About Negativity Essay

And you stare at it happen, as it happens right in front of you, and say no. Just, no. It can’t work out like this. It’s not supposed to end like this. In what kind of fucked up story does the bad guy win? In what kind of story does the victim end up in disbelief that she never got the justice she deserved. That’s when you realize you’re the villain. But no, the other person’s not innocent either, they’re the villain too. They’re worse than you, but you’re still the villain, because you let it get this way. Everything’s your fault. And you hate everyone. And you hate yourself. And you hate everything. And your so filled with hate that you just want to end it all. And then you realize that if you do that, you’ll be hated even more, and that realization makes you hate them more, and there’s just so much fucking hate and no way to end it. And that hate turns into sorrow and confusion and pointlessness, and it’s endless really. And it’s as blunt as I just put it because there’s no other way to express yourself lyrically when you’re that upset. And in all the hate you feel homicidal, suicidal, maniac, and repulsive. And there’s no way out. See more: Examples of satire in adventures of huckfinn essay And there’s no one to help you, because you’re too embarrassed to share these repulsive feelings with anyone but yourself. And you’re your only companion, but it doesn’t matter because you’re used to it being that way. And you’re shaking, shivering, bawling in your loneliness, not feeling sorry for yourself like your accused of but hating yourself. No. It can’t be like this, the villain doesn’t feel this way. But the victim doesn’t hate this way. And you find the devil’s in your thoughts, and you’re nothing but a victim of yourself. And the cycle of hatred†¦ it starts again.

Importance of Internal Communications Essay

Importance of Internal Communications for a company and two case studies. Internal communications is considered a vital tool for connecting people within the company. It does not refer only to those few â€Å"official† channels of communication in a company, it is also the strategic management of information flows to ensure the optima level of employee engagement. (Civicus, 2001) This business context of communication is a dual listening process. It is a top-down, bottom-up, side-to-side communication harnessed as a means of delivering messages, listening to concerns and motivating staff. Maintaining a good internal communications within a company could reinforce the vision, values and culture among employees, who can then communicate it to internal and external audiences. Internal communications aims to ensure that employees in the company work together towards the same goal, know what they should be doing and by when. Internal communication has evolved various ways of communicating internally. Traditionally, it started off with informal and formal one-to-one and one-to-many meetings where usually the ‘the boss’ would communicate in a highly one-way fashion with employees. Lee, 2006) In this case the message is mostly communicated in one way, it does not include feedback from the message recipients. When print materials were introduced, it was then involved for formal, top-down transmission, for instance, company annual report. Internal communication then evolved to the digital era where Internet was highly used as a communication tool. When email was in troduced into the business settings and with it the nature of communication has radically changed. Lee, 2006) As the digital technology advances, internal communication has evolved to the point where not only can employees and employers freely email each other, forward messages without any editing (showing the whole conversational trail), and forward those messages outside of the corporate walls, but also employees and employers can use these emails to bring about grievance procedures, litigation and dismissal. (Lee, 2006) It is seen that internal communication has undergone deliberately change and will continue growing. Today’s internal communication practitioner is focused on challenging and stimulating employees, managing change and gaining employee engagement and commitment. (Chalmers, 2008) The aim has moved from controlling and directing people, through providing information, making announcements and supporting industrial relations, to supporting the development of a flexible work environment which adapts to change, seeks improvement, shares knowledge and know-how, generates ideas and involves people in achieving strategic goals. Chalmers, 2008) Most of the people understand the significance of internal communication but very few could manage it efficiently. Many people think that internal communication is one of the functions that they think they can do well. In fact, when it comes to real situation on handling employees, certain strategies and techniques are needed to communicate and tackle. In talking to many individuals at very different levels in very disparate sectors, what has come across as crucial is the need for internal communication to be championed at the very top of the organization and also for senior management and the boardroom to respect the expertise of the specialist tasked to deliver, be they internally or externally placed. Smith, 2008) A large number of studies by both professional management groups and professional communications bodies consistently find that ‘communicating with employees’ is a useful and powerful way of engendering greater ‘engagement’ – the propensity of the employee to want to come to work and want to contribute to the success of the company. (Lee, 2006) Gauri Deshmukh, head of HR at SAS India states that internal communication is important for a company as it provides information and encourages sharing by driving and supporting the organisation’s short-term and long-term goals and objectiv es. In addition, Deshmukh also mentions that with effective internal communications, it ensures that knowledge-sharing and communication processes are part of the daily workflow across all functions of the business. By having good internal communication, a company ensures that in between employers and employees they are constantly updated with information. In fact, a good internal communications not only affects organizational and operational success, but it has a considerable impact on external functions such as marketing, community and government relations, nd investor relations. (Brown, 2002) Internal communication is significant in any company because it is the building block of the organisational culture. (Civicus, 2001) Furthermore, internal communication is important so that employees become advocates for company. It is important to create a ‘common purpose’ across the company – creating the sense of a team where everyone feels ownership in their roles and in a chieving the company’s goals. (WK, 2010) In this way employees feel accepted and being part of the company. Likewise, internal communication is one of the key ‘intangible’ factors leading to high performance. (WK, 2010) For instance, if communication in a company is managed well employees are more confident and clear with the company mission and vision thus makes excellent financial as well as business. Not only that, having good internal communication helps build out company’s brand internally as employees are the best ambassadors, and internal perceptions should mirror what the company is telling the world. Trout, 2012) When the company is communicating effectively with its internal stakeholders, be it employees, management or volunteers, programmes and departments share more resources and information resulting in less duplication of work and stronger impact as a whole company. (Civicus, 2001) Without an effective internal communications, a company allows others to determine what information (or disinformation) is communicated to employees about their company. Brown, 2002) Smart employers realize that in environments where employees are able to move from one employer to another with relative ease, it is in the company’s best interests to retain the smarter and more productive employees; doing all they can to communicate with them, inform them, influence them and enter into some sort of psychological contract with them is a wise move. Lee, 2006) Besides, without effective internal communications, the crisis of confidence in businesses and corporate leadership could hurt sincere efforts to build a positive corporate culture and to enhance employee morale and productivity, and devastate the overall image of an organization. (Brown, 2002) Case Study I: Nokia is one of the top mobile phone manufacturer favoured by many people. In order to compete with other mobile phone manufacturer Nokia is constantly improvising and upgrading their gadgets to serve people needs these days. The reason Nokia has been so successful is no doubt its creation on mobile phones, as well as the strong team in the company that has made where it stands today. In a technologically savvy company like Nokia, it’s no surprise that they’ve been successfully implementing social media into their internal communications. (Kass, 2012) Nokia’s motto is connecting people and exploring ways to enhance communication. (Kass, 2012) In order to realize that vision, Nokia uses a number of different vehicles for two-way and push or pull communications; social media plays a big part with fitting into that strategy. Nokia’s Social Media Communications team was established in early 2008, aimed to improve inter-company communications and engaging employees. The objective of the team is to: encourage the use of social media internally to bring out the company’s unique authentic voice and to engage in social media externally on behalf of Nokia, and contributing to product and service announcements by opening up a dialogue and driving online engagement. (Kass, 2012) Nokia has 125,000 employees around the world. It is the company’s utmost important task to engage all employees in order to achieve company business goal. There are a few platforms in Nokia allowing employees from global to connect as if they work in a small company together. According to Molly Schonthal who worked on the company’s Social Media team in North America, the BlogHub is Nokia’s most powerful and effective social media tool that is used internally. It has been said that BlogHub lowers the barriers for employees to find conversations relevant to them. In terms of interaction, employees are allowed to communicate freely via BlogHub. They could make comment on posts, share ideas and knowledge on issues that have been mentioned. In addition, BlogHub serves as a useful search engine for employees to seek out information relevant to them. From a management point of view, through BlogHub feedback on various issues are gained quickly and track the conversations that are happening inside the company. Voting and ratings on posts are enabled as well for employees to be part of the decision team. Nokia has also introduced Nokia Conversations blog where latest Nokia product news would be posted. Through this blog employees could find a big overview of all the topics going on in Nokia. Similar to any other company that is engaged on social media, Nokia has its very own YouTube and Twitter account. Other than that, VideoHub has grown increasingly popular with employees allowing for postings to be updated on a daily basis. Besides, Nokia’s Infopedia wiki allows employees to share knowledge inside the company. If someone needs to quickly check a piece of information, Nokia’s effective internal communication channel, Instant Messaging (IM) is available for employees. It claims to remove the barrier of more formalized communication in between employees. For global company like Nokia, in order to save cost and time, Nokia has it’s own video conference channel where annual communication meetings and real time conversations could be held. Considering people do not check their mailboxes as much anymore Nokia has slowly cut down prints publications in an effort to become more environmentally aware. In fact Nokia in North America has completely eliminated print publications. Newsletters are now kept to an electronic HTML format, which is e-mail so it is more easily distributed. Similar to every other company Nokia uses intranet communications as well. It is the center of where people go to get information on benefits or organization charts. Furthermore, to reach more employees, Nokia regularly posts relevant company announcements on plasma screens around regional offices, usually in cafeterias and breakout rooms, with its promise on going environmental friendly. At North America, leadership also encourages employees to speak directly with their line managers to better understand organizational strategy and what role they can play in that strategy. For all of Nokia’s Web 2. 0 tools, Schonthal is quick to point out that â€Å"social media is never a replacement for high touch engagement. † (Kass, 2012) Instead, it can contribute to various company events and other in-person initiatives. â€Å"Social media complements these things but doesn’t take away from the ability to internally engage and share ideas,† she further explains. Nokia provides many platforms for employees to stay engaged, all for one clear identified goal – connect all the people in the company. For such global company I believe Nokia in different countries or branches could decide on which channel they prefer but I believe as a whole, all the employees in Nokia stay connected via BlogHub. After reviewing how Nokia strives to engage the employees I could see that the management team work hard on receiving feedback as well. They listen to their employees. They make changes. All these actions give employees feel accepted and belonged to the company. The end result is the employees are clear with the goals, mission and procedures of the company, which can result increase their work effort and efficiency and boost business. Case Study II: â€Å"We were driven to connect the organization with itself, and realized enterprise social networking was the solution. I can truly say after more than two years that we have achieved an official internal communications channel. Socialcast lifted the boundaries and made our organization transparent. We connect daily with people from India, China, the US, and Brazil. Without Socialcast it would not be possible,† says Dennis Agusi, Global Internal Communications Officer, Royal Philips Electronics. Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is a diversified health and well-being company, focused on improving people’s lives through timely innovations. As a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle and lighting, Philips integrates technologies and design into people-centric solutions, based on fundamental customer insights and the brand promise of â€Å"sense and simplicity†. Philips Case Study 2012) In 2010, Philips began to explore how the company should help its employees spread around the globe to feel engaged, work like a small team driven by shared goals. On the way of researching, the Corporate Communications and IT department discovered that approximately 1,600 employees were actively using a free tool they had found on the Internet to communicate and collab orate. Knowing two platforms for collaboration would not be a great idea so the team took initiative to introduce a new platform to these early users. These early users provided positive and valuable feedback and recommendations on how to improve the enterprise social experience the best it could be. Then it led to a successful launch of an enterprise social network. The company adopted â€Å"Connect Us† and the network was launched with wide support. On launch day, Connect Us had 400 members. Within two months, 7,000 employees had joined the community. Through Connect Us they allow employee-to-employee exchanges as well as management-to-employee communications. Employees are allowed to post freely, share knowledge to make work easier. Connect Us helps to remove barriers between departments as well. Through Socialcast Reach, employees are allowed to share information and data in between departments resulting a more seamless flow of work. In addition, a new idea can be communicated more broadly, increasing sense of connectedness and engagement across the company. From management perspective, through Connect Us, the Communications and IT team could monitor what’s happening in the company, check trending topics or people, at real time. According to report, Connect Us has enabled new and sometimes unexpected forms of employee engagement. All Employee Jam† was a crowdsourcing project designed to bring to life the company’s new, refreshed Mission and Vision statement through dialogue, discussion and debate. This exercise has successfully drawn employees who had not yet joined the social community into Connect Us. According to feedback, employees who participated in this exercise were found to be far m ore aware of and aligned with the Philips Mission and Vision than those employees who did not participate. This resulted Philips truly believes that enterprise social networks help companies increase employee engagement and retention. I liked the idea of how Philips tries to maintain the communication channel as one, which is Connect Us. I believe there are other platforms available for instance intranet but Connect Us is actively used by people in the company. From not knowing employees are using free online tool to communicate to introducing socialcast network, Philips has come a long way into realizing the importance of internal communication. The All Employee Jam has definitely demonstrated the power of enterprised social networking. It encouraged the employees to share knowledge, to stay connected which resulted in a greater identity with the company. In this two case studies, both companies Nokia and Philips selected appropriate channels for communication according to its needs. Nokia has different communication platforms serving different purposes. For instance, BlogHub allows employees to find information they need and Instant Messaging is a tool for quick and easy communication. On the other hand, Philips focus mainly on Connect Us, from searching information to accelerating ideas to sharing data it is all done on Connect Us. However, on my opinion, Nokia has too many platforms it might be tough to engage all the employees in one platform, as the users are free to choose which platforms they get information from. Whereas Philips uses Connect Us, most of the employees are part of the community and anything they need require can be found on Connect Us. I think this is one of the advantages of having a focused channel. Likewise, the tools and tactics, both companies chose to be focus more on information technology. In terms of interactivity, both companies engage their employees as well as welcoming their feedbacks. The employees are encouraged to utilise these channels to feel more accepted and being part of the company. For instance, Philips Connect Us not only allows employees-to-employees exchange, as well as management-to-employees communication. In this case it removes barriers between management and employees so work can be done easier. As for Nokia, feedbacks are valued through voting and ratings on posts and comments, allowing management to understand the employees better. Besides, both case studies reviewed the importance of evaluation on internal communication. In order to improve, the management team has to constantly measure the effectiveness of the communication tools and find ways to improve. Nokia and Philips monitor their employees through these platforms to find out what is really happening in the company. This way they could make sure the employees are on par with company’s goals. In conclusion, internal communication has never been so important. Many people know what internal communication is and they think they know how to function this but they might not know the true meaning behind it. Effective internal communication does not mean to have a lot of communication platforms, spending big budget on this function but utilizing the appropriate communication tool for employees get involved. If you want to build brand for your company first you have to build your brand internally. After all employees are the representatives of your company, they are the brand. Internal communication comes a long way to build, it might need more time and effort to achieve the effective result as desired but the end result is always proven satisfaction, that I am sure. A combination of strong communication, teamwork and camaraderie framed within trusting relationships will help achieve remarkable results in times of large-scale change and uncertainty, writes University of Nottingham chief executive Peter Homa. And finally, in my own words, you can’t communicate with your audience until your internal message is crystal clear.

Cask Of Amontillado By Edgar Allan Poe

Cask Of Amontillado By Edgar Allan Poe The story of â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† by Edgar Allan Poe is full of conflict from beginning to end. The narrator of this story does not reveal why such a conflict exists other than to say someone has impugned his honor. Poe makes use of irony, symbolism among other linguistics means to tell a revenge story under Montresor’s, the murderer, view and ideas. Even knowing the narrator is not reliable and he probably is mad, the reader stands on his side from the beginning to the end of the conflict. This article will try to analyze the tools used by Poe to create this short story. The Style of Poe in â€Å"The cask of amontillado† Strengthening readers’ comprehension of his writing is also a key function of the imagery Poe uses. The variety of stylistic devices used by Poe to create the atmosphere of horror and terror includes the setting, one of the things the author uses to paint a dark and gloomy picture in the reader’s mind. For example: as de scribed by him in the beginning of the short story â€Å"It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival seasonà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ã¢â‚¬  or like in this paragraph: â€Å"At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of so lid granite†. Imagery in Poe’s style of writing clearly involves readers in the story, and his use of complex vocabulary ensures that readers understand his themes and implications. The use of symbolism is what makes Poe’s short story even more interesting. Symbolism, according to the The Dictionary of Literary Terms, is an object, person, idea, etc. used in a literary work, film, etc., to stand for or suggest something else with which it is associated either explicitly or in some more subtle way. It may not be clear for some readers, but in â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† the fight between two social class conflict and the aristocratic social codes is very well pictured. Montresor meets Fortunato â€Å"as if by chance† when it is clear that Montresor already of Fortunato’s attendance during the Carnival celebration at a banquet. When Montresor leads the intoxicated Fortunato into the blind wall in the subterranean passages of Montresorâ€℠¢s family grave and takes him prisoner, he already has mortar and trowel prepared for walling up his victim. Since Fortunato had given Montresor a Masonic sign and asked him if he were a Mason, a question which response was that Fortunato was nothing more than a real stone mason and the murderer laughingly showed the real trowel he had with him, it can also be a humorous imitation of the French Freemasonry, whose motto was â€Å"libertà ©, à ©galità ©, fraternità ©.†

Quantitative Research on Marathon Times Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Quantitative Research on Marathon Times - Essay Example Even though marathon running has increased its popularity, there exist no data concerning the relationship between marathon times, age, athlete’s level of fitness (expert runner, beginner), fuel (carbohydrates), weather in the course of the marathon, and the miles ran during training per week. This paper sought to find out whether the performance of marathon is linked to age, athlete’s level of fitness (expert runner, beginner), fuel (carbohydrates), weather in the course of the marathon, and the miles ran during training per week. The study involved 15 marathon runners. The participants were given packets of materials which were inclusive of a questionnaire. After filling the questionnaire, they were brought back for analysis. The study established that there existed some relationship among the variables. Introduction For decades, taking part in marathon running by people of different ages and potentials has been increasing at a repaid rate. A research conducted in this field notes out that the approximate marathon number in U S increased to one hundred and forty in 1975 from forty-four in 1969. In this period, there was an increment in the participants by about 500%. Even though marathon is always popular and requires enough preparation, training practice and knowledge, its effectiveness may tend to remain incomplete. More often than not, many runners come up with their programs of training through taking after marathoners who may look successful. For many years, the philosophy of humans has been adjusted to cover distances that are long in each day so as to obtain food for sustaining the metabolism of the brain (Macarthur & North, 2005). In this regard, the high marathon popularity in humans that are modern of all abilities and ages can be seen as a legacy of the human species’ evolutionary capacity to race for distances that are long and using metabolism that is aerobic (Macarthur & North, 2005). Over the last decade, the starters in marathon have increased from 8,000 to 40,000. This implies that taking part in road racing has been increasing by over 50% in the last decade. This popularity is characterized by the existence of recreational marathon racers who finish the 42,195 km in about two hours. However, marathon has a negative effect to the cardiac status and the existences of cardiac deaths that are sudden during marathon have evoked increased debate (Macarthur & North, 2005). Additionally, endurance and energy c ost are the two benchmarks for obtaining exceptional performance in running. This is so because marathon runners show out an increased fractional use of oxygen. Considering the coming up of recreational marathon amid the middle-aged class, the debate concerning physiological strain also comes up. A couple of surveys done in marathoners have failed to give out information which could be generalized for the runner’s broad spectrum. This study explores the relationship between one dependent variable and several independent variables. In this regard, the dependent variable is marathon times, whereas the independent variables are age, athlete’s level of fitness (expert runner, beginner), fuel (carbohydrates), weather in the course of the marathon, and the miles ran during training per week. The paper seeks to develop a multiple regression model in which the variable that is dependent is explained by all the given independent variable. Method Participants The opportunity sam ple for this study was made up of fifteen participants. The participants were obtained from marathon runners. The participants were selected by using the fact that they had to be individuals whose age was below forty years and that they were recreational runners. The participants were also free of pulmonary and cardiac diseases. The participants of this research were volunteers. Three groups consisting of five participants were made. The three groups were given names according to the age range. The first group, which was the 10 to 20 years group,

Information & operation management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Information & operation management - Essay Example The functions of the operations are at the center of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and they interact with other duties although they may involve different activities. The functions must work together to realize the objectives of the company. Operation management is not done in isolation, but every decision is entwined with other functions to follow the strategic direction that has been developed by the management (Stevenson & Sum 2009). The Operations function of JLR ensures that raw materials are available to the production process so as to make products that consumers will require. The ‘operations’ also share ideas across the company on how to improve processes and realize savings on the cost. The Department of operations ensures that there is increased efficiency and effective management of safety and environmental matters (Stevenson & Sum 2009). JLR’s business operations managers help different departments in the company to coordinate and meet the objectives of the business. The roles of business operations managers of the company are to negotiate contracts, address budget issues and guide work teams among others. Production and Operations Management is involved in the conversion of inputs into outputs that will meet the needs of clients. The primary role of Production and Operations Management of JLR is to guarantee that the company manufactures the required products, according to the objectives of the company. POM incorporates different tasks that are interdependent. These functions include product, plant, processes, programs, and people (Stevenson & Sum 2009). Some of the problems addressed by Production and Operations Management of the company include scheduling production, management of distribution systems, selecting production facilities location and ensuring that goods and services are of high quality. Jaguar Land Rover’s Supply Chain Management deals with

Cryptographic overhead of IPsec Protocol suit Research Paper

Cryptographic overhead of IPsec Protocol suit - Research Paper Example The reality that the Internet is deficient in security is still undeniable. So to solve this issue researchers are trying to increase the network security at each layer by designing a range of security protocols. The designed protocols include PGP, S/MIME, and SET which are specifically designed to ensure the security of the application layer. In this scenario, SSL/TLS are used on the transport layer. In this race, IPSec is one of the most important security protocol, which is designed for dealing with the network layer security, ensuring the availability of security services like that data source authentication, access control, data confidentiality and integrity and processing data packages on the IP packet layer (Zheng & Zhang, 2009; Meng, et al., 2010). This report presents a detailed analysis of IPSec and associated aspects. IPSec IPSec is a complete suite of protocols, which carry out specific tasks. As discussed above, the basic objective of IPSec is to provide a variety of sec urity facilities to traffic transmitting between a source and destination. In this scenario, a source or destination can be a host or a router. In addition, these facilities can be used for all packets sent or received, or simply to a particular kind of transmission such as FTP or telnet. Figure1 demonstrates how IPSec ensures the security of data transmission between a host and a destination (Clark, 2002): Figure 1IPSec Operation, Image Source: (Clark, 2002) In this diagram a red line is used to demonstrate that IPSec is implemented on the path between the Host B and Router 1. Basically, IPSec provides a variety of security mechanisms for securing transmissions over a network and these mechanisms can be implemented in different ways. Additionally, IPSec can perform operations on particular kind of traffic at the same time as remaining traffic is moved on a defenseless path. This process is clearly mentioned in the figure, in this figure 1 black links are used to demonstrate this ki nd of communication. A number of separate IPSec protected connections can be established between the two routers and between Host B and Router 1 (Clark, 2002). Implementation of security through IPSec In their paper, (Zheng & Zhang, 2009) provides a detailed discussion on the working of IPSec and the way it ensures the surety of transmission over a network. According to their viewpoint, IPSec implements the security in a network by maintaining the security associations (SAs). In this scenario, a security association is used as a basis to identify the security parameters that will be utilized in data transmission to make it protected, for instance IPSec security protocol, encryption algorithm, hash function and encryption key. Additionally, each security association is typically specified by an exclusive set of parameters such as destination IP address, security parameter index and security protocol. In addition, these associations are established after the negotiation between the co mmunicating hosts in the networks. IPSec is also responsible for maintaining a Security Policy Database (SPD). In fact, a network interface that is established using the IPSec, possesses a pair of Security Policy Database and Security Association Database, which help in processing incoming and outgoing IP packets. One entry of Security Association Database is equal to a security association, on the other hand, Security Policy Database entry refers to a security policy. In this scenario,

What movie and answer questions and your personal reactions Review

What and answer questions and your personal reactions - Movie Review Example The similarities in all the children is the undying love that they receive from their parents and the parents’ desire to raise healthy and happy children. All these children live in an environment where raising children is focused on making sure that they get enough sleep, that they get enough amount of food to eat, and that they fit in with the older siblings. In all the scenarios, it is clear that babies learn from their surrounding environment. They learn from what they see, for example, a baby seeing people eating from one communal pot or seeing people slaughtering a goat from the dirt gets to learn how life works in his surroundings. In all the scenarios mothers are seen to be primarily in charge of child care. For example, the documentary shows the US mother busy in the kitchen and the Mongolian mother milking. The documentary also shows the mothers engage more with their offsprings while doing something else. When looking at the four children, they are raised in very different social-cultural environment where in the case of Ponijao, he is raised in a dirsty village. His family lives in log hut that has clay roofs. They do not have any carpets of any form of barrier between bare bottoms and the dirt. He lives in an environment where people sit on the ground. The culture in this community is where women have the primary role of taking care of the children and doing the daily chores of the homes. The women tie their babies on the side or on their back as they do their work. Men do not play a big role in rearing children on a day to day basis as it is seen in this documentary. Older children are the once who take the responsibilities of acting like the role models and teach them on how they can fit in the society. This is clearly seen in the opening scene of the documentary where an older Ponijao is seen seated next to an infant grinding rocks on a

International Cross Cultural Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

International Cross Cultural Management - Essay Example Culture refers to the way of living of a people basically referring to the way people carry on in their daily life. Each and every group of people has its own culture and this is what creates a difference between various groups of people. National culture is commonly used to refer to or is described as the shared programming of the mind of the people nationally. This makes one country unique from another. Individual countries have various cultural rituals as well as cultural activities. This includes the way that these people understand and think about the world, the values and beliefs they hold. The differences in national culture are more often reflected in the basic solutions given to the organisational issues and problems in various countries. The various national cultures normally have differences in the preferred ways towards the organizational structure as well as different modes of motivating the employees. For instance, some organizations minimise on the options appraising employee performance, managing the organization by objectives, and the use of strategic management. National culture is not an individual affair but rather a function of a group. The boundaries between countries usually put boundaries for national culture. This form of culture is usually instilled in individual's right from birth. The national culture has everything in regard to what is perceived as proper, polite behaviour in that particular country. This includes for example how to behave in front of the family, colleague's strangers, family. Germany's National culture Germany is a culturally diverse state. German is the language spoken by almost every citizen. Other cultural groups found in Germany include the Frisians, Danes, Sorbs, and Gypsies; these are the people who are non-Germany minorities. The religious beliefs observed in Germany include Protestants which has the largest percentage of approximately 38%, the Catholics who form a proportion of 34% and a small portion of Jews. Islam has also become common from immigrants. The culture of this country has been influenced by the middle ages. The philosophers from Germany have assisted in shaping the culture of this nation. There is a lot of influence by the guild system of the medieval times. This system has today seen Germany attain an apprenticeship system. The people have a pride in their occupations and the organizational managers need not work too hard on their motivation. The country is rated as having very productive personnel but does not have good leadership skills. Magala, S. (2005). The united Kingdom The UK is made up of North Ireland and the Great Britain. The United Kingdom is culturally diverse wit a total population of close to 58,587,194 people. Majority of these people live in the suburban and urban areas. The UK is home to different cultures especially due to immigration. The people have their origins in China, the Caribbean, Africa, India, South Asia, Pakistan and continental Europe. The indigenous people include the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Roman, and the Pre-Celtic. The dominant language spoken here is English. Other languages include Scots aw well as the insular Celtic Languages. The religious beliefs are also diverse with reports of having Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and

The Two Revelations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Two Revelations - Essay Example The supporters of evolution and those of Christianity work for the same purpose. Beecher argues that the idea of human life has always been based on development. Christianity seeks to develop man from his simplicity and ignorance to a superior being (spirit). There are those who identify the truth live by it and eventually are rewarded to share in the glory of God. In the same capacity, evolution explains man in the same context as an animal who develops from the simplicity of life to have a superior mind and life. This is the reason for the apparent existence of contradictions. However, both ideas seek to understand the truth of life and should, therefore, be identified in the same spirit.The Bible will always be invaluable even though the human mind develops science to the wildest of imaginations. The truth is never complete, satisfactory or understood without adherence to its compatibility to life situations. This comprehensive fact concludes the whole argument. Beecher does not w ant the purpose of this deep insight to be diverted but he is subjective in purpose. Therefore, the evolutionists and people of varied age, class, denominations, and beliefs are reminded never to undervalue the wholesomeness of the holy book. He cites a man who has cursed the Bible facing so many tribulations that he finds consolation in his mother’s Bible. Overall, the pursuit of the truth should never compromise losing heaven or faith in God. The argument proves this beyond doubt. It is a clear masterpiece of its own kind.

Islamic Politics and Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Islamic Politics and Culture - Essay Example From the Sunnis point of view, the immediate caliphs (four in number), were the rightful heirs of Mohammad and they are the one recognized as the leaders of Muslims (Lyon 86). This therefore implies that the Sunnis believed that authority is dictated from the immediate descendants of Prophet Mohammad. Shiites, on the other hand, believe that Prophet Mohammad’s son in law, Ali, was the rightful heir of the Islamic throne ((Lyon 86)). This therefore implies that Shia only recognized Ali as the legitimate successors of Prophet Mohammed. Therefore, even though both of these sects believed in Mohammad as their initial leader, upon his death, there arose differences on who was rightfully supposed to inherit his throne. Mostly, stand out differences between these two sects is not usually religious but political. According to Sigh, Shiites believed that their leader was pure and blameless by nature, they believed that they were absolutely sinless and that their authority is out of question since it is given directly from Allah (26). Therefore, Shia Muslims often look at the Imams as saints and perform excursions to their tombs and shrines in the anticipation of divine intervention. Sunni Muslims on the other hand pledge that there is no foundation in Islam for a heritable advantaged class of spiritual leaders, and there is certainly no base for the honor or intercession of saints. Sunni Muslims maintain that the headship of the community is not a patrimony, but an earned trust that could be assigned or taken away by the Islamic people. Equally important, the Islamic religion entitles both the Sunni and Shiite are to a daily organized prayers at a specific time. However, these two sects usually practice certain rituals in different ways. Sacred practices also vary in terms of the scriptures that are conventional to them. While Shiites generally only recognize hadith attributable to Muhammads direct lineage or to descendants of Ali, Sunni on the contrary take a

How to Prevent Nuclear Chemical and Biological Threat Essay Example for Free

How to Prevent Nuclear Chemical and Biological Threat Essay In recent years, people from all around the world have already seen the reports about nuclear, chemical and biological accident frequently from the news media, which have been increasingly threatening the survival of human security. When we are fully aware of the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological accident, we should learn that what target measures should be taken to hold the harm of accidents. With the development of high-tech, various military weapons have appeared in the world increasingly. But what hidden behind the success is not only the consumption of resources, but also the huge impact on human itself. So here are some measures as follows. Firstly, the government should propaganda knowledge on nuclear, chemical and biological accidents to the people, such as posters and seminars. Because there are many people who do not learn about these risks appropriately. Secondly, the immune prevention and drug prevention are two good ways o prevent the danger. Inoculation of various vaccines in advance can improve the body immunity, reduce or even avoid biological weapons against the damage and greatly reduce the power of biological weapons. Thirdly, people should be well prepared with emotion before these danger especially avoid being panic. Just take Japanese nuclear power plant explosion in 2011 as an example, people were lost their mind at that time, especially it was the unwise behavior for them to buy lots of salt. Finally, when facing nuclear, chemical and biological risks, authority should take the corresponding preparation and strategies, the relevant education departments should strengthen the national defense education of the contemporary students. In addition, when facing the great benefits the high-tech brings us at the same time, we should recognize the unfavorable factors.

English As A Second Language Program Essay Example for Free

English As A Second Language Program Essay An ESL or English as a second Language program, as the name suggests is for students or people in general who do not speak English as their first language and have an interest in learning this language for certain reasons which may range from applying to a college or university in United states or elsewhere or they would want to get accustomed to this language for the purpose of conducting business overseas, for communication with peers at work or it can be for the simple reason of communicating with people at different situations. In this article we are going to focus on ESL programs for students at a school district, comparing and contrasting on the ways they are executed and the ways they should be executed. English as a Second Language programs for students are offered to students by either scheduling classes in between their regular course classes or they can be undertaken as a separate programs by certain individuals who are accommodated in the vicinity of the university. Today, since the ratio of international students is increasing at an alarming rate in United States or Canada, offering an ESL program is more of a legal requirement for most districts so that all students are taken forward together at university or when they enroll into one in future. It is also due to this very fact that a lot of emphasis is given to ESL programs at elementary and middle school levels to prepare students to use English as a channel of communication in future. The execution and the effectiveness of these programs however, vary with different school districts depending upon trained teacher, the program and the dedication of the students themselves. The duration and intensity of an ESL program varies with the individual or university requirement and can be full time or part time, ranging from a couple of weeks to even a year. These details as mentioned do differ, so for example the ESL program offered at the Greenwich public school which aims at providing students academic and communication skills In order for them to succeed in U.S universities as effectively as possible. The elementary school offers this program for an average 2- 4 years with one to eight hours of instruction every week depending upon the grade and language individual needs of students. The school also focuses on very small groups and emphasizes individual attention to students to better understand their weaknesses and fill I the gaps. The Greenwich Public School district has been offering ESL programs for the past 28 years and has seen an influx in the number of ESL students over the years. In the year 2004-05 approximately 731 students enrolled in the program altogether from 54 countries. The elementary school curriculum includes a variety of materials according to student needs such as work books, songs, CD’s, learning of poems, class presentations etc. this program is more content based   and strong emphasis is give on the reading aspect in this program.   The program is organized around themes and aims at teaching critical thinking along with language skills to enable success in mainstream class rooms. In more specific terms this ESL program for elementary students includes Theme based English series which includes work books, posters etc. Group activities (theme based) which tend to explore literature along with songs, activities, TPR games etc. Miami Linguistics, which are designed for ESL beginners in a sequential reading manner. In Greenwich Public School, after completing the elementary school program after reaching grade 2 or grade 3, ESL students are expected to formulate questions, read outside of class, compare materials in a text and also contrast them. They are also able to express a story in their own words with proper understanding and expressions, write small paragraphs and initiate conversations. After completing the basic ESL program for elementary school, students can decide to move out of the program or advance to higher level middle school ESL program, which has its own curriculum and particular hours to be covered aimed at developing proficiency in English language. Placement in this program is based on entry tests and educational history. After looking at the details of different ESL programs offered by various institutes, if one actually compares them with reality, one can say that ESL programs put students under a lot of stress as they try to achive excellence in a second language, therefore recreational facilities should be made affordable, also the students should be encouraged to mingle with American students in order to culturally adjust with them   and pur into practice all the theories they have learnt in   class. Also one of the most important things which teachers for this program need to understand is that students enrolled in an ESL program come from very different backgrounds and cultures, therefore the same methodoligies cannot be applied across the board for teachin purposes. Students must be carefully monitered and encouraged to use their strengths to achive succcess in the course.   (Currie, 2003) If one compares the ESL program offered by greemwich Public School with other ESL programs offered, we can say that most ESL programs are similar in conducting theme based activities, which can be selected by asking students what they want to say, moulding the curiculum in children’s interest. Also at this stage most ESL programs are content based, songs are also one of the important keys to success in most ESL progrms. One of the methods which can contribute towards the improvement of an ESL program at Greenwich is that revision of matrial is very important before every new leson taught, this can be best achived with the help of songs before proceeding forward. Each lesson should be broken down into three to four parts, starting with warm up and revision of previous material, then teaching new lesson, for example new vocabulary words etc, the third part should incorporate games or activities t practice the new lesson and the ending of a esson sholud be on a happy thankful note, referably a song. This approach has been teted at ther ESL program and has proved to be very succesful. Different approaches to learning can be adressed thorough ESL games, making learning lessions fun and more effective. Depending on the students theses ESl games can vary from auditorylearnig style in which games involve more listening through peoms or repitation etc. Visual ESL styles ca be used for students who are more comfortable with videos of games involving flash cards etc and finally tactile learnig styles can be used in which â€Å"touch† are used.   (Vernon) In conclusion, if the current ESL program in a School district is evaluated in terms of the comparisons and details mentioned above,   I would say that diverse approach towards the students is missing and teachers are adopting   a homogenous method towards all students. In my opinion more effort needs to be diverted in this angle where different games and teaching styles are used after analysing the capabilities of students and more emphasis should be place on practical learning.

Look At Transmission Control Protocol Information Technology Essay

Look At Transmission Control Protocol Information Technology Essay Transmission Control Protocol is one most reliable ,connection oriented communication protocol used in the internet traffic .The main aim of this section is to conduct a research on TCP friendly protocols and find a suitable answer to the questions like the features of TCP that are not suitable for real-time multimedia application, TCP friendly congestion control for non-TCP application etc. I. Features of TCP not suitable for real time multimedia application. The uses of multimedia applications are increasing day to day in the internet traffic. In recent future it is sure that the real-time multimedia applications increase rapidly and make up a considerable portion of the total internet bandwidth. TCP is full duplex, connection oriented communication protocol that is used for transmitting data that mainly focuses on the accuracy of data. But some features of TCP are not suitable for real time multimedia application which includes the following. Reliability through Retransmission Since TCP is a reliable protocol it uses error control mechanisms like retransmission when an error occurs. Retransmission delay is one of the most important problems in multimedia application for TCP oriented connection. This retransmission is useful in traditional application such as http, FTP, telnet etc which require the loss free data transfer between the communicating media. In the case of multimedia application there is an massive emission of data into the network especially in the case of video. This will cause network congestion, since TCP is a reliable protocol it will reduce the window size and data emission rate to get out of this congestion. The retransmission causes end-to-end latency which is not suitable for real time multimedia applications where the receiver needs the data at the same time when the sender sends it. Congestion control In TCP, the available bandwidth can be monitored by using congestion algorithm which uses the transmission rate for the manipulation results in some deliberate waste. In the cases where there is no congestion, TCP congestion control fairly shares the available bandwidth. Over shorter time scales, the TCP instantaneous rate just looks like a saw- tooth. The cycles are between periods of additive increase separated by multiplicative decrease (AIMD). This rate fluctuation is not suitable for multimedia streaming application because it affects their smooth functioning. Socket based application programming interface The sockets based application programming interface does not support multihoming (a technique to improve the reliability of internet connection of an IP network). This result in an application can use only a single IP address to a particular TCP connection with another host. In an occasion where the interface associated with that IP address goes down which result in the connection loss and reestablishment. This is not suitable or multimedia applications like VoIP. TCP does not support multicasting In most of the multimedia communication like audio and video conferencing, the network traffic will be high and large amount of data flow across the network. In such situations data are transmitted by using multicasting techniques between the sender and the receivers. But TCP does not support multicasting TCP does not support time stamping. The major problem faced in real time multimedia applications like video and audio conferencing is the jitter. The major solution for the problem associated with jitter is the use of time stamps. The timestamp at each packet shows the time at which each packet is produced when compared with the previous one. So that the receiver knows when each packet is to be played. But unfortunately TCP does not provide support for time stamping. TCP is connection oriented The TCP is connection-oriented protocol. In this first a connection is established between the source and the destination before data transfer. The main disadvantage of this connection oriented protocol in real time communication like VoIP is the consumption of resources spent setting up the call. This connection oriented feature made a little overhead during connection establishment because it is time taken during certain occasions. Time overhead is not suitable for real time multimedia applications. Do not require full duplex transmission In TCP, the processes that reside in the internet establish a reliable serial communication path and exchanges full duplex stream of bytes. The processes within the communication are identified by the IP addresses. The full duplex connection is not compulsory for most of the multimedia application. The best example is TV broadcast over LAN; in most situations it uses simplex continuous media connection. Acknowledgement In TCP, there is the need of acknowledgement during the transmission of each packet. The positive acknowledgement causes overhead because all packets are sent with a fixed rate. This is not suitable for multimedia. II) UDP is TCP Unfriendly protocol In order to discuss about this topic we need to describe the basic functions of the TCP and UDP. In order to clearly define about the TCP, UDP unfriendliness we need to understand the basic concepts in detail. With the increased use of real time applications internet users looking for more reliable protocol that provide more faster medium for audio and video. Since TCP is a reliable protocol it has the capacity to reduce the amount of data loss, noise and out of sequence data. TCP uses connection based communication between the communicating hosts. This connection based feature of TCP helps in the guaranteed delivery of the packets. It has flow control and congestion control. In the case of UDP, it is unreliable. There is no guarantee for packet delivery and for the sequence. In this protocol there is no connection establishment before the communication starts and it sends the data according to its availability. In real-time communication (for audio or video), both the communicating ends look for speed rather than accuracy. The connection less feature of UDP, that sends the data when they are available and not try to resend once there is an error or packet loss made UDP much faster than TCP. This increased speed made more popularity for UDP in streaming media over internet. When compared to TCP the UDP has a main drawback, since UDP continuously sending packets through the network without considering there is congestion on the network. It does not take any measures to reduce the congestion in the case where congestion occurs. But TCP make use of the congestion control mechanisms like reduce the transmission rate. Since UDP does not make use of any congestion control algorithms when congestion occurs this tend to take the utilisation of the available bandwidth over the internet. For this reason UDP is known as a TCP unfriendly protocol. According to the opinion of Ross (2005, p.198) in his book Computer Networking specifies that UDP is the most commonly used protocol for multimedia application such as Internet phone, real-time video conferencing and streamed of audio and video. So in order to overcome these problems of congestion controls with UDP and improves the band width utilisation and also a fair towards competing TCP connection result in the devel opment of new technology called TCP friendly technique. With the increased popularity of the streaming media the UDP traffic becomes a problem for the internet as a whole. III) TCP Friendly congestion control protocols The popularity and development of internet leads to the extensive use of real-time multimedia applications like video conferencing, chatting etc. All these applications make use of non congestion controlled protocols like UDP for transmitting continuous video, audio through the network. This type of non congestion controlled traffic is called unresponsive flows. The major feature of the unresponsive flow is that they do not reduce their load on the network when there is a packet loss. They continuously transmit the data through the network at the rate with which is encoded without bothering about the network congestion. This type of UDP traffic causes traffic congestion in the network as well as it produce an extreme unfairness towards the network. In order to solve these problems, we need to improve the UDP for proper bandwidth utilisation, reducing loss ratio and also produce a fair towards the competing TCP connection and this is called as TCP Friendly. In this section we are disc ussing about the congestion control mechanisms used by TCP friendly protocols like TFRC and TFMC. TFRC (TCP-Friendly Rate Control) TFRC is mainly defined as a congestion control mechanism for unicast flows in the Internet. TFRC is evolved from TFRCP protocol and it is mainly used for unicast communication but sometimes it is used for multicast communication with some modifications. The lower variation of throughput over time makes this much more suitable for telephony or streaming media and which has a smooth sending rate. TFRC uses equation based congestion control for unicast traffic. In this mechanism it explicitly adjust its sending rate as a function of the measured rate of loss events where the loss events contain one or more packet dropped within a RTT. As it follows the equation based congestion control, TFRC directly make use of the TCP throughput equation which makes it possible to compete fairly with TCP. The following is the throughput equation used in the TFRC for congestion control: In this equation X is the transmit rate in bytes/second. S is the packet size in bytes. R is the round trip time in seconds. B is the no of packets acknowledged by a single TCP acknowledgement. t_RTO is TCP transmission timeout value in seconds. The general working of the TFRC congestion control mechanism as follows: As the first step the receiver calculate the loss event rate and gives this information back to the sender. Using this data the sender calculates round-trip time (RTT). Using this loss event rate and RTT, calculate acceptable transmit rate using the TFRC throughput equation. Finally the sender adjust the transmission rate to match the calculates rate. By using the receiver based mechanism TFRC is well suited for applications like the sender are a large server handling many concurrent connections and receiver is has more memory and CPU cycles available for computation. TFMC (TCP friendly Multicast Congestion Control) TFMC is the single rate congestion control scheme for multicast transmission. TFMC is single rated simply means that the receiver experiencing worst network condition will adapt to the sending rate. It has relatively low variation of throughput over time, which is suitable for applications that require a smooth sending rate like video streaming. The general working of TFMC congestion control as follows First step is the calculation of loss event rate and RTT by the receiver. By using this information with the help of TCP throughput equation the receiver derive a TCP friendly sending rate. In order to prevent feedback implosion at the sender the feedback is supplied only to a subset of the receivers using feedback suppression mechanism. In the receiver side the feedback is not suppressed and it calculates the transmission rate and gives it to the sender. This report has two main purposes, it helps to calculate the RTT for receiver and give the appropriate transmit rate for the sender. IV) TCP friendly congestion control for non-TCP applications. There are many studies conducted on TCP friendly congestion control for non TCP application. The congestion control mechanisms are used to achieve the following aims: Use of congestion control mechanisms help the applications to use the bandwidth more efficiently and thus increases the performance Those applications which adapt to the network can easily make use of the wider bandwidth and more useful of the Internet Congestion Control algorithms helps to reduce the Congestive Collapse ie the situation in which network performs a little work due to the over utilisation of network links. There are a number of TCP friendly congestion control mechanisms are introduced now a days which include end-to-end schemes and hop-by-hop mechanism. The end- to- end mechanism consist of AIMD window based and rate based protocols and hop-by-hop consist of rate based hop-by-hop mechanism. The end-to-end congestion control mechanisms are necessary for responsive as well as unresponsive flows which reduce the traffic load when packet loss occurs. In rate based hop-by-hop congestion control scheme it matches the sending rate of the connection to the service rate observed at the downstream node. In window based AIMD schemes which utilises the increased and decreased congestion window of the sender. This mechanism has some advantage as well as some disadvantages. The major advantage is that it is familiar, reasonable in the field of fairness, stability, oscillations and other properties. The disadvantage is that it has more abrupt changes and oscillation in sending rate which is not suitable for real time streaming application. In rate based AIMD schemes, the most common examples are RAP (Rate Adaptation Protocol) and LDA (Loss-Delay based Adjustment Algorithm). The LDA is mainly proposed for adapting the transmission rate of multimedia applications to the congestion level of the network. It mainly relies on end-to-end Real Time transport Protocol (RTP) and its control protocol (RTCP) for feedback information. The major difference between rate adaptation schemes and window based schemes is that the latter is not ack-clocked. The main advantage is that the adaption of the sending rate deduces the no of oscillations and also helps to reduce the heavy traffic in real-time applications.

Shakespeares Star Crossed Lovers :: essays research papers

In Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, set in Verona, Italy, Juliet’s own happiness is put on hold due to her parents authority and the lack of control children had in the sixteenth century. John W. Draper’s excerpt â€Å"Shakespeare’s Star-Crossed Lovers† also supports my outlook on how Juliet’s life is being controlled by her parents. Juliet is a thirteen year old Capulet who’s family is in a lifelong feud with her love interest’s family, Romeo, a Montague.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Act three, Scene five, Juliet is forced with a dilemma. Her parents have arranged for her to partake in the marriage of Country Paris. They told Juliet that she shall be wed on Thursday. â€Å"I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear it shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, rather than Paris† said Juliet to Lady Capulet (her mother). What her parents didn’t know was that she was secretly married to Romeo already. In her bedroom they argue about marriage. The Capulet’s don’t let her live her own life the way she wants. It’s like they are living through her or for her. Her opinion and happiness doesn’t seem to mean anything to her family. They are forcing her into a marriage with a man she has no affection towards whatsoever. She claims to love Romeo. Weather it’s real or not, we will never know, but if it’s what she wants and it will make her happy, I think they should back off of their daughter and let her live her life. If she makes a mistake it would be considered her mistake and misfortune. NOT her parents.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Draper explains how Juliet feels about her and Romeo’s fate of being together. â€Å"Nevertheless, over the play hangs a tragic fate....her ‘all-diving soul’ sees Romeo ‘As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.’ She described her case as ‘past hope, past cure, past help’ says Draper. He further explains in greater detail how Juliet feels about being put into this situation. He thoroughly explains how Juliet feels she has no control over her own life In this sixteenth century way of life. Although in Juliet’s decision since it is in fact her life, but considering the circumstances she was stuck with the awful fate her parents were controlling. Just think if Juliet’s parents only listened and didn’t push her, maybe Romeo and Juliet’s lives could have been spared.

Free Capital Punishment Essays: Mandatory Death Penalty for Nitwits :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Mandatory Death Penalty for Nitwits    When I was in high school, my friend Mike and I earned extra money working after school and on weekends at a drugstore located at the north end of our town. Before we started working in the retail business, we both had a fairly high opinion of humanity. That is to say, we thought that the average person wouldn't try to cheat us, would be at least marginally polite, and would be smart enough to avoid walking in front of a bus.    As it turned out, we were wrong.    When we stepped behind the counter of that drugstore, we had to remove the rose-colored glasses and reexamine our cherished ideas about humanity. We found that there were many, many rude people out there and that quite a few would cheat us if they were given half a chance. We also found the average person was much less intelligent than we had thought. On Labor Day, 1995, I started a list of all the irritating and stupid things that people did while we were at work. After a while, other employees began to contribute to the list, although I compiled about 75% of the complaints. By the time I left at the end of May 1996, the list had 567 items on it, and we were referring to some of the customers by number.    In particular, I remember 337, an older lady who came in early every Saturday morning to buy a candy bar. Sadly, 337 never had the requisite fifty cents, and as she was rummaging through her purse looking for spare change (which sometimes took as long as ten minutes), impatient customers would line up behind her. Finally, she would storm off in a huff.    Incredibly, 337 would return several times over the course of the day and attempt to purchase the candy bar again. Once more would come the agonizing search through her purse, but (surprisingly enough) the change at the bottom had not bred over the course of the day, and over and over she was forced to leave in defeat and shame.    Number 337 was hardly unique, or even unusual. Every shift that I worked, I was forced to deal with people nearly as clueless as she was. Mike and I were inevitably led to the conclusion that stupidity should be painful; we thought that if stupidity were painful, people would go to great lengths to educate themselves.

Why Napleon Was a Success :: European Europe History

Why Napleon Was a Success Napoleon Bonaparte, was born on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica. He had 7 brothers and sisters. His original nationality was Corsican-Italian. He also despised the French. He thought they were oppressors of his native land. His father was a lawyer, and was also anti-French. One reason Napoleon may have been such a conqueror was he was raised in a family of radicals. In 1784 to 1785 Napoleon attended the Ecole Militaire in Paris. That was the place where he received his military training. He studied to be an artillery man and an officer. He finished his training and joined the French army when he was 16 years old. Soon after that his father died, Napoleon was stationed in Paris in 1792. After the French monarchy was overthrown on August 10, 1792, Napoleon decided to make his move up in the ranks. After this, Napoleon started becoming a recognized officer. In 1792 Napoleon was prompted to the rank of captain. In 1793 he was chosen to direct the artillery against the siege in Toulon. He seized ground where he could get his guns in range of the British ships. Soon after that Toulon fell and Napoleon was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. When Napoleon was made commander of the French army in Italy. He defeated four Austrian generals in succession, and each army he fought got bigger and bigger. This forced Austria and its allies to make peace with France. During this campaign the French realized how smart Napoleon was. He developed a tactic that worked very efficiently. He would cut the enemy's army in to two parts, then throw all his force on one side before the other side could rejoin them. This method was extremely effective against the Sardinian troops, because he defeated them five times in 11 days. When Napoleon returned to Paris he receive a huge welcome. He then began thinking of pursuing political power and military power. He wanted to become the next Alexander the Great, so he asked the Directory if he could take a large army to Egypt. That way he could conquer an empire that included Egypt, India, and other middle and far east places. Napoleon came up with a neat idea to accomplish this.

Firefly: Malaysia Airlines and Airline Industry Essay

2.0 Background to the organization Firefly is the wholly-owned subsidiary by the Malaysia Airline System Berhad (MAS). Firefly is launched on April 3rd 2007 as well as it is the Malaysia’s first community airline that operated under FlyFirefly Sdn Bhd. the Malaysia’s first community airline also known as a new Malaysian no-frills airline. The name of Firefly is come from the characteristics of agility, brilliance, charm, and fun. Firefly offers a full service point-to-point carrier. The head office of Firefly is located at Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Subang, Selangor. The first flight of the Firefly was from Subang Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport to Penang International Airport, on the 2nd April 2007. Besides Airline of Air Asia Berhad, Firefly is another low-cost airliner. It mean that Firefly has the separate management compare with MAS even though it is wholly-owned subsidiary by MAS. Firefly is operated in two hubs that are located at Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, Subang, Selangor and Penang International Airport. Penang is the second big hub after the Kuala Lumpur. The aim of the Firefly is to bring communities closer by overcoming geographical constraints, link the world to the communities we serve, and contribute to the economy of the communities by bringing trade and tourism. Firefly not only wants to bring together the community in Malaysia but also for travelers to visit both of our neighboring countries and throughout the region. Become the Malaysia’s first community airline, Firefly most emphasis on the safety and comfort it its flying experience. However, Firefly try their best to provide the best service to their customers such as getting their customers to the destination in the shorter time, cost effective and make flying Firefly as a fun. 3.0 Situation analysis Positive or negative of general environment in the airline industry will significant affect the growth of the Firefly Airline. In order to growth the position and hit the target of Firefly, it is important to understand the current situation of external factor that can influence the Firefly Airline. 3.1General Environment 3.1.1 Political Fully Deregulation of the airline since December 2008 allow the member state to fly across other’s territory, make fuelling stop as well as pick up the passenger in order to complete their journey to reach their destination. This deregulation brings the benefit such as enhance the customer’s choice and increase the competition. For most time, the political stability and government decision will directly affect the direction and decision of the company. For example, the Malaysian government policy to support and develop the Low Cost Travel sector (Bernama 2006) was good news well for Firefly because Firefly applied the strategies of low cost carrier. Another example is Firefly took over the service rural air service in year 2007 announced by Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy (The star 2007). Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy announced that the rural air service was the responsibility of the government and they will continue to subsidies the cost for the operation of the rural air service to maintain the low-fare structure. Apart from that, On the 24 March 2010, the state government of Perak signed a contract for strategies collaboration with Firefly to promote tourism and foreign investment in their state. The decision of the state government brings good news to Firefly. Though this collaboration, Firefly can enhance their reputation and increase their profit. Ps: if too much words, can delete it or add to opportunity. 3.1.2 Economic [pic] Firure1: Traffic Update for Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) Member Airlines Source: AAPA (2010). From the figure 1, we can clearly see that the increase 10.7% in the passengers by November 2010 compared with November 2009. The main reason for the increase in passengers is Asia Pacific carrier had successfully in economic downturn. However, carriers need to carefully in the global recovery economic in develop market as well as the threat of high oil price or government increase the taxes. Due to the global recovery economic, Firefly planed to increase 3 new planes as the demand of travel. However, Firefly will be caution in the fuel cost since it steadily rising. 3.1.3 Socio cultural As a lower travel carrier, Firefly position itself at the middle class airline. Hence, we can see that Firefly always focus on four community that are The Holiday Goers community, the â€Å"Balik Kampung† Community, The â€Å"Indonesia Workers† community, and The Business Community. The Holiday Goers community is convenient to the tourists or Malaysians who like to visit the Langkawi, Phuket, Koh Samui. Firefly provides an attractive price for the tourists to encourage them flight on Firefly. For the â€Å"Balik Kampung† Community and the â€Å"Indonesia Workers† community, there have the same purpose. It allow the worker who work on other state or country as well as for those who want visit their relatives at hometown to reach their destination easily at a reasonable price. In addition, Firefly connect with major cities such as Johor Bahru, Penang, Alor Setar and Subang enable the executive travel their business trip convenient. 3.1.4 Technological  The aircraft of Firefly is the product that combined with the advanced technology. The aircraft named ATR 72-500 not only fuel efficiency, but also for the noise friendly. It compliant with noise regulations and have a large margin with regard to Chapter IV (ICAO) noise regulations effective 1st January 2006. ATR operate at relatively low altitude, leaving the ozone layer unaffected and barely contributing to pollution of the upper atmosphere such as features of low fuel burn and gaseous emissions. It also supports the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol as it is an opportunity to contribute to the prosperity of developing countries through the transfer of cleaner and greener technologies. Besides this, the 72-seat aircraft will be equipped with the â€Å"Elegance† cabin, Light Emitting Diode (LED) as well as the newest technological innovations in passenger comfort, communications and navigation tools. 3.2 Industry condition [pic] The Porter’s five force model is major affected in the airline industry due to the airline industry become the major and important industry in our world. Though the five forces of Porter, we can clearly understand the industry condition. The five forces include rivalry among existing competitors, threat of new entrants, threats of substitution products or services, bargaining power of supplier and bargaining power of buyer. 3.2.1 Rivalry among existing competitors  Rivalry among existing competitors mean that the competition between the existing competitors in an industry. Normally, this type of competition earn a low returns because the cost of competition are quite high. The competitors exist in the airline industry is high. Except the Firefly owned by MAS, there also have Air Asia, Berjaya Air, Layang-Layang Aerospace, Sabah Air and Hornbill Skyways which is a helicopter service that operates in the rural area of Sarawak. In order to boosts its market share, all competitors will try their best to offer different type of services, cut-fare and other benefit to grab the more and more customers from their competitor. This type of competition will result the overall slow market growth rate. 3.2.2 Threat of new entrants Threat of new entrants refers to the threat of new competitors to enter the exits market. If the new entrants can enter the market easily, that means the barriers to entry are low. Whereas if the new entrants difficult to enter the market, the barriers of entry are high. In the airline industry, the market is nearly saturated with the existing airline such as MAS, Air Asia, and Firefly and so on. The new entrants will face a lot of barriers if they want enter the market. One of the barriers is cost of entry. Airline industry is expensive industry. The cost of technology, buying or leasing aircraft and manpower are high. Another barrier is the brand name of existing market. For the most time, customers will loyalty to the brand that they preferred 3.2.3 Threat of substitute product A threat of substitute product is stated that the availability of another product that customers can purchases to replace for existing product. Airline industry considers highly risk in threats of substitute product. Customers would change their choice to another airline company if that company provides the lower price than others. The competitions between the airline industries enable all competitors to come out the better services, promotion and lower price. 3.2.4 Bargaining power of suppliers  Bargaining power of suppliers is the ability to setting the price. Normally the suppliers are power if there are not so many substitute supplier and suppliers more control and concentrated. The main suppliers in the Airline Industry are Boeing and Airbus. Therefore, airline industry isn’t any cutthroat competition due to the limited of suppliers. In other words, Airline Company less opportunity for the bargaining in industry and it can be threats of industry. 3.2.5 Bargaining power of buyers Bargaining power of buyers refer to the ability of the customers to setting the price. In Airline industry, bargaining power of customers are high because the highly competitive.

Customer-Driven Learning at Radisson Hotels Essay

In the case study titled â€Å"Customer-Driven Learning at Radisson Hotels Worldwide† the background, growth, and service guarantees of the Radisson Hotel chain is discussed. Radisson Hotels was founded in 1938 by Curtis L Carlson of Carlson Companies Inc. The company’s headquarters were located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and was divided into four operating groups – Carlson Hospitality Worldwide, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Carlson Marketing Group, and Carlson Leisure Group. In 1975 Radisson only had ten hotels but quickly grew to three hundred and sixty locations in forty seven countries by 1998 by partnering with existing hotel companies creating Radisson SAS Worldwide under the â€Å"growth at any cost† model. By 1998 Carlson Hospitality Worldwide included Radisson Hotels Worldwide, Country Inns & Suites by Carlson, TGI Friday’s, Regent Hotels, Italianni’s, Friday’s Front Row Sports Grill, Friday’s American Bar, and Radisson Seve n Seas Cruises (Schroeder, pg 454). Also in 1998 Curt Carlson’s daughter Marilyn Carlson Nelson took over as CEO of the Carlson Companies. It was at this time that Brian Stage, Radisson’s president, and Maureen O’Hanlon, Radisson’s executive vice president, started taking initiatives to transform the â€Å"growth at any cost† model to becoming a more customer-focused brand. To achieve this transformation from the current diverse hotel quality, they included a service guarantee, a guest satisfaction measurement program, and employee satisfaction measurement program, and an information technology initiative. Their goal was to make Radisson the â€Å"most trusted and respected brand worldwide† (Schroeder, pg 454). To support these strategies, Stage and O’Hanlon initiated a 100% guest satisfaction program, a fully integrated guest information system, guest and employee satisfaction measurement programs, guest recognition and rewards program, and a genuine hospitality program . Customer satisfaction is a relative concept that varies from one customer to another (Schroeder, pg. 147). A service guarantee is a promise by a company to compensate the customer in some way if the defined level of service delivered is not duly met. An effective service guarantee sets clear standards of performance for customers to expect and to which employees adhere (Al, 1993; Rose, 1990; Hart, 1988). It communicates to workers the level of service the organization intends to offer to its customers, as well  as provides a clear and strong task identity (Cahill & Warshawky, 1995). It mandates that every decision and employee must focus on the customers. Successful implementation of a service guarantee would require managerial emphasis and proper allocation of resources on key determinant variables. Management staff is primarily responsible for the formulation and communication of service priorities to frontline staff as well as the design of recovery measures for resolving customer complaints. Quality of service and the ability to attract and retain customers dictate the success or failure of hotel service providers. Hotels typically measure quality through inspections and with customer-satisfaction data. David Kearns once said â€Å"Performance benchmarking is the continuous process of measuring products, services and practices against the toughest competitors or those companies recognized as the industry leaders.† In today’s competitive environment, customers are quick to abandon services that do not meet expectations. The ease with which customers can switch from their current service to another, demands that providers deliver the highest possible levels of service quality and performance. To be successful, hotels must deliver positive customer experiences with rich, value-added services supported by comprehensive service quality management. Significant changes are occurring in the hotel industry that affect how providers run their businesses as well as what services they offer. There is a greater need to attract new customers, find new revenue sources, reduce operational costs and increase customer satisfaction. Successful quality management of next-generation services requires end-to-end service management across complex, multitechnology, multivendor infrastructures. Providers need to be able to quickly assess the impact of events on the performance and availability of revenue-generating services, establish and ensure aggregate service quality levels, and provide a detailed analysis of an individual subscriber’s experience that correlates back to broader service quality trends. In effect, providers need to be able to visualize service quality, prioritize their efforts and communicate relevant information to all stakeholders. This means they need to consolidate key data from disparate systems and from multiple vendors. They  need to be able to model relationships and dependencies between the network, applications and databases so they can see what resources are critical to their service. Communication plays a vital role in managing overall service quality. Providing relevant service intelligence to those who need it such as operations, IT, executives and customer care, helps providers rapidly resolve issues and minimize service impact on customers. They can quickly relate performance to business metrics. They can get a real-time view to better understand the customer experience. By improving communication across all levels of the value chain, they can help improve overall service quality and customer satisfaction. With the improved communication, Radisson must train all employees from all franchises in the same fashion to create a more consistent customer-driven concept. Many companies and franchise systems have found themselves in a situation where rapid change and deployment is critical to the company’s success. It’s absolutely essential to have a roadmap under these conditions. Once training is completed, studies and surveys must be done that include guests and employees to provide information that can be used to increase customer and employee satisfaction as well as help shape the direction for a defined service guarantee. Once defined, the service guarantee should be implemented to continually provide quality measurements and improve employee motivation. Providers also need a real-time view to understand the customer experience. How many customers are experiencing the service? Who is impacted by service issues? Providers need to be able to quickly assess the impact of events on service performance and availability, as well as how the business is affected. By providing a detailed analysis of an individual subscriber’s experience and correlating it back to broader service trends, providers can better manage the overall customer experience. Information technology software delivers comprehensive service quality management and customer experience management that help service providers  differentiate through improved service quality and lower operational costs. It gives them the ability to monitor and manage, from a single, central location, the availability, performance and quality of services. Information technology software equips them with a complete view of all the resources that comprise a service, from very beginning all the way to the customer. Information technology software not only plays a part in accelerating the drive to improve service quality but additionally measures information needed to improve customer and employee satisfaction. It can measure and create reports against key measurements to more effectively monitor availability, quality of virtually any service. By delivering new, high-quality services to market, they can attract new customers and generate new revenue streams. By enabling an improved customer experience, providers can help reduce churn, positively affect the uptake of that particular service and impact a subscriber’s willingness to try new services. Delivering consistent high-quality services to customers in a franchise business is more difficult than in a non-franchised business. In a franchised business, all employees must be trained in the same manner as well as have access to the same information. There are no exact guidelines, nor books to follow, nor formulas to adhere to when it comes to establishing and maintaining strong franchisor-franchisee relationships. It must be a strategic choice that is constantly enhanced, nurtured, and developed (Howe, 2003). Once a relationship is commenced it must be sustained, and any effort to maintain a high-quality affiliation requires the vital component of effective, two-way, communication. The franchisor is responsible for providing the channels for communication. A commitment to high-quality communication will also help to align the goals of the management team, hotel workers, owners, corporate management, and corporate staff. There are other benefits that come from this commitment to a two-way exchange of ideas and perspective. It cultivates a mutual respect and commitment between the employees, building trust and therefore solidifying a fully functional and working relationship. This should be designed to keep in touch with the franchisees’ core needs and goals, and provide an environment that enables  franchisees to approach the franchisor with questions, concerns, or ideas for improving the programs or recommended changes. Another means of communication is an intranet site accessible only by the franchisor, franchisees and their employees that provides a forum for questions, news updates, and other business information. Through these various forms of communication the franchisor can educate franchisees on the brand strategies and enhance their ability as keepers of the brand (Howe, 2003). Through a commitment to each of the key elements of effective two-way communication franchisors and franchisees can strengthen the strategies and consumer level execution that will drive their brand’s performance (Howe, 2003). Since the beginning of the change that Stage and O’Hanlon brought about, services have been implemented to acquire and satisfy customers. These services include the Express Yourself pre-arrival online check-in, the â€Å"Curtis-C† reservation system, the â€Å"Yes I can!† training program, the gold points plus customer reward program, and their 100% guest satisfaction service guarantee. These programs are designed to link the customers with the staff. The information technology used to create the check-in and reservation systems is an amazing service that benefits both the guest and the staff. The â€Å"Yes I can!† training program has been developed to train all employees consistently throughout the franchises to assist in aligning the goals of each franchise with their new brand strategy. The gold points plus reward program is a program that allows it’s customers to earn reward points that can be used for free stays or air miles. It also gives its members access to exclusive hotel and travel offers as well as in-hotel benefits. The website for the gold points program also lets it’s members make online reservations, check-in online, and select their stay preferences. In the matter of the last ten years, Radisson Hotels has escalated from a once â€Å"unfocused† brand into one of the world’s leading, full-service global hotel companies. This has been successfully accomplished through the organization of its franchises and implementation of information technology systems. Radisson Hotels & Resorts is committed to change and innovation in  all key areas including its growth strategy, operations, franchising, sales and marketing, and technology, to operate with maximum effectiveness in a highly competitive business environment (The Radisson Story). Technology will undoubtedly continue to develop and Radisson Hotels should continue to progress along with it to stay on top of the service industry as one of the best global hotel companies out there. References Al, L. (1993). Service guarantees in outpatient clinics: a case study. Health Care Management Review, 18 (3), 59-65. Cahill, D. J., & Warshawky, R. M. (1995). Beyond competence: unconditional guarantees as a customer-service tool. Journal of Customer Service in Marketing and Management, 1 (3), 67-77. Hart, C. W. L. (1988). The power of unconditional service guarantees. Harvard Business Review, 88 (4), July/August, 54-62. Howe, Michael C. (2003). Keys to a successful franchisor-franchisee relationship: through a commitment to each of the†¦ Franchising World. http://www.allbusiness.com/management/657315-1.htmlImprove service quality and enhance the customer experience. December 2007 ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/tivoli/whitepapers/GMW14002-USEN-00_SP.pdfKearns, David. Chairman of the New American Schools Development Corporation, formerly chairman and CEO of the Xerox Corporation and Deputy U.S. Secretary of Education. Rose, M. D. (1990). No strings attached. Chief Executive, 60 (Jul/Aug), 30-33. Schroeder, Roger. (2008). Operations Management: Contemporary Concepts and Cases 4th Edition. McGraw-Hill. New York, New York. The Radisson Story. http://www.radisson.com/section/aboutus.story/aboutus.sidemenus

Advantages of Homework

Almost every individual who underwent formal studying (traditional, distance learning, home schooling etc) experienced being assigned with a homework or assignment. A homework/assignment is a task delegated by a teacher to the student, a take-home chore that the student should accomplish at home and present/submit at the start of the following school day. Assignments and homework tasks inside school setting is, without a doubt, one of the oldest tools being used by teachers and academicians who believe that such tasks contribute to the learning of the student. The use of homework and assignment is largely observed in different parts of the world. Asian, American and European schools, as well as other learning institutions, use homework and assignment to impart lessons and to train students towards acquiring a habit of reading and writing. Furthermore, it develops other faculties of thinking and behavior to achieve the idea of â€Å"learning,† both academics-wise and the implication of this knowledge in more practical and real-life application. Homework, pop culture, socially-shared beliefs and the student stereotype Homework has been an integral part of the systematic, school-based learning process. Because the academic learning process is a significant aspect of the social life both for children (who are studying) and adults (who are parents or guardians of studying children), it should come as no surprise when student life, learning and the learning tools like homework and assignment was easily integrated in the social culture. The pop media portrays diligent and studious individuals as those who take time to work on their homework and assignment. While the accomplishment or failure to accomplish assignment and homework requirements are socially accepted cultural symbolisms for the lax, the academically-challenged or those who are not too serious about learning anything from school. Take for example, the case of the characters Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasly of the book and movie fame Harry Potter series. Hermione possesses the characteristic of being a bright and smart student, while her friend Ron was not as good in their academics while studying at Hogwarts. This is established with many different instances, including the several times Ron asked Hermione to help him with his assignment and homework. The times when Ron would grumble about lengthy homework and assignment, and the instances wherein Hermione would attribute her knowledge by studying well ahead and doing their homework and assignment as required by their teacher, implying that her knowledge was a result of many different things, and that includes homework and assignment. Mainstream media, like movies and television shows, portrays not just the stereotypes represented by their attitude towards assignment and homework. It also represents the different perspective of students towards homework and assignment, and the attitude the students take become role models or key influence-sources for other students for their attitude towards assignment and homework. â€Å"Students reported that they were distracted from schoolwork and homework by inappropriate role models on television. They complained that their parents did not sufficiently monitor the kinds of television programs they watch or how much time they spent watching television (Ogbu, 2003, p. 240). † In the movie American History X, the character played by Edward Furlong was summoned to the principal’s office because of a scandalous output in one of his history homework tasks. The principal made another assignment, and it was the accomplishment of this assignment that Furlong’s character managed to get a perspective of his life and how he is affected by the people around him and the society in general. The assignment/homework in the movie represents the many different touchstones for self realization, self assessment and a way to ventilate thoughts and feelings so that constructive knowledge can come in and help shape the person towards how the society expects one to be. This idea points to the fact that the state of homework and assignment culture reflects the students as much as it reflects the status of this particular tool in the society. If there are too many signs saying that the society condones dissatisfaction over the tasks involved in assignment and homework compliance, then the society should re-assess its position. It should take a very good look at the positive impact of homework and assignment in the learning process of a student before it allows the feeling of negativity towards this particular learning tool to go any further. In print and in television, fictional scenarios in books, television shows, comic strips, movies and other types of entertainment, tackle the issue of assignment and homework by featuring a dutiful mother or father encouraging their child to work on his/her assignment and homework. Amidst futile protests and childish grumblings, symbolizing the fact that homework and assignment is not particularly popular in some members of the student population. In real life, many students are not fond of assignments, and some of them may have very valid points in arguing for the abolition of the use of assignment and homework as a learning tool. In some cases, the inability of teachers and parents to use strategies for effective assignment and homework tasking removes whatever possible positive impact that assignment and homework posses. Most teachers see the value of assigning homework, but get bogged down in its management. Most parents see the value of homework (Mierzwik, 2005, p. 23). † But clearly, the above mentioned considerations are mere meager and insignificant compared to what students all in all are set to gain if the school systems are allowed to continue using homework and assignment to infuse the learning experience to the students. The reasons why assig nment and homework are educational tools advantageous to the learning of the students far outweigh the reasons why the academe should do without it. Problem Statement Despite the long use of assignment and homework inside the academic learning process, there are those who believe that homework and assignment is archaic, anachronistic and overall a waste of time. This is largely because they consider assignment and homework as futile and a waste of time for students and teachers since nothing advantageous is extracted from it. This paper will try to refute this idea and present proof that contrary to the belief of those batting for the abolition and removal of assignment and homework. The use of this particular tool inside schools and learning institutions in fact provide a very important contribution towards the overall growth and development of the knowledge and intelligence level of a student owed to a productive learning process maximized by the input of homework and assignment in the learning process. The root of the problem is the emergence of the belief that school systems and teaching styles is better off without the use of assignment and homework. Looking at the life cycle of assignments, it is easily noticeable how there are many different weak points in the homework and assignment accomplishment process that somehow contributes to the weakening of the desired effects of homework and assignment, and these factors cannot be easily remedied. The desired effect to students who accomplish the homework and assignment tasks given by the teacher is clearly jeopardized in many different instances, and because of this, some people believe that the system is better without such set of tasks. Proponents of those going against the idea of using assignment and homework believe that the use of such tool is pointless in many different instances which are constantly occurring and is not something alien to the way of life of students everywhere. Roots of the problem: Providing a hypothetical analysis to the reasons and the factors involved in the perceived failure and futility of the use of assignment and homework To be able to see the weak points where the essence of the advantages of homework and assignment seeps out even before it is used and maximized by the students, there should be an analysis of some of the common instances and factors that should be addressed before homework and assignment returns to its previously potent state. Why is assignment and homework not doing what it is supposed to do to students? The very first weak link in the armor is found in the participation of the students. But these are problems which can be remedied. These problems decreases the impact of assignment and homework but this alone does not make homework and assignment useless. The educational institution cannot just remove an age old learning tool just because it was more convenient to do so. The problem was there were factors that limit and adversely affect the impact of homework and assignment on the students. This does not mean that homework and assignment are useless and was useless from the start. The rest of the paper will elaborate on the perceived advantages of the use of assignment and homework, in the hope that these advantages are convincing enough for it to be the catalyst of change towards the manner by which homework and assignment is appraised, considered and utilized. The paper hopes to accomplish this through by proving key points about the issue by referencing some of the previously published works that support the overall claim and stand of the paper about homework and assignment. Literature Review To be able to establish the claim that the use of homework and assignment as part of the academic progress and learning process of the student is indeed useful and advantageous for the student, this research will rely on the input from several literary sources proving that the paper's claim stands on solid grounds. Proof of the advantages of Homework Artzt and Armour-Thomas (2001) explicitly stated in the book â€Å"Becoming a Reflective Mathematics Teacher† about the importance and significance of assignment and homework in student learning. Most teachers agree that homework is a critical part of the teaching-learning process (Artzt, Armour-Thomas, 2001, p. 130). † Artzt and Armour-Thomas believed that the role of homework and assignment is that this allows the student to demonstrate what he or she learned in school. Through this exercise, the lessons are retained more effectively in the consciousness of the student, therefore making assignments and homework integral in the learning process. This particular line of thought can be seen in different research and study efforts wherein researchers used real students and real learning experience to see the effect of providing assignment and homework and other learning tools and support structures to see if improvement is noticeable after exposure to such methods. Cooper and Valentine (2001) wrote in detail about these types of studies so that researchers can reference previous research and study results involving students and the effect of homework and assignment in their performance after long term and short term experimentation. Students with learning disabilities and average-achieving students with homework problems showed significantly improved rates of homework completion ad weekly quiz performance in response to â€Å"real-life† assignments, homework planners and graphing (Cooper, Valentine, 2001, p. 175). † The learning process, as Artzt and Armour-Thomas suggested, is not confined in the four corners of t he classroom but instead involves the family and the home. Since it is not always easy to consistently gauge if all of the students are learning, the outcome in of the assignments and homework which the student submit will allow the teacher an additional avenue which the teacher can use to have an insight in the academic development and learning progress of the student. Assignment and homework is an important support structure in learning because through assignment and homework, the information that the student needs to remember constantly to be able to learn and master is tackled during and after school. Yes, those who oppose assignment and have no faith in the positive effect of homework may argue that indeed, there are many other different learning tools which can be used to teach students and make their learning process a success. But what is more important is that while assignment and homework alone cannot provide the holistic academic and learning development a student needs. It is nonetheless a very integral and significant part that without which there will be a clear struggle to learn and retain information which was absorbed by the student while in school. With access to these various support structures, students' ability to successfully learn mathematics was enhanced. One student†¦ stated, ‘in algebra when I first started, I didn't understand something like writing equations, so I would go in after school. I got help everyday until I understood (Kitchen, Celedon-Pattichis, De Pree, 2006, p. 102). † Mierzwik (2005) was in total agreement about the proposition on the idea about the significance of the role of assignment and homework in student learning and the overall Learning Process. Everyone would agree that the more you practice a skill, the better you will be at performing that skill. Homework provides a valuable opportunity to ‘monitor student learning, practice of a skill or concept that has been taught, tie in school learning with real world experience, actively involve the family in the student's education and prepare for in-school activities (Mierzwik, 2005, p. 23). † Several books talk about how teachers, researchers and academicians study the impact of homework and assignment in different subjects, different age level and in different situations. There are results that lead to the conclusion that homework indeed helps students improve in their academics and be more susceptible to learning. Cooper and Valentine (2001) wrote in a book entitled â€Å"Homework† about a study involving students who were provided with homework. Before the use of homework, the researcher noted the academic performance and strength of all of the students involved, and the researcher noted that 50 percent of the students involved in the experiment showed improvement after being subjected to assignments. Rosenberg (1989) compared the effect of direct instruction plus supplemental homework on the math performances of six elementary students with learning disabilities. Homework improved the performance of three students while three showed inconsistent performances (Cooper, Valentine, 2001, p. 175). † Cooper and Valentine (2001) talked about studies focused on the role of homework and equal significance of their supporting learning tools. The completion of homework and the ability to make the most out of homework and assignment is harnessed among the target students, writing about how a group of researchers â€Å"trained parents of students who were both learning disabled and gifted to use homework compliance timetable (e. g. homework is to be done from 4:45 to 5:50 p. m. ) and noncoercive behavioral discipline techniques. From baseline to study end, students showed improved grades and behavior (Cooper, Valentine, 2001, p. 175). † Homework, active participation and the positive end result. Working on assignments and homework can bring out the best in the student especially for shy and timid students who would not recite or actively participate in class. This is because assignment are done inside the house, inside the student’s room where the student is not conscious with the approval and appraisal of his/her teacher/classmate with what he or she is doing. Because of this, the inhibition decreases and the student becomes more relaxed, allowing the student to be able to focus and bring out everything that he or she learned at school and apply it in the assignment. Mathematics, in particular, is one of the subjects which can be better learned if the learning set up and situation is like this, making it more conducive to learning. â€Å"Learning mathematics necessitates active involvement on the student’s part. Giving students problems to do on their own in the privacy of their homes affords them the opportunity to practice what they have learned, to discover what is they do not understand, and possibly to extend their learning through new applications (Artzt, Armour-Thomas, 2001, p. 30). † Rosenblum-Lowden (2000) explained the importance of assignment and homework in the teaching and learning cycle of the life of students and teachers by describing homework and assignment as something regularly and consistently seen. Teachers have a very crucial role in the preservation of the culture of assignment and homework inside the classroom because if the teachers give in to the demand for the â€Å"no-assignment† policy. Students would stop expecting it altogether, and that is a problem, not just in the behavior of students in learning-related tasks but as well as their outlook in assignment and homework after long stretches of not experiencing one. Because of this, there is a need for a consistent, regular and expected assignment and homework tasks. â€Å"It is a good idea to have a short daily homework assignment prepared from Day 1. They’ll groan, but don't be put off by it. They expect homework! I always put my assignments in the same spot on the board. When my students walk in my room, they automatically look at the upper left-hand corner of the board. It just makes for an easy routine, and homework becomes something they expect – and should get (Rosenblum-Lowden, 2000, p. 39). † Having provided sufficient input to prove that assignment and homework is an important part of a student’s life which enables the learning process to take its course in a way that is productive and effective, it is also important to point out that there are people and institutions that are still doing everything they can. They can better understand the nature of giving assignments and homework and how this particular tool helps (and can better help) the students, the teacher, the teaching style, the learning process and experience and the facilitation of retention of knowledge through repetitive action and exercise. Researchers constantly focus on the understanding of different factors affecting the effectiveness of homework and assignment and why it can also fail for some students. The effort to understand assignment and homework better always have in it the potential to be able to improve assignment and homework design in a way that it can allow students and teacher to use it better and expect more positive impact with the use of this tool. â€Å"We wanted to include factors such as student’s attitude to the subject and their relevant prior knowledge in relation to the task as it was likely to be relevant to their response to a particular homework assignment (Poulson, Wallace, 2003, p. 130). † Other implications of homework and assignment in student and learning process Aside from the role of assignment and homework in student learning per se, some professionals believe that there are other roles that homework and assignment takes on, roles which yield output that is still advantageous to the pursuit of learning of the student. â€Å"Earlier research had suggested that student’s engagement with homework may be related to their learning identity (Poulson, Wallace, 2003, p. 90). † The full impact of the role of homework and assignment, professionals believe, is yet to be discovered despite available information that already shows the significance of homework and assignment. Aware of such situation, some researchers are still putting effort towards finding out more about homework and its impact and effect in the student and in the student learning process. Researchers anticipate results that are inclined towards proving that homework and assignments are overall useful and advantageous to the student. â€Å"We wished to discover whether a particular homework assignment had increased any student's knowledge of the topic, provided the student with new skills or understanding, or helped her or him to make connections with out-of-school learning. Following Pollard and Filer, we were interested in looking at wider learning outcomes, such as whether the completion (or non completion) of a homework assignment had any impact on a student’s self esteem, attitude towards the subject or wider orientation towards learning (Poulson, Wallace, 2003, p90). † Some teachers and academicians believe so much in the power of homework and assignment in student learning that they even organize groups and school-based clubs designed specifically to maximize the use and impact of homework and assignment in the life of the students, using it to learn more and consistently. An additional means for supporting student learning was an afterschool homework club staffed with volunteer tutors from the community. One teacher†¦ explained, ‘the school†¦ offers a homework club that runs Monday through Friday. ’ Finally, most teachers were available everyday after school for additional support (Kitchen, Celedon-Pattichis, D e Pree, 2006, p. 102). † Literary support outside the educator’s readings for understanding homework and assignment problems and solutions. In the effort to understand the nature of the student’s reaction towards assignment and homework, academicians and teachers should also try exploring other fields and profession which utilizes homework and assignment. Through this, teachers and academicians can better appreciate and understand the impact of homework and assignment even outside academic life and in the process learn new things which it can integrate to the teaching paradigm involving the use of assignment. Take for example, the assessment of assignment and homework compliance and the attitude and the factors involved in this analysis. This aspect is important if the academic world wants to preserve the use of assignment and homework. But for them to do so, it is not enough to understand merely the positive impact of assignment and homework. It is also important that they have a very good perspective when it comes to analysing the probable chinks in the failure of the assignment and homework as a teaching strategy. The field of psychology maybe the best first stop in the effort to circumnavigate the different professions that are dependent on the use of assignment which are capable of understanding the nature of homework when it breaks down. When clients fail to do homework, respond in a neutral but curious manner and focus on identifying the problems that may have contributed to homework noncompliance. If the homework was not completed (or attempted) set aside the entire session to review why the homework was not done†¦ Did we make the homework too difficult? Were the homework instructions unclear? Did some u nanticipated problem arise (Koocher, Norcross, Hill, 2004, p. 323)? † This particular style in insight towards understanding assignment and homework and the factors that affect it may not just minimize the rise of negativity over assignment and homework all in all. But this may also lead to a more constructive appraisal and assessment of the problem and the possible solutions and adjustments so that assignments and homework can be used and improved. Recommendation The investigation of the paper about the different important aspects related to the establishment of the presence of advantage and gain in the use of homework and assignment also brought to light some important points of discussion. The perceived positive characteristics of assignment and homework are maximized by the student, teacher and the academic /educational institutions. As the presence of the good effect of assignment and homework is already seen and felt, it is nonetheless paramount that factors that deter the further development of assignment and homework as a learning tool are identified and necessary actions taken regarding such factors. There are less and less reasons for cynics and sceptics to doubt the potency of homework and assignment. Seek parent support in utilizing and maximizing the effect of assignment and homework – The active role of parents also is an important consideration if teachers and academicians want to take assignment and homework to another level and make the most of the effect of homework and assignment. This is something that researchers have already looked into in the past, and they have contributed several important insights in the importance of parent roles in the success and positive impact of assignments and homework. If parents think that they are not instrumental in the success of homework and assignment and the overall academic performance of their student-children, they are completely mislead by this belief. â€Å"The importance of parents’ supervision of homework was not lost on the students. For example, MAC scholars reported that parents’ supervision of their schoolwork and homework was an important reason for their academic success (Ogbu, 2003, p. 240). † Cooper and Valentine (2001) wrote about the positive impact of assignment when used alongside effective parenting in the learning and education process of a student. Cooper and Valentine (2001) discussed about a study featured the training of â€Å"parents of sixth and seventh grade at-risk youth to monitor and check homework, use materials provided, and role-play homework situations. Students were trained to (a) self monitor, (b) self record, (c) self-reinforce, and (d) self-instruct and set goals. Students whose parents implemented program strategies accurately and consistently showed increased homework completion, homework quality, and scores on a standardized math test than students who parents did not follow through (Cooper, Valentine, 2001, p. 175). † But parents should understand that the meaning of parent’s participation refers to the presence of encouragement and guidance in having the student accomplish the assignment or homework. Parent involvement in the homework does not mean that teachers should make very difficult assignments that the parents are forced to do it themselves. Homework is also a parent-teacher relationship too. The homework represents you. Make sure it isn't just busywork, or so difficult that you expect parents to play a major role in it (Rosenblum-Lowden, 2000, p. 39). † Take active role in the breaking down of culture and practices surrounding students today which enables them to escape the task of doing their assignment and hom ework Many parents, individuals and groups are talking about the possible decay of the educational institutions because of the worsening case of the ability of students to learn. But adults who are influential in the educational system of the society should also take a good look at their role as policy makers in the educational system. Instead, they should support the development and continued use of learning tools such as assignment and homework by doing their part in removing and blocking social trends that inhibit the undertaking and effectiveness of homework and assignment. Some may think that this issue should be addressed solely by the members of the educational institutions and parents. But there are those who believe that the change in educational system involves the entire society in itself. All of the aspects found here contribute greatly to how educational system and culture is shaped, and that includes the shaping of the attitude towards assignment and homework by students, parents, academicians and other members of the society, some of them indifferent to the problem itself. â€Å"We also needed to recognise that these specific contexts were in turn located within a range or wider social, political and cultural contexts. For example, as already mentioned, we would be carrying out our study in a time when there was considerable support and enthusiasm for homework from politicians and policymakers (Poulson, Wallace, 2003, p. 90). † There are also other significant inputs for this particular issue. For one, it is important that there is an effort to redesign, if necessary, assignment styles and structures in a way that it is more exciting and stimulating to do, moving away from the copy-and-paste approach that question and answer assignment types solicit from students who are answering their assignments in a robotic function. Believe it or not, your students understand that homework is a sign that a teacher cares about them. It is easier not to give homework, but we must give challenging assignments. Of equal importance is the manner in which the assignments are treated by the teacher (Rosenblum-Lowden, 2000, p. 39). † One of the possible reasons why assignments, over time and long exposure of students to it, becomes ineffective is the redundancy and the lack of exciting and stimulating challenge that students get from it. Learning is more easily achieved if the experience features excitement due to mental stimulation, powered by the fuel of genuine inquisitiveness and not forced by role-playing chores or by authoritarian pressure. It is important to remind the teachers and the academicians that as much as students are learning everyday, so should they. The focus of learning is how to move away from overused assignment and homework styles, try to move out of their comfort zone and study new ways and means to make assignment and homework more intellectually stimulating. If the students find homework and assignment as exciting as the other things that they do in their own accord and will, then the learning process that goes with it will be able to function. â€Å"In addition to thoughtfully assigning problems from the text, teachers should also try to assign interesting problems by consulting other sources and or using their own creativity (Artzt, Armour-Thomas, 2001, p. 130). † Conclusion One of the important points raised here, is that, despite the fact that there are already many different available information about homework and assignment and the role of this learning tool not just in learning but also in the overall development of a student as a person, there are still many individuals who are bent on knowing more about the impact of homework and assignment to a student. There are other important information about homework and assignment, which maybe usable in the near future for homework/assignment assessment and other related endeavor. The other information coming from the pursuit of knowing the advantages of homework and assignment to a student’s learning process also yields information that is interesting and quite useful for demographic breakdown on other assignment and homework-related problems (i. e. the ratio of the different types of students and how they respond to assignments and homework and the reason for such occurrence, etc). â€Å"There is evidence that female students do more homework than males (Poulson, Wallace, 2003, p. 90). †