Holstein 284). The plays final line is the most powerful line. The county attorney remarks sarcastically, â€Å"Well Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to—what is it that you call it, ladies? † and Mrs. Hale responded, â€Å"We call it—knot it, Mr. Henderson† (Glaspell 968). Holstein discusses that â€Å"Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters intentionally â€Å"knot† their knowledge and do â€Å"not† share it. There silence has become a mark of their solidarity, a refusal to endanger a sister. She ends her article with a basic summary of the men in the play by stating, â€Å"For the men in the play, [the women’s] secret remains an undiscovered trifle† (Holstein 290). Many aspects of Glaspell’s â€Å"Trifles† make it a moving play with a simple, yet powerful theme of women in this time period being powerful in the same way that they are powerless; in silence. As a feminist, Glaspell is able to give women the power of using trifles and womanly concerns that men laugh at to solve a murder mystery with hard evidence, and also gives them the power to stick up for a fellow female and withhold information from the portrayed ignorance of men. Although Glaspell does not come right out and say it, she is making it clear that she finds men to be overbearing and inferior to women contrary to the popular beliefs at the time this play was written. Glaspell does something inspiring by using the many elements of drama along side irony and the notion of gender and sex roles to develop a complex, chilling, and entertaining play about something as serious as a scorned woman seeking revenge on her husband and two women using simple â€Å"trifles† to understand why.

The Third and Final Continent Essay

Joel Wilson Wilson1 Ms. Lewis English 112 (3) 17 October 2012 Critical Response Throughout â€Å"The Third and final continent† by Jhumpa Lahiri, arranged marriage can be the best thing that can happen to some people, but sometimes in another case it might not be the best idea, in the â€Å"The third and final continent, the arranged marriage was a good idea because at the end they fall in love with each other and make a good family after all.The man might not be thinking about getting married because he will be preoccupied by other thing like getting a job or taking of he’s mother and maybe little brothers. â€Å"It was a duty expected of me† (Lahiri, P. 181) He did what he’s family wanted him to do, or maybe the woman’s family might be concern about the daughter getting married, â€Å" †¦Had begun to fear that she would never marry†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Lahiri, P. 181) The narrator did what he’s family’s wanted him to do, not only be cause it’s a family duty, but the wife’s family has begun to worry about her getting married.Arranged marriage can make a happy family just as normal marriages, the narrator and he’s wife live a happy life after getting adapter to each other’s presence. The arranged marriage in â€Å"The third and final continent† was a successful, they even â€Å"†¦ had a son who attend Harvard University† (Lahiri, P. 197) arranged marriages are not the worst thing that can happen it just need to people to love each other and get adapter to the new situation.

Description for the map Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Description for the map - Essay Example Inner Mongolia has only a small number of rivers such as the Yellow river and other seasonal rivers. The region is endowed with many lakes comprising Hulun, Nur and Dalai Nur among others. Mongolian terrain represents the Alps and continuing plateaus that have a very high amount of relief. Starting from the Gobi Desert located in the southern part of Mongolia, the region has a treeless plain that is covered with grass and has three mountain ranges. The desert is a home to rare animals such as the black tail antelope, brown bear and Havtgai, wild Bactrian camel. Tavan Bogd Uul represents the highest point in Inner Mongolia (4374 meters) and the lowest region (560 meters) lies to the eastern Mongolian plain. Since one can go through the map and find various features found within Inner Mongolia attests to the fact that the map helps in solving problems. People such as travellers and tourists can use it to locate different features that may be of interest to them. Consequently, such features, in my view, contribute greatly in shaping the Inner Mongolia story. As mentioned earlier, travellers and tourists are critical users of the Inner Mongolia Map. These people will, in particular, use the map in identifying the various physical features found in Inner Mongolia. The Inner Mongolia map will, for instance, be important in helping the tourists to locate the splendid pasture scenery in Mongolia, the Xiritala Grassland Scenic area, and the Hinggan Ling Mountains among others. Moreover, the map will also help historians in understanding the history of Inner Mongolia. They can use the map to locate features such as the tomb of Genghis and the monastery. The use of variations in colour in showing the different elevations in the Mongolian region is quite distinctive. Through the variations in colour, one gets the sense of the different physical features in the area. In addition, the use of delineation lines gives an idea of the land’s shape. This adds on or

The Evolution of Grunge in the fashion world Research Paper

The Evolution of Grunge in the fashion world - Research Paper Example Having no money, young people bought clothes on the thrifts and gradually invented so-called â€Å"grunge fashion†. Immensely effected by success of such grunge groups as Nirvana or Pearl Jam, many youngsters also organized local bands and played their own â€Å"loud and guitar-based† music. Finally, it was also about heroine which became cheap and affordable. All grunge musicians were heroine addicts and, therefore, popularized its usage among their followers. Later it will be utilized in the purpose of fashion trend known as â€Å"heroine chic†. Grunge subculture existed from the end of 80s till the beginning of 90s. However, within such a short period of time it made a great impact on the future fashion trends and peoples outlook. Grunge was considered rather controversial phenomenon. Originally, grunge fashion was referred as anti-fashion. However, many critics believed that it was neither fashion, nor anti-fashion, but so-called â€Å"non-, or un-fashion† (Grindstaff, 2014). As for its status as subculture, some also acknowledged that it was rather debatable: â€Å"People who listened to grunge music did not refer to themselves as â€Å"grungers† in the same way as â€Å"punks† or â€Å"hippies† (Price, 2010). Nevertheless, the crucial issue for this paper is mainly grunge style in clothing so further the main grunge tendencies will be analyzed and described. The word â€Å"grunge† means â€Å"dirt, filth, trash† (Martin, 1992). As a term to call new Pacific Northwest sound, it was first used by independent record label Sub Pop in 1980s. Jonathan Poneman, a Sub Pop founder described grunge music as the following: â€Å"It could have been sludge, grime, crud, any word like that†.The group provided cheap recording service for local Seattle bands. Grunge, or Seattle sound, was a â€Å"mix of heavy-metal, punk, and good old-fashioned rock and roll† (Grindstaff, 2014).

The challenges for business start-ups Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

The challenges for business start-ups - Essay Example The innovation is all about inventing a new product, therefore generating an idea for a product is the main characteristic for an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is a creator of wealth which results in development of economy (Talloo, 2007). The entrepreneur has to develop a definite approach to promote their business. Previously the meaning of innovation basically implied technological leadership, but at present it has become a common strategy for every business. Entrepreneurship is required to adopt an approach to ensure that flow of innovation is in right direction according to strategies of the business. There is a need to review an innovation in a business as competition in the marketplace is increasing. In this context, such an innovation is â€Å"The Cave† which is an innovative marketing technique of Procter & Gamble, which has protected the company for many years. â€Å"The Cave† is 3D rooms which make a projection of the visitors into an implicit world through w hich P&G are able to monitor the reaction, behaviour and experience of consumer in a store such as Boots, Asda and Tesco. â€Å"The Cave† restores each detail of a store; captures all interior of store, visitors walking in a store, selecting the product, turning the product to read the tag or manufactured date of a product. This technique helps the company to redesign their store display, product as well as packaging and layout. This is an innovation offered to customer in a different way (Vila & MacGregor, 2010). According to Sawhney, innovation is a formation of an essential value to customers and businesses by considerably changing one or other aspect or by creating completely a new business structure (Sawhney & Et. Al., 2006). The business has to concentrate on holistic business structure for an innovation. General approach of innovation such as product along with technology is inadequate supply for demand of competitive market (Vila & MacGregor, 2010). The business start s with a commitment from an entrepreneur to become successful. The appropriate planning of a business is required for businessmen before starting its business; it can be part time or full time business. The planning regarding time, resource, product as well as service and marketing are essential for a business. The graph for a financial and personal estimation has to be created for identification of proper financial aspects for a business (Aspatore & Vault (Firm), 2002). The information and forecast is the key factor for a business. The following are a few steps followed to start a business: 1. Identification of a business: The selection of the business line is a difficult job for an entrepreneur. One may choose manufacturing or restaurant or service industry but there is no doubt that an innovative idea is required to start a business. The in-dept study of an industry has to be done to understand or gain sufficient knowledge of a particular business line. The market survey is a pro cess to be more focused on the business and hence helps to obtain data related to a specific business. 2. Identification of basic business management: The fundamental aspects such as financial management, book-keeping, accounting, human

Benefit Law Advice Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Benefit Law Advice - Case Study Example Also included in the conclusion is a finality point emphasizing that social services can have positive impacts or negative impacts on the social lives of those who live with disabilities. Obtaining benefits for DLA or Attendance Allowance can be tricky and confusing for many, especially when it comes to understanding what the different eligibility requirements associated with AA and the possible benefits are. Physical limitations are actually categorized in various ways, which often depend on what the Commissioner confirms as applicable for benefits of AA or not. Obtaining an AA varies from case to case (as was stated) but legislative law in Britain does recognize people as being eligible to receive it if they have a terminal illness, mental handicap, physical limitation, and are otherwise incapacitated due to a terminal prognosis that also included surgical procedures which could lead to limitations in their former routines. However, anyone age 65 or older who has received a prognosis of a terminal illness and only have on average 6 months to live is eligible for AA according to the Benefit's agency (Nosowska 2004, p. 284). Nevertheless, there have been cases where people have actually died while awaiting approval from the Commissioner for AA or DLA assistance (Nosowska 2004, p.286). The case that is being referred to is in regards to 22 elderly women who were diagnosed with terminal cancer. The Commissioner approved them for AA but the wait was so long and the financial burden so heavy that as was stated, a number of them died while waiting for approval to receive the care they needed (Nosowska 2004, p.284). It would seem that the Commissioner could have used a "common sense" perspective to process these 22 women's claims faster, yet did not. Also, one would think that it should have also been obvious that these elderly women were suffering from forms of dementia along with their terminal prognosis which limited their abilities to "function independently". A physical limitation or lack of competence is normally enough for the Commissioner to approve AA, which in these 22 cases it was approved but again the delay in achieving it is what lead t o the adversities in health for some of the women (Ariotti 1999, p. 216). When the view switches to individual assessments on personal capabilities in regards to lifting and muscle strength there are also an innumerable amount of variables that are weighed and considered. The Commissioners decision to change the original "lift and carry" assessment has proven to make a great difference when professionals are trying to determine whether an individual has the ability to perform work related duties or not. There have been specific cases in the past that have affected the Commissioner's decision to reform article 8 in the personal capability assessment procedures (Benefits and Work UK 2004). For example, due to a historic case known as "Howker", definite changes were found to be needed because some of the physical assessments in the testing were shown to have placed individuals in far worse conditions than before they were even assessed (Benefits and Work UK 2004). Also, it would appear that the wrong questions were