Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Continental Philosophys Search for Balance Essay

Continental Philosophys Search for Balance - Essay Example "Such absolutizing, he charged, lent itself to generalizations of broad critical scope with respect to the idealistic procedure of hypostatizing the Idea and brought about (as allegorical derivatives from it) certain concrete political and social determinations, such as family, classes, and the state powers...In Marx's view," Hegel's dialectic "was mystifying and alienated inasmuch as Hegel did nothing but sanction, by a method inverted with respect to real relationships, the alienation of all the concrete historical and human determinations" (Rossi). Existentialism with "Soren Kierkegaard in the first half of the 19th century. He was critical of Hegel's philosophical system which analyzed Being (or existence) in an abstract and impersonal way. Kierkegaard was concerned with the individual's subjective experience of what it is to exist as a human being. For Kierkegaard the individual constantly has to choose what s/he is to become without recourse to the findings of science and philosophy" (Jones). Existentialism would eventually come to its most potent expression in the writings of the Frenchman Jean-Paul Sartre.... ..Politically Sartre claimed he was a Marxist and thought that freedom had both political and individual dimensions." Sartre, who in contrast to Kierkegaard was an atheist, coined the Existentialist credo, "Existence precedes essence". "What Sartre meant by the phrase 'existence precedes essence' is this: If there is no cosmic designer, then there is no design or essence of human nature. Human existence or being differs from the being of objects in that human being is self-conscious. This self-consciousness also gives the human subject the opportunity to define itself. The individual creates [oneself] by making self-directed choices" (Jones). There remained echoes of Hegel to be heard within Sartre. "The first Sartrean thought which has been derived from Hegel is the view that if there is to be any Truth in man's understanding of himself, it must be a Truth which becomes. Truth is thus something which emerges." With this assertion we hear "an obvious trace both of Hegelian dialectics and the Marxist tenet of the knowability of man. The second thing in Sartre which can be traced back to Hegel is the claim that what Truth must become is a totalization. We find in Hegelian dialectics that the synthesis is a totalization of the truth found in both the thesis and the antithesis. In the same manner, we find in Sartre asserting that the Truth in man is a Truth not just about his existence but also about the situations surrounding his existence" (Decino). Twenty-first Century Continental philosophy has come to be "preoccupied with two alternative formulations" that seem to transmute the Hegelian dialectic: desire given kinetic energy as jouissance and desire given kinetic energy as power. "These two views oppose and complement each other. They form a frame within which

Monday, October 28, 2019

Integrative Network Design Essay Example for Free

Integrative Network Design Essay Riordan Manufacturing is a global plastics manufacturer. Their products include plastic beverage containers produced in Albany, Georgia, custom plastic parts produced in Pontiac, Michigan, and plastic fan parts produced in Hang Zhou, China (UOPX, 2013, p. 1). Riordan’s research and development is in San Jose, California (Corporate Headquarters). Riordans main customers are automotive parts manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers, the Department of Defense, beverage makers and bottlers, and appliance manufacturers (UOPX, 2013, p. 1). Team B and associates were task by Riordan to analysis Riordan’s WAN and add a wireless Network to Riordan Manufacturing, also to analyze and update Riordan’s Internet security in each of the locations and provide documentation for security policies and procedures. What is a wireless network and what are the benefits of going wireless. With the current wireless technology, Wi-Fi is everywhere; one can connect to the Internet by going to coffee houses, airports, hospitals, hotels, and homes. Businesses can stay connected to their coworkers and customers without being tied to their office desk by using wireless networks and Wi-Fi hotspots. Wireless local-area network (WLAN) allows personnel to connect to their computers without wires or cables. A wireless network uses radio waves to connect and communicate within a certain area to mobile devices. If someone needs a document while attending a meeting in the conference room or one needs to access the inventory list from the warehouse. A wireless network allows one to access the company’s Internet and retrieve documents on their mobile devises without leaving the meeting or going back to their office. Benefits of Wireless Networking The benefits of company’s going wireless include convenience, mobility productivity, and ease of set up, scalability, security, and cost. Mobile devices in today’s society are equipped with Wi-Fi technology and able to connect to a WLAN. Convenience: employees can access securely to their company’s network resources from any location within their coverage area. The coverage area normally is the office building but is able to expand to other company facilities. Mobility: employees are connected to the network when they are not at their office desk. People in meetings can access documents and applications with their mobile devices. Salespeople can access the company’s network from any location. Productivity: employees accessing their documents and applications are the key to get the job done, and it encourages teamwork. Customers also have access to the company’s Internet using a secure guest access to view their business data. Ease of setup: business do not have to run cables through the facilities, installation is quick and cost-effective. WLAN’s make it easier to for hard to reach locations to have connectivity to the network. Scalability: with businesses expand, company’s need to expand quickly along with their network. Wireless network expands with the current existing equipment. Security: the success in controlling and managing secure access to a business’s wireless network is very important. Security managers must be knowledgeable with the advanced Wi-Fi technology and needs to provide vigorous security protections to protect their data, but only giving permission to who need access. Cost: businesses that operate with and WLAN, reduces wiring costs during office upgrades. How Riordan Manufacturing can use a wireless Networking Company’s using a wireless networks are boosting productivity and encourage data information sharing. Employees can wander throughout the building using mobile devices and still have constant access to documents, e-mails, applications, and other network resources required to do their jobs. Employees using wireless LAN can travel throughout the office building without losing Internet connectivity. Employees having a team meeting or in conference can have the most updated communications, including all documents and applications on the network. Voice over internet protocol (VOIP) technology; also have roaming capabilities in their voice communications. Improved responsiveness Customers require rapid replies to questions and concerns. A WLAN improves customer service or relationships by connecting employees to the data information. Better access to information WLAN’s allow business’s access to all areas in the building without any connectivity issues. WLAN’s are very effective in warehouses, manufacturing plants, and distribution centers. Employees can access inventories and providing accurate figures in real time to management. Easier network expansion Businesses expanding and hiring new employees are easily added the network by the network administrator. Office furniture is easily moved and employees are added or removed to/from the network without issues. Enhanced guest access WLAN’s allow businesses to provide secure wireless access to the Internet for guests or visitors. Hospitals, restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, and other public businesses provide WI-FI to all mobile devices. The IT administrator will need to verify that all the desktop PCs already have the integrated Wi-Fi hardware installed or the PC’s will need to upgraded. Switching to a WLAN does not mean switching changing from ones existing wired network. It is common for businesses to have a wired-wireless network that provides wireless capabilities to conference rooms or in new expanded office spaces. WLAN’s also supports VOIP for the conference rooms. IT managers should be aware of some of the technical aspects of WLAN’s. The WLAN network covers approximately about 3,000 square feet. The range of a wireless router could be affected by walls and cubicles, and the signals are hard to be received in elevators. Other issues IT managers should be made aware of include: †¢Wireless router is shared between 15-20 users per each access point for data, 8-12 for VOIP †¢VOIP quality, wireless routers need to be installed closer together †¢Routers have enhanced coverage when they are installed on the ceiling. Security policies and procedures in a WLAN are very important to consider when establishing a wireless network. Security policies that need to be considered: †¢Data encryption †¢User authentication †¢Secure access for visitors †¢Control systems. To prove that the design meets the data rate requirements, you need to calculate the required data transfer rate for all your networks. Backups over the network must move the data from all your clients, to your media servers fast enough to finish backups within your backup window. To calculate the data transfer rate, use this formula: Required network data transfer rate = (amount of data to back up) / (backup window) the chart below shows the typical transfer rates of some of the more resent network technologies. Table: Network data transfer rates (PowerTech. com, 2010, p. 1) Network TechnologyTheoretical gigabytes per hourTypical gigabytes per hour 100BaseT (switched)3625 1000BaseT (switched)360250 10000BaseT (switched)360025 Here is an example of how to calculate the required data transfer rate for your network: (Symantec Corp, 2013, p. 1) Use the following assumptions: †¢Amount of data to back up = 500 gigabytes †¢Backup window = 8 hours †¢Required network transfer rate = 500 gigabytes/8hr = 62. 5 gigabytes per hour Solution 1: Network Technology = 100BaseT (switched) Typical transfer rate = 25 gigabytes per hour A single 100BaseT network has a transfer rate of 25 gigabytes per hour. This network cannot handle your required data transfer rate of 62. 5 gigabytes per hour. In this case, you would have to explore other options, such as the following; backing up your data over a faster network (1000BaseT), large servers to dedicated tape drives (SAN media servers), SAN connections by means of SAN Client. Performing off-host backups using Snapshot Client to present a snapshot directly to a media server that backups during a longer time window, performs your backups over faster dedicated networks such as solution 2: Network Technology = 1000BaseT (switched) and Typical transfer rate = 250 gigabytes per hour Based on the above network table; a single 1000BaseT network has a transfer rate of 250 gigabytes per hour. This network has much more capacity to handle the backups for this system. To build a backup system for you network; you complete the following. The data transfer rates for your networks must be calculated in order to identify your various problems and potential bottlenecks. (The latest breaking technological solutions for dealing with multiple networks problems and potential bottlenecks are readily available for installation. ) Once the data transfer rates required for your backups are calculated, the rate of transfer must be able to achieve a complete backup of all your data within the allotted time. Then you must determine the most efficient type of tape or disk technology is available to meet your company’s specific needs. Determine the specific number of tape drives needed and the required data transfer rate is going to be for your network. To set the backups needed for your network, (as before) you must move the data from all your clients, to your media servers fast enough to finish backups within your backup window. Then determine the size of your systems ‘Netback up’ image database, exactly how much disk space will be needed to store your entire Netback up image database, the size of the ‘Netback up relational database’ (NBDB), and the required space that will be needed to handle the NBDB. Then calculate how much media will be needed to handle both full and incremental backups, plus you must determine how many tapes will be needed not only to store, but also to be able to retrieve and keep your backups. The next step will be to estimate the size of the tape library your network needs to store your backups and if you need to use robotic library tape slots in order to store your backups. General Threats to Network and Information Security is the primary concern in e-business. The assets of the e-business services and other electronic services should be protected in order to preserve the  authenticity, confidentiality, integrity and availability of the service. Administrators normally find that putting together a security policy that restricts both users and attacks is time consuming and costly. Many users in companies also become disgruntled at the heavy security policies making their work difficult for no discernible reason, causing bad politics within the company. A common attitude among users is that if no secret is being performed, and then why bother implementing security. Malicious attackers can gain access or deny services in numerous ways, for example with Viruses, Trojan horses, worms, password cracking, denial of service attacks, E- mail hacking, impersonation, Eavesdropping, Packet replay, packet modification, social engineering, intrusion attacks, and Network spoofing. Attackers are not the only ones who can harm an organization. The primary threat to data integrity comes from authorized users who are not aware of the actions they are performing. Errors and omissions can lose, damage, or alter valuable data. Users, data entry clerks, system operators, and programmers frequently make unintentional errors that contribute to security problems, directly and indirectly. Sometimes the error is the threat, such as a data entry error or a programming error that crashes a system. In other cases, errors create vulnerabilities. Errors can occur in all phases of the system life cycle. Programming and development errors, often called bugs, range in severity from irritating to catastrophic. Improved software quality has reduced but not eliminated this threat. Installation and maintenance errors also cause security problems. There are ways to keeping Riordan Manufacturing safe from all these problems. One way to protect the company is by having Common Access Cards for all employees. With these cards it will have all the employees personal Information and will also protect the employee from identity theft of employees personal information. By having these cards the IT personal will know exactly who the one that used certain computer was and be able to know when they did it. By keeping track of when and where every employee logs in. It is known for human errors to be number one risk for security side. Most of the hacking done by people has to do also because of a mistake of a worker. To reduce all of these things Training will have to be programmed to reduce human mistakes will on the job and after the job. Mobile phones are another threat to Riordan Manufacturing, because there are people that log on to the companies using their phones and many times they forget to close the account. By leaving this account open the company is vulnerable to hackers getting to the companies account and doing a great deal of damage. To prevent these types of things these part will have to be covered in Training through the company and the company will have to have all of their employees with a certain access to have a company phone and have them use only that phone to access the account if necessary. The phones will be protected at all times to make sure that no hacker is getting in to the account through these phones. Also if for some reason the employee wants to take action against the company and give secret information through the phone this should also be known through the company. A replay attack occurs when a valid media transmission between two parties is intercepted and retransmitted for malicious purposes. SRTP used in connection with a secure signaling protocol protects transmissions from replay attacks by enabling the receiver to maintain an index of already received RTP packets and compare each new packet with those already listed in the index. Many hackers like to do Spoofing, and this occurs when the attacker determines and uses an IP address of a network, computer, or network component when not authorized to do so. A successful attack allows the attacker to operate as if the attacker is the entity normally identified by the IP address. The largest threat in the Promises study was undocumented or unsecured USB devices. About 13 percent of the surveyed endpoints had them. This isnt just a theoretical concern. A 2005 Yankee Group survey found that 37 percent of the companies surveyed believed USB devices were used to compromise corporate information. Another way the company will be protected from is from unauthorized peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing programs that are often forbidden by company policy, 4 percent of the surveyed computers had such applications installed. This problem is getting worse. Not only are more peer-to-peer networks making their way onto corporate networks, but computer criminals have started using them to compromise and take over computers wholesale. Also cyber-attacks are costing the U. S. economy an estimated $8 billion a year. How much money is going from Riordan Manufacturing? This is a problem that has to be taken care of by reducing Human Errors since this is the largest threat to IT Security. Since Most breaches in critical corporate data are not the result of malicious intent. They are the result of mistakes made in the way security is managed and configured across the business especially at the network level. All of these problems are not only costing the company also nearly nine million U. S. residents are victims of identity theft each year. The â€Å"SOX requires publicly traded companies to secure information systems to the extent necessary to ensure the effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting. † (PowerTech. com, 2010, p. 1) Companies must now take into consideration that IT well trained and educated security support teams must be brought into the process to provide protection any leaks or intrusion in order to meet the compliance deadlines. â€Å"Section: 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have had the highest impact on Information Technology and Security. The IT related issues that cause problems for SOX compliance in the context of Section 404 are generally related to access control of system users. † (PowerTech. com, 2010, p. 1) Without adequate access controls in place, users can perform functions/activities that are in conflict with their job responsibilities are to modify/corrupt financial data. Controls to initiate/record unauthorized transactions commit fraud and cover their tracks. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act in some ways comes off very vague and open to interpretation leaving companies unsure how to handle compliance. The best way to start is to identify significant and potential high risk problems when going through the process, identifying specific systems, data processors, and control links whose integrity could be compromised. Once these problems within the network have been identified, effective controls must be implemented to address these deficiencies, to record their regularity and frequency, and to evaluate them to ensure that the proper set of controls is kept in place protecting system integrity. The Bill was introduced (and named for) sponsors; Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) and U. S. Representative Michael G. Oxley (R-OH), as a reaction to a large number of various scandals that had exposed excessive wrong doing in the corporate world, costing investors billions of dollars and many companies to collapse. â€Å"The act contains 11 titles, or sections, ranging from additional corporate board responsibilities to criminal penalties, and requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to implement rulings on requirements to comply with the law. † (SOX-online, 2012, p. 1). The Constructing new data base network for Riordan Manufacturing will have to take all SOX rules, regulations and requirements  into consideration at each step along the way in order to stay within the guidelines of the law. General Threats to Network and Information Security is the primary concern in e-business. The assets of the e-business services and other electronic services should be protected in order to preserve the authenticity, confidentiality, integrity and availability of the service. Administrators normally find that putting together a security policy that restricts both users and attacks is time consuming and costly. Many users in companies also become disgruntled at the heavy security policies making their work difficult for no discernible reason, causing bad politics within the company. A common attitude among users is that if no secret is being performed, and then why bother implementing security. Malicious attackers can gain access or deny services in numerous ways, for example with Viruses, Trojan horses, worms, password cracking, denial of service attacks, E- mail hacking, impersonation, Eavesdropping, Packet replay, packet modification, social engineering, intrusion attacks, and Network spoofing. Attackers are not the only ones who can harm an organization. The primary threat to data integrity comes from authorized users who are not aware of the actions they are performing. Errors and omissions can lose, damage, or alter valuable data. Users, data entry clerks, system operators, and programmers frequently make unintentional errors that contribute to security problems, directly and indirectly. Sometimes the error is the threat, such as a data entry error or a programming error that crashes a system. In other cases, errors create vulnerabilities. Errors can occur in all phases of the system life cycle. Programming and development errors, often called bugs, range in severity from irritating to catastrophic. Improved software quality has reduced but not eliminated this threat. Installation and maintenance errors also cause security problems. There are ways to keeping Riordan Manufacturing safe from all these problems. One way to protect the company is by having Common Access Cards for all employees. With these cards it will have all the employees personal Information and will also protect the employee from identity theft of employees personal information. By having these cards the IT personal will know exactly who the one that used certain computer was and be able to know when they did it. By keeping track of when and where every employee logs in. It is known for human errors to be number one risk for security side. Most of the hacking done by people has to do also because of a mistake of a worker. To reduce all of these things Training will have to be programmed to reduce human mistakes will on the job and after the job. A replay attack occurs when a valid media transmission between two parties is intercepted and retransmitted for malicious purposes. SRTP used in connection with a secure signaling protocol protects transmissions from replay attacks by enabling the receiver to maintain an index of already received RTP packets and compare each new packet with those already listed in the index. Many hackers like to do Spoofing, and this occurs when the attacker determines and uses an IP address of a network, computer, or network component when not authorized to do so. A successful attack allows the attacker to operate as if the attacker is the entity normally identified by the IP address. The largest threat in the Promises study was undocumented or unsecured USB devices. About 13 percent of the surveyed endpoints had them. This isnt just a theoretical concern. A 2005 Yankee Group survey found that 37 percent of the companies surveyed believed USB devices were used to compromise corporate information. Another way the company will be protected from is from unauthorized peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing programs that are often forbidden by company policy, 4 percent of the surveyed computers had such applications installed. This problem is getting worse. Not only are more peer-to-peer networks making their way onto corporate networks, but computer criminals have started using them to compromise and take over computers wholesale. Also cyber-attacks are costing the U. S. economy an estimated $8 billion a year. How much money is going from Riordan Manufacturing? This is a problem that has to be taken care of by reducing Human Errors since this is the largest threat to IT Security. Since Most breaches in critical corporate data are not the result of malicious intent. They are the result of mistakes made in the way security is managed and configured across the business especially at the network level. All of these problems are not only costing the company also nearly nine million U. S. residents are victims of identity theft each year. The importance of explicit enterprise security policies and procedures are necessary in a structured network as we currently have in Riordan Manufacturing Inc. and in any other establishment whereas you depend on sending and receiving data over the internet. If no security policy boundaries would be taken seriously, each and one of us would be leaving ourselves vulnerable to malicious computer hackers, corrupted information sent on emails such as; Trojan horses, viruses etc.. As a growing company, we want to protect and ensure that personal information is not compromised and that company policy security awareness procedures are taken. Once a year all employees at Riordan will be required to complete an online assessment of standard procedures for computer use at the facility. If there are any suspicious cyber crime activities occurring, it shall always be reported immediately to the corresponded employee’s supervisor. Mobile work stations have been limited to company issued wireless devices inside the premises, excluding personal cell phones, smart phones, Mp3 players, portable media players, Laptops, tablets, USB drives or external hard drives. All data is classified and is set into four different categories; restricted/proprietary, confidential, sensitive and public. Employees must act appropriately, to prevent unauthorized disclosure of information unless if you have been authorized to access it, if it is utilized as a legitimate business need or shared with other company employees, then it is considered acceptable to the Riordan security policy. Our proposal of upgrading the current switches to the 24 port Meraki Cisco switch and the addition of MR24 Cisco access points will benefit the security policy of networking operations. The Network Security options, Firewalls (2013) website, both pieces of hardware’s have built in firewall management which will assist the network from intruders degrading our system. The purpose of a firewall is to secure the in house network and from non-trusted networks, by blocking content off the internet. Also knows as a choke point, a firewall provides a particular point of contact, enabling users to browse the internet from approved resources located internally or outside the network. It appears as a solitary address to the open public, providing the user access to the non-trusted network through SOCKS, proxy servers and from network address translation (NAT), while keeping the internal networks address private. This technique minimizes impersonating or cyber attack less likely because the firewall maintains the privacy of your internal networks (Network Security Options, Firewalls, 2013). Although firewalls can be limited to what it can protect, such as files that contain file transfer protocol (FTP), telnet amongst the other possible ways of data corruption but it will not necessarily protect them depending on specific destination of the information being transmitted and if the user decides to encrypt the data. When using wireless technology, this can bring several risks to the Network, because hackers can access any unencrypted wireless devices or access points. Having a Wi-Fi protected network will minimize the chances of anyone breaking into the system.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Thorpe Parks Customer Service Essay -- Consumerism Businesses Essays

Thorpe Park's Customer Service Effectual customer service is or should be a fundamental aspect of any organisation that has an objective of success. It is through this process that an organisation can fully understand its customers and ensuring that it is responding correctly to customer needs and demands which are vital if the organisation is to gain competitive advantage. In 1991, freematle quotes: â€Å"Customer service is the final test. You can get everything else right in terms of product, price and marketing but unless you complete the process with incredibly good customer service, you run the risk of loosing business or even going out of business†. Therefore customer service is defined as the course of action whereby businesses endeavour to fully understand the needs of their customers and to respond to those needs effectively and efficiently. It is important that an organisation’s customer service is done effectively and efficiently because business activities carry costs therefore sluggishness will be at the expense of the organisation. Excellent customer service achieves a high level of customers’ satisfaction and encourages customer to return and to recommend the organisation to others. I will be investigating into Thorpe Park, which is in the leisure and recreation industry and how it carries out its customer service. The leisure and recreation industry is a diverse part of the UK economy, spanning the public, private and voluntary sectors, and made up of a number of interrelated components including sport & physical recreation, arts & entertainment, outdoor activities etc. The leisure and recreation industry is one of the fastest growing sectors of the UK economy. Introduction to Thorpe Park In 1970, the site was an active gravel pit owned by Ready Mix Concrete and in 1971 work was granted for the construction of a 500-acre Water Park. Thunder River and its surrounding area were developed in 1987, and 1988 saw the opening of the 630 seats Palladium Theatre. In 1989 Canada Creek, incorporating Logger’s Leap, was developed. Since 1991 many attractions have been added. In 1996, X:/No Way Out, the world’s first pitch dark, backward roller coaster was introduced and for two years running, in 1996 and 1997, Thorpe Park was voted the most Parent-Friendly leisure in the UK. Pearsons, who owned the Tussa... ...de above regarding surveys and questionnaires are relevant here. The cost of postal surveys tends to be lower, especially as there is no need to employ an interviewer, but the response rate is also generally low, and organizations will often include some kind of incentive, such as free gifts or entry to prize draws, to encourage participation employees Surveys – increasingly, firms are gathering data on customer service by placing interactive questionnaires on their websites and encouraging customers to use them by offering incentives such as free gifts and prize draws. This is a relatively cheap method of research, given that it is normally relatively easy to add questionnaires onto an already established website. Internal surveys – these are surveys that are conducted amongst the organization’s own Comments/suggestion boxes – these are commonly used by organizations to gather basic information and are typically left on restaurant tables, in hotel rooms and near to tills for customers to fill in while they wait. They act like mini-questionnaires - usually made up of a small number of closed-ended questions, in order to encourage a higher completion rate.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

“Changing Our Lives”

After graduating high school, I thought I had all my decisions in place of what I wanted to do with my life. I later found myself letting the choices of my younger days affect what is happening in my life now. I’ve now taken the right steps into getting my life back on track, starting with obtaining the goals that I once motivated myself to achieve after high school.That is why I’ve chosen to further my education beyond a high school diploma to obtain financial growth, my college degree, and successful career opportunities. In the world today, it seems that financial issues are taking their tolls in people’s lives more often than it use to be when everyone thought that their job offered exactly what they wanted. Later they found out that they were not getting the pay needed to support their household with the job that is being maintained with hard work, long hours, and poor benefits.Now after me giving careful consideration as to what I wanted to do in life, I fo und that with the right degree by my side I could benefit so much more in pay options, family support, and not just be in a job working hard but a career where I am actually making a difference one day at a time. With my degree in hand, it not only paves the way for my financial growth, but it helps me be able to show my children how important education can be in the world today.It helps me to feel so much better knowing that I reached my goals, with all the hard work and dedication that came with being a college student. I can truly say that it was not easy day to day trying to keep up with the work, have a job, and raise a family at the same time. But, when I look at the reasons as to why I am doing this all I have to remember is that my family depends on me! Not only does this benefit your family, but it also adds to your list of achievements a long with my high school diploma.I can just imagine when I walk across the stage how great it will feel when I walk away with degree in t he field of study of my choice to success! Once I create so much opportunity for myself with a degree, it will be time to put it to work with getting the job I always wanted. Now, I am the only one who could stop me. There is also now the choice of hours that could put me right where I want to be, and that’s with my family. I would not be constantly working late, missing school programs, lunches, conferences, and more because I made a choice to better myself and my surroundings.Because I chose to get a degree and move into a new line of work of helping others, somebody may actually have a chance of being helped in the ways that I have always imagined giving to someone else. That is now what it is mostly coming to in my heart of how can I put this hard work that I did to work in the most positive way in someone else’s life. I’ve found now that once these achievements are reached, I’m not only inspiring myself, but also my wife and children.Once they see th e hard work that I’ve put in to giving them a better way of life and how it was done, it could make way for their success and family once married and faced with the ways of real adulthood. Some children think that it’s okay just to stop at just a high school diploma because some parents aren’t too interested in furthering past what they have been taught by their parents. So as for me and my family, I’m taking the necessary steps to show my children that education does matter and dreams do come true!

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

An Argument for a SMART Board Grant

The support of this grant would pay for the purchase of a SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard on a nomadic floor base for the Pace University School of Education Department. The SMART Board allows professors to include and incorporate multimedia elements into lessons, such as pictures and synergistic presentations, as a consequence devising lessons and lectures more exciting. Students will be able to hear, see and take part with the information they are larning for that peculiar class. The SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard system comes with Notebook package. This package provides a assortment of tools to assist distinguish direction. By holding a SMART Board, professors and pupils are able to compose with a digital pen or with their finger, onto the SMART Board screen. Files from Notebook can be saved in different formats, printed, emailed or posted ; hence, giving pupils complete entree to class stuffs. Basically, anything that can be done on computing machines can be improved by holding a SMART Board available. In the simple and secondary degrees, instructors are invariably seeking to make lessons and activities that meet the demands of all scholars. I think that at the high instruction degree, this mentality gets lost. The bulk of classs are lecture based with essays and written scrutinies. Because of this set up, I feel that college pupils loose their love of acquisition and attending and engagement in classs begin to drop. If a pupil was a ocular scholar in high school, he will still be a ocular scholar during college. The synergistic whiteboard caters to all different scholars because it incorporates images, sounds and stimulations. Students are able to see, hear and interact with what they are larning. Pace University needs more engineering. Pace University has been looking for ways to increase their enrollment Numberss, every bit good as keeping rates. Installing and absorbing engineering onto their campuses could be merely one factor in carry throughing those undertakings. As a former Pace University pupil embassador and representative, I was invariably asked inquiries about the types of engineering that are in the schoolrooms and what pupils are being exposed to. By holding synergistic SMART Boards on campus, I think these inquiries would be eliminated because you can physically see them. Pace University besides has an full school dedicated to Computer Science and Information Systems. I feel that by holding engineering seen in the schoolroom, will besides nicely reflect the impact of that single school on campus. The pupils at Pace University would profit from the purchase of an synergistic whiteboard in a assortment of ways. Students will look at go toing category as something exciting. Students will besides derive a better apprehension of the course of study and constructs being taught, due to the mixture of tools and resources that the SMART Board has that can be incorporated into lessons. Pace University, itself, would profit from holding SMART Boards in campus because pupils will be working on their communicating and engineering accomplishments for the twenty-first century, hence dividing themselves from alumnuss from other colleges and universities. Pace University ‘s slogan is â€Å" Work toward Greatness † . I believe that by incorporating the usage of an synergistic whiteboard into different classs that Pace has to offer its pupils, professors will animate their pupils more. The Pace University School of Education ‘s slogan is â€Å" Making brooding practicians who promote justness, create lovingness schoolrooms and school communities and enable all pupils to be successful scholars. † I believe that the pupils within this school, specifically, will profit enormously from the synergistic whiteboard. They will be exposed to a new engineering that is widely being used in schools all throughout the United States. Students will be able to hold an unfastened head when it comes to engineering and integrating in simple and high schools. Not fiting these pupils with these accomplishments would be harmful to their well-being. Today ‘s universe is filled with different types of engineering, from cell phon es to IPads. Students are invariably surrounded with engineering throughout their day-to-day lives, which merely makes sense to hold that same engineering go a portion of their instruction.2. Aim3. Activity4. MeasurementTo enrich and better Pace University ‘s plans and set of classs through synergistic engineering and engineering integrating. To promote pupils to be independent critical minds and booming scholars at the collegiate degree. To increase pupil motive, engagement, accomplishment and success. To hold pupils program and behavior research, work out jobs and do informed determinations utilizing appropriate digital tools and resources. To hold â€Å" future instructors † become educated on a company and engineerings that is on a regular basis being used in school territories soon. To distinguish direction for all pupils. To use the assigned class clip in the most effectual manner possible. Assign web pursuits: Students will be encouraged to utilize Pace University ‘s resources from the library, databases and dependable beginnings from the Internet. Students will utilize the research and engineering available to them to assist them decode jobs and answer inquiries. Synergistic lessons: Students will actively prosecute within the lessons. Students will acquire out of their seats to take part and foster their acquisition. Videos/Lectures: Teachers can implant videos cartridge holders that demonstrate the same constructs that are being taught in their class. Teachers can enter notes from the class, salvage them and post/email them to pupils. Virtual Field Trips: Teachers can take their pupils on a trip during their assigned class allotted clip. Presentations: Students can show their undertakings utilizing the SMART Board in several ways: making a NoteBook file, digitally making it, entering their voices, etc. Exams/Reviews: Teachers can make games/activities that can assist the pupils review constructs for scrutinies. Teachers can make scrutinies on the SMART Board. Workshop Session: Provide pupils with the chance to larn how to really utilize the SMART Board. Students will be able to utilize the cognition gained in their field arrangements and future occupations. Pre-course study: Conducted on the first twenty-four hours, inquiring pupils about their involvement in the class, anticipations of their engagement throughout the class, class and terminal of class experience. Post-course study: Conducted on last twenty-four hours, inquiring pupils about their apprehension of the class stuff, if they were successful in the class, if they enjoyed the class, would they urge the class and impact of engineering used in the class. Informal appraisals: Teacher observation, pupil diary entries/blogs on the subject of usage of the SMART Board. Formal appraisals: Lessons/lectures/activities can be video taped. Samples: Student work samples will be saved to be included in a portfolio. Attendance Preparation Engagement Behavior

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

The Ritalin War essays

The Ritalin War essays Ritalin is a type of methylphenidate that produces a stimulant to the central nervous system (Wed MD). The exact way Ritalin works is unknown, however, we do know that Ritalin is being taken by four to six million children daily (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder). Pediatricians and doctors are giving this medication to young children in America that have some sort of behavioral problem with very little evidence of its effect. Attention deficit disorder ADD and Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD are two types of disorders that are behavioral. These disorders are considered to be cause of a chemical imbalance in the brain. ADD and ADHD are not disorder but personality traits however, those who believe it is a disorder say the symptoms are different depending on the individual. Those who believe these are disorders say, Many are over stimulated, distracted, and restless. Others become hyper vigilant, withdrawn, and compulsive. Others act out, become disruptive or aggressive. All have trouble with self-esteem in their struggle to function (Reichenberg). Children and adolescents with these disorders are more heavily diagnosed than any other age group. About 70 percent of people diagnosed with the disorders use drugs to help manage the symptoms (Beal). Methylphenidate is the scientific name of the drug used with common names of Ritalin, Concerta, Metadate, and Methylin (Park). The scientific evidence and evaluation of Ritalin and other forms of Methylphenidate is very scarce. We do not know what the long term effects are or even if the drugs are stopping or just covering up the symptoms of ADD and ADHD. We do however know some of the side effects that are most commonly associated with the drugs. Some of the positive side effects that prescribed users may experience include an easy to take form, increased ability to co ...

Monday, October 21, 2019

Free Essays on Hebrew Language

I originally enrolled in Hebrew for a number of reasons. First of all I was interested in learning a language that was a language family other than the Romance. That left a Semitic language or a Tai-Korean language. The options were further narrowed by the fact that I gather great importance from the Bible and think that an understanding of the Hebrew script would bring me new insight. Furthermore I think Israel is such a culturally rich place and currently the hearth of political diplomacy, and learning ancient Hebrew would help me learn about the nature of the most epic ethnic group of all time. That said, I am extremely happy with my choice and am very excited about learning more. It just so happened that my teacher would be the most engaging, entertaining, knowledgeable and communicative professor I’ve had at (no flattery intended). I think that in the first two semesters I have laid a good foundation to grow from and eventually be proficient in translating the Old Testament. Right from the start I knew that I was in a different world. I had to forget most of what I knew about language organization and start over. Vowels weren’t their own letters, letters were actually the first letter of the word for the letter (confusing at first) and numbers, which I still haven’t learned, were based on letters and very complex. After a few weeks though it stopped sounding completely backwards and started making since. Since then I have learned a great deal of the background of the language and what the basic structures of grammar are. Most of the knowledge I have about ancient Hebrew pertains to the mindset and organization of speech rather than a large vocabulary and recognition of verbs. Vocabulary and content is definitely something I’m going to have to work on this summer. Hebrew though, is flexible in the sense that it is not about memorizing or learning from wrote. It is rather, like a puzzle and a search for cl... Free Essays on Hebrew Language Free Essays on Hebrew Language I originally enrolled in Hebrew for a number of reasons. First of all I was interested in learning a language that was a language family other than the Romance. That left a Semitic language or a Tai-Korean language. The options were further narrowed by the fact that I gather great importance from the Bible and think that an understanding of the Hebrew script would bring me new insight. Furthermore I think Israel is such a culturally rich place and currently the hearth of political diplomacy, and learning ancient Hebrew would help me learn about the nature of the most epic ethnic group of all time. That said, I am extremely happy with my choice and am very excited about learning more. It just so happened that my teacher would be the most engaging, entertaining, knowledgeable and communicative professor I’ve had at (no flattery intended). I think that in the first two semesters I have laid a good foundation to grow from and eventually be proficient in translating the Old Testament. Right from the start I knew that I was in a different world. I had to forget most of what I knew about language organization and start over. Vowels weren’t their own letters, letters were actually the first letter of the word for the letter (confusing at first) and numbers, which I still haven’t learned, were based on letters and very complex. After a few weeks though it stopped sounding completely backwards and started making since. Since then I have learned a great deal of the background of the language and what the basic structures of grammar are. Most of the knowledge I have about ancient Hebrew pertains to the mindset and organization of speech rather than a large vocabulary and recognition of verbs. Vocabulary and content is definitely something I’m going to have to work on this summer. Hebrew though, is flexible in the sense that it is not about memorizing or learning from wrote. It is rather, like a puzzle and a search for cl...

Sunday, October 20, 2019

The Islam Faiths Views on Life Support and Euthanasia

The Islam Faith's Views on Life Support and Euthanasia Islam teaches that the control of life and death is in Allahs hands, and cannot be manipulated by human beings. Life itself is sacred, and it is therefore forbidden to end life deliberately, either through homicide or suicide. To do so would be to reject  faith in Allahs divine decree. Allah determines  how long each person will live. The Quran says: Nor kill (or destroy) yourselves: for verily Allah hath been to you Most Merciful! (Quran 4:29) ...if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. (Quran 5:23) ...take not life, which Allah has  made sacred, except by way of justice and law. Thus He does command you, that you  may learn wisdom. (Quran  6:151) Medical Intervention Muslims do believe in medical treatment. In fact, many scholars consider it  mandatory in Islam to seek medical help for illness, according to two sayings of the Prophet Muhammad: Seek treatment, believers of Allah, for Allah has made a cure to every illness.   and Your body has a right over  you. Muslims are encouraged to search the natural world for remedies  and use scientific knowledge to develop new medicines.  However, when a patient has reached the terminal stage (when  treatment holds no promise of a cure) it is not required to sustain excessive life-saving remedies.   Life Support When it is clear that there is no treatment left available to cure a terminal  patient, Islam advises only the continuation of basic  care such as food and drink.  It is not considered homicide to withdraw other  treatments in order to allow the patient to die naturally. If a patient is declared brain-dead by doctors, including situations in which there is no activity in the brain stem, the patient is considered dead and no artificial  support functions need to be provided. Ceasing such care is not considered homicide if the patient is already clinically dead. Euthanasia All Islamic scholars, in all schools of Islamic jurisprudence,  regard active euthanasia as forbidden (haram). Allah determines the timing of death, and we should not seek or attempt to hasten it. Euthanasia is meant to relieve the  pain and suffering of a terminally-ill patient. But as Muslims, we are never to fall into despair about Allahs mercy and wisdom.  The Prophet Muhammad once told this story: Among the nations before you there was a man who got wounded, and growing impatient (with pain), he took a knife and cut his hand with it. The blood did not stop until he died. Allah (Exalted be He) said, My slave hastened to bring about his demise; I have forbidden Paradise to him (Bukhari and Muslim). Patience When a person is suffering from unbearable  pain, a Muslim is advised to remember that Allah tests us with pain and suffering in this life, and we must patiently persevere. The Prophet Muhammad advised us to make this dua  on such occasions: Oh Allah, make me live as long as life is better for me, and make me die if death is better for me (Bukhari and Muslim). Wishing for death simply to alleviate suffering is against the teachings of Islam, as it challenges Allahs wisdom and we must be patient with what Allah has written for us. The Quran says: ...bear with patient constancy whatever befalls you (Quran 31:17). ...those who patiently persevere will truly receive a reward without measure! (Quran  39:10). That said, Muslims are advised to comfort those who are suffering and  make use of palliative care.

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Discuss the positive and negative impact of globalisation with Essay

Discuss the positive and negative impact of globalisation with reference to two contrasting countries. (India and the United Sta - Essay Example This essay identifies the positive and negative impacts of globalisation as they pertain to India and the United States. India India is considered a developing economy that has recently experienced explosive gains in relation to skilled labour provision and development along with a boastful technological prowess (samachartoday.com, 2011). Much of this positive growth in technological know-how seems to stems from market opportunities that provide the country with increased foreign direct investment as it has been identified as a need to sustain growth in India (business.rediff.com, 2010). According to Yusuf, Altaf & Nabeshima (2004), foreign firms have been looking for new market potential in this developing nation and have been willing to invest considerable capital into assisting the country in further technological developments. These interested firms in areas of sales and marketing and finance have assisted in raising capital for domestic Indian firms and provided considerable lab our-related expertise in multiple industries (Yusuf, et al). Globalisation is the catalyst for these improvements as foreign firms look for developing marketplaces to distribute their products. Higher demand in global automotive consumption has also improved the infrastructure of Indian business, thus giving the country more opportunities to improve their own transportation network. Since many of these demanding consumers hail from geographically-close regions, such as China, India now has opportunities to expand their port system to improve the delivery efficiency and supply chain capabilities for automotive companies and related industries. India, in order to meet this demand and earn higher profit through the transportation system, has created a dedicated port terminal that increases the speed by which automotive products are off-loaded, thus making India an ideal location for supply chain-related distribution (portstrategy.com, 2008). Globalisation in relation to global consumer sales has given India considerable advantages and better relationships with automotive manufacturers worldwide. Meanwhile, India has improved its educational infrastructure as well, thus providing its labour pool with more talent as it is related to technology and software development (Commander, Chanda, Kangasniemi & Winters, 2008). Much of these improvements were built on the foundation of American and European outsourcing efforts in relation to call centre development that evolved over time (Warne, 2011). As the government witnessed better increases in job opportunities, thus creating more disposable consumer income, more funds from political forces have been invested into improving educational capacity within the country. However, despite all of these improvements, India has some drawbacks in relation to the impact of globalisation. The foreign funds flooding the country from interested direct investors has made the government somewhat lax in identifying new opportunities and r emained dedicated to capital gains. What this has created is a drop in stock value for companies not related to finance and capital growth, thus weakening the financial position of certain industries (Merchant, 2006). India is not

The political and economical role of Qatar in the Middle East and the Essay

The political and economical role of Qatar in the Middle East and the Arab world - Essay Example Revamping of the region into a number one country in terms of Gross Domestic product has been ascribed to the oil revenue. Researchers have faced controversies on how they can typify such a small region based on international relations literature and traditional comparative politics. Similarly, Qatar has been identified as a region that is stable due to absence of immediate threats to its political stability and security. Nonetheless, stability is hardly perfect in Qatar. This is exemplified by competition over political powers and internal conflicts in the Al-Thani, the royal family. Forced abdication within the governing families has been identified as the cause of Qatar past leadership transitions of 1949, 1960, and 1995. However, this ruling family has upheld social peace in Qatar for many decades. Several studiers have identified that Qatar has a baffling political stability. Qatar’s branded image has been generated by its diplomatic successes. These include its notable role in hosting major internal events and involvement into peacekeeping programs. As a result, the country has experienced impressive achievements in the economic sector. Economic achievements in this Persian Gulf small peninsula have been contributed by a breathtaking modernization rate of the economic sector. In regards to a survey of the 2008 Qatar per capita income, the annual per capita income was estimated at $ 95, 000 at the current prices. This is ascribed to the abundance of gas and oil in the region. On the other hand, an outdated political system has been another contributing factor. The autocratic state of Qatar has been contributed by consolidation of Shiekh Hamad position within Qatar and the royal family. Silencing of political liberation talks exemplifies this assertion. Comprehension of Qatar’s political dynamics is centered on the religious and tribal structures. This is based on the strong and weak dilemma

Friday, October 18, 2019

Art 330 Film Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Art 330 Film Study - Essay Example Director Sergei Eisenstein thought beyond the typical box of intending to bring across mere entertainment and art that registers to mind with common fashion. It occurs as if a rare mutiny of a crew against their officers demonstrates a challenge to shift the normal course of a national timeline from an object of faint dark memory to one of haunting suspicion. In paying tribute, thus, to the party or side of event which he thought deserved justice, Eisenstein came up with a project of revolution rather than â€Å"The Battleship Potemkin† in the usual outfit of a remarkable silent film. More than focusing on the aspect of commemoration and chronology, Eisenstein may be recognized to have employed an editing technique that could generate a subject of moving power. Accordingly, the director renders â€Å"The Battleship Potemkin† to take on authority by engaging his audience into a stream of perception that could not seem to help impact feelings and ideology in the viewing p rocess. Despite the total absence of voice from each character involved, the film manages to convey its potential through the musical score or the choice of orchestrated sound effects which suitably fit individual acts from a wide range of tempo and intensity. Instrumental rhythms used vividly reflect the thematic message of socio-political struggle with acute notes where appropriate, scene after another. Besides music, Eisenstein made it a point to work with flashes of sharp images that readily stick to memory along with interval words or phrases that are rich with direct expressions of human nature. As such, lines like â€Å"We’ve had enough rotten meat† with a tone of utter indignation when men of the ship protest for decent food free of worms and â€Å"The men refused to eat the soup† being â€Å"seethed with rage† altogether forms a picture of the crew’s reasonable cause behind the insurrection. Moreover, â€Å"The Battleship Potemkin† becomes capable of establishing some degree of illusion to the actual events by adopting a technique whereby certain real-life details are either omitted or elaborately sensationalized so as to create illusory figures that possess high tendency to replace any formerly imagined cases of truth. This is particularly evident in the manner Eisenstein necessitates to incorporate the â€Å"Odessa Steps† sequence illustrating the massacre of civilians along the Potemkin stairs or Primorsky which did not in reality take place. At this stage, Eisenstein puts in application the ‘montage’ theory to reconstruct a perspective of the original occurrence to mind by showing an imagery that is juxtaposed or edited in rapid progression, magnifying visceral influence among the viewers. Image capture at abrupt pace seems to accumulate into compressed narrative information sufficiently compact and poignant to enkindle mixed sentiments of rebellious anguish and sympathy especially afte r the occasions of watching the baby carriage running away as well as the sight of the three cherubs at different angles presumably in punching mode. Eventually, such cinematic recreation bears the capacity of exaggerating the idea of oppression, in this case, to the extent that the viewing public can be stirred to yield to strong emotional and perhaps, philosophical change of insight. The apparent objective of the montage concept is conducive to biased moviemakers

Promoting Individual Health Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Promoting Individual Health - Essay Example The plan is based on providing knowledge and awareness of the ethical issues associated with health and especially the inherent. In the given plan, a specific scenario of Erick is looked at. Erick is suffering from Autism Spectrum. The plan thus analyses the causes of his behaviour and seeks to link it to the causes of the health promotion as well as providing teaching lessons to his parents on the importance of health promotion, how to adapt to the current situation of their son and finally, Erick’s learning because of disability. In addition, the plan analyses the position of the parents of Erick and especially the case of Molly. The plan is very important since it equips an individual with psychosocial behaviour that affects the wellness of an individual in terms of behaviour, cognitive abilities, environmentally among many more (Rappaport & Seidman 2000, p. 171). A scenario of Erick is chosen to be used as a point of reference. Erick is a son of Molly and James. His mother, Molly, suffers from diabetes and his father, James, works as a driver, driving long distance vehicles and thus he is rarely at home. Eric has a learning disorder, though mild. He also suffers a little in the autistic spectrum. He often gets frustrated and as a result, throws anger tantrums at the fellow students and teachers, especially when he goes to school whereby he attends a mainstream school. Autistic spectrum refers to the conditions that an individual suffers from that majorly affects the communication by an individual, their interests, social interaction and also affects the behaviour of an individual (Pandora 2006, p. 96). In addition, the autism spectrum also includes childhood autism and Asperger syndrome. The condition may not show its symptoms immediately, but after some time. The condition of Eric has been contributed by several psychosocial

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Human Resource Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 14

Human Resource Management - Essay Example Curran (1990) reported on the Occupational Safety and Health Act. This was the first time that OSHA developed a policy that would "assure as far as possible safe and healthful working conditions for every woman and man in the nation" (p. 1010). The reason this act was created was because of a Supreme Court decision that workers had a right to refuse to follow a direct order from their employer if this order would put them into "imminent danger of lose of life or serious physical injury and not to suffer discriminatory action due to such refusal" (p. 1010). Today, these laws assist people in the workplace especially where there are dangerous chemicals or other dangerous materials. This was one example of protecting employees and to initiate something like this, the people involved would have to go through Human Resources to file their complaints. Another example of the need for safety is that of conflict in the workplace. There are always employees who do not get along well with each other and there needs to be a policy for conflict resolution. Weitzman and Weitzman (2006) take into consideration that "younger and middle-aged adults" have many "interpersonal challenges at work" (p. 45). They created a training to help in these situations. There are many different ways that employees can have conflict in the workplace and most have difficulty understanding what to do when they have these conflicts. What needs to happen in these researchers view is that they would need to understand and use interpersonal communication. They suggest that in order to do well with conflict, people must learn how to actively listen to others, change their perspectives in the situation in working with others. The researchers also suggest that when employees learn about conflict and they understand how the workplace works, they are able to better

Media planning Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Media planning - Case Study Example It will target the individuals that will participate in running or racing, it will target the sponsors and clients that need the checkups for the cervical cancers. McDougal (2015), coming with media of choice to reach such a diversified audience becomes supreme. It will need to use multiple media or one that is most used. For the major sponsors of the event, a direct and focused media such email can be used because they are helping by directly being involved in the event. For the participants that will be on the race, social media such as Facebook, website of the hospital or twitter can be used since most of the people are young and they embrace them. Foster (2012), by doing combined media approach, it become tranquil in reaching many and relevant audience making it a success. Television can also be used, though at prime time such as most watched programs and news to have the opportunity of having many who viewed

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Human Resource Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 14

Human Resource Management - Essay Example Curran (1990) reported on the Occupational Safety and Health Act. This was the first time that OSHA developed a policy that would "assure as far as possible safe and healthful working conditions for every woman and man in the nation" (p. 1010). The reason this act was created was because of a Supreme Court decision that workers had a right to refuse to follow a direct order from their employer if this order would put them into "imminent danger of lose of life or serious physical injury and not to suffer discriminatory action due to such refusal" (p. 1010). Today, these laws assist people in the workplace especially where there are dangerous chemicals or other dangerous materials. This was one example of protecting employees and to initiate something like this, the people involved would have to go through Human Resources to file their complaints. Another example of the need for safety is that of conflict in the workplace. There are always employees who do not get along well with each other and there needs to be a policy for conflict resolution. Weitzman and Weitzman (2006) take into consideration that "younger and middle-aged adults" have many "interpersonal challenges at work" (p. 45). They created a training to help in these situations. There are many different ways that employees can have conflict in the workplace and most have difficulty understanding what to do when they have these conflicts. What needs to happen in these researchers view is that they would need to understand and use interpersonal communication. They suggest that in order to do well with conflict, people must learn how to actively listen to others, change their perspectives in the situation in working with others. The researchers also suggest that when employees learn about conflict and they understand how the workplace works, they are able to better

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

The difference of corporate sustainability between two companies Essay

The difference of corporate sustainability between two companies - Essay Example nderstand the difference of corporate sustainability between two companies. Similarly, it tackles how non-financial reporting has revolution the field of business in terms of information dissemination to clients, governments, stakeholders and investors among others (Eccless & Krzus 2010 p.67). Therefore, this paper is going to analyze the various corporate reporting that happens in Coca Cola and Woodward Iron Industry. All of these organizations belong in the industrial sector and each of them has its unique composition, goals and objectives. For example, Coca Cola deals in soft drinks with its market spread in more than 200 countries and about 500 brands from production plant. On the same note, Woodward Iron Industry is an organization that specializes in the provision of iron and steel but has limited number of employees (Epstein 2008, p.65). This is because of its small jurisdiction in the state of Alabama, Tennessee. This paper is also going to assess the limitations that were ex perienced during the period of searching for information in order to understand the two companies. Therefore, this has prompted for the formulation of assumptions in order to understand the purpose and scope of the report. It also delves into recommendations and implementations of the findings and discussions. Introduction 1.1 Purpose The purpose of this report will be to make comparisons between two industrial companies based on their sustainability policies and practices. Similarly, the report will comprise of comparison analysis, types of reports produced such as environmental or sustainability reports or corporate responsibility or CSR reports (Ferrel et al 2006, p.123). Apart from the composition, the composition will also delve into overall approaches of sustainability between these two industrial companies in relation to the emphasis they are accorded. On that note, the sustainability will bank its focus on policy or practice of that industrial sector and conduct comparisons and evaluations. Alternatively, this task should be able to determine the significance of chosen companies in the context of their produced reports. 1.2 Scope In terms of scope, the business report covers wide areas of company sustainability. For example, it touches on the sectors of theory/models of each individual company as well the responses of these organizations. In addition, the scope dwells on more analytical approach than a descriptive perspective in order to determine the defining theoretical concepts and the benchmarks of performance (Hopwood & Unerman 2012, p.145). Alternatively, the report attempts to evaluate the league tables, industry standards and other

Monday, October 14, 2019

How Do Critical Perspectives On Crime Differ From Traditional Essay Example for Free

How Do Critical Perspectives On Crime Differ From Traditional Essay Critical perspectives on crime differ from other perspectives in that they focus on ways people and institutions respond to crime and criminals. Critical perspectives are often called social reaction theories. The different theories covered under critical perspectives include Labeling theory, Conflict and radical theory and feminist theory. Labeling theory states that deviance is not the act itself that a person commits; a deviant label will lead us to be more deviant. Labeling theory is one of the most significant perspectives in the study of criminology. Amongst these theories is the labeling theory which is one of the most significant theories studied. Labeling theory adopts a relativist’s definition, by assuming that nothing about a given behavior automatically makes it deviant. While traditional theories accept the accuracy of official labeling such as the arrest and prosecution, Labeling theory challenges the view and says some people’s behavior is more likely to be labeled deviant than others. Conflict and Radical theories take up where labeling theory leaves off. They argue that law is only controlled by the powerful and that they are often preserved by the dominant, unlike traditional theories that promote the law and stress the positive aspects of it. One area inspired by feminist work is often called gender-ratio; it is the study of female rates is so much lower than male’s rates in violent crimes. Within the feminist theories we have victimization, differences in crimes, Gender Differences, Masculinity. A great deal of focus is spotlighted on masculinity of crimes. Researchers argue that in order to reduce crime men must be socialized more and male dominance must be illuminated. It was noted in Chapter 3 that we already do a good job of raising our girls not to be criminals, however how can we implement this into the masculine side of things. Masculinity and crime is the significant focus of the work of gender-ratio issues. The problem according to sociologists is that crime is essentially a male issue and we need to figure out how we get to it being much less of an issue. Most crimes against women are either produced as a crime against a weaker person or a crime because the criminal is the dominant one. It seems to be a double edge sword. Power-Control theory explains the level of female criminality by examining the gender process of families. It highlights the roles played by women and men in perspective to their class. Power Control theory looks at two primary sections, the first is Patriarchal households in which only the father works outside the home and the mother is left at home to care for the children. In this type of household boys learn the masculine roles and girls learn the feministic roles. The other is egalitarian, in which both the matriarch and patriarch works outside the home, therefore the guidance is not there to justify roles which tends to lead to delinquency in both gender children. Although most tests of Power control theory produce mixed results. Feministic theories show us just how unequal women are portrayed in law and society. The main issue with control theory is a mother’s occupational place vs. a father’s occupational place in the family. It focuses on the balance of power and control and how this affects the child’s preferences for risk taking. Criminal law divides murder and non-negligent manslaughter into four subgroups: first degree murder, second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter. Some of the patterns described in our book include geographic patterns in which is chronicled with data statistics. It focuses on the different regions and shows the highest statistics in the South, with the Northeast and Midwest being low to mid. According to data the highest weapon used in homicides are handguns at 68 % with knives and blunt objects at 13%. Researchers say that the south is the highest percentage of crime due to the high temperature and crowded urban areas. According to our book (P200) an adequate explanation of homicide and aggravated assault must answer the following questions: Why does the United States have a higher homicide rate than any other industrial nation? This is answered by research that provides data that the United States has more inequality than other nations and thus this pro duces more crime. There is a vast difference between the rich and the poor. The other reason or answer given to this is that in the United States more handguns are owned, and since handguns are the major cause of homicides, this also contributes to the higher rates. Within the United States, why are homicide and aggravated assault rates highest in the urban areas? This is best answered with Social  disorganization, anomie and strain theory help explain why crime in general is higher in urban areas; this includes higher populations, denser areas of habitation, household overcrowding as well as dilapidated living conditions. There is also a chance of higher unemployment rates. Why do men commit almost all homicides and aggravated assaults? The masculinity theories were brought up in chapter 9, but this question is answered as this seems to be shaped in adolescence and the need for boys to grow up stronger and better than women who are looked upon as less dominant. Poverty also interacts with masculinity, the competitiveness in families and social groups. Why do African-Americans and other people of color have high rates of homicides and aggravated assault, both as offenders and victims? This question is explained in similar ways to those above. It has been a question full of hard emotions and personal opinions. It could also be construed as a racist or stereotypical question. Because it is such a touchy subject most researchers go about it in explaining how minorities have criminogenic structural and ecological factors which cause their crime rate to be higher. There is social disorganization stress, the stress of being deprived and discriminated against. Also listed are negative family and school experiences along with the peer pressure from other deviant youths that are common in the urban areas. All of these factors separate may not have much effect, but together it proves to be the perfect combination to put African Americans, especially y oung African Americans at a higher risk for crime. For which two types of violent crime are women’s rates of victimization much higher than men’s victimization rates? At what rates are women victimized for these crimes? Describe cultural myths supporting rape and battering that are discussed in the text Rape/sexual assault and domestic violence/violence committed by intimates are at the top of the list for crimes committed against women more than men. (P220) Our book states that women represented 89% of all sexual assault crimes and 79% of aggravated assaults. Many of the cultural myths are involved in overseas and third world countries which see women as possessions or less than worth compared to a man. In India, as well as Pakistan Dowry deaths which claim the lives of thousands of women are committed daily. These deaths are sanctioned as legal or usually overseen by law enforcement with payment. Dowry deaths are committed against  a bride by either a husband or the husband’s family because the bride’s dowry was not paid as it was supposed to be. Wartime rape and batteries is also high in other countries and often overlooked in the judicial system. Some of the myths involved in these victimizations include women â€Å"like† to be raped or they â€Å"ask† to be raped. Our book uses the opening scene in Gone With the Wind to express one of the many portrayals of women enjoying being sexually assaulted , she is whisked up-stairs against her will, and then is shown with a smile on her face in the morning. The other myth is that women ask to be raped by the way they dress or how they behave. This has been an excuse used by many, even today. The blame does not go on the abuser in these cases but looks at how the woman was behaving prior to the sexual assault. For domestic violence and assaults the women is again said to have â€Å"asked† for the beating by antagonizing the abuser. The woman is blamed for saying or doing something to anger the male and therefore deserved the beating or abuse they received. Women are also blamed because they do not leave the abuser when they have a chance to leave, nor do they press charges when they often have the chance to. Women normally do not leave abusive spouses because they are often the sole providers, women have children and often no money to leave or pay for housing anywhere or legal fees to divorce or put restraining orders on abusers.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Financial performance of ABC Ltd

Financial performance of ABC Ltd Introduction Accounting is concerned with collecting, analyzing, and communicate accounting information. The accounting information is helpful to those people who make plans about business and in making important decisions related to the business The aim of this paper is to evaluate the financial position of the company and the importance of credit manager to achieve credit sales targeted and importance of actual figures when estimating the budget. This paper consists of two main sections. In the first part, evaluation of the financial position of ABC Ltd uses gross profit margin and net profit margin. The second part concentrates on things need to consider when preparing the budget in order to prevent from biased budget. Part A A) Evaluate the financial performance of ABC Ltd. Over the four year period. Financial ratio examines the financial health of the business. It helps to identify the financial strengths and weakness of the business. By calculating the ratio, it is possible to provide a good picture of the financial position and performance of a business. Financial ration can be represented in numerous ways. For example, as percentage, as fraction and as proportion. Financial ratio can be classified into profitability, efficiency, liquidity, gearing and investment. ABC Ltd company’s financial performance is evaluated by using profitability ration of gross profit margin and net profit margin. Gross profit is the difference between the sales and cost of sales. And the ratio is a measure of profitability in buying ad selling goods and service before any other expenses are taken into account. For example: Gross Profit Margin = Gross Profit x100 Sales = 119800/296700 x 100 = 40% Gross profit for the year one is 40%. The most appropriate measure of operational performance for comparison purposes is the Net profit margin ratio. The factors which influence the net profit margin of a business are the degree of competition, type of customer, economic climate and industry characteristics. For example: Net Profit Margin = Net profit before interest and taxation x 100 Sales = 22500/296700 x 100 = 8% Net Profit Margin for the Year one is 8% Gross profit margin of ABC Ltd company has fallen down from 40% to 33%. And again increased to 38% and fall down to 36%. The decrease of the gross profit margin of ABC Ltd was a result of high production cost of the company. The raw material used to produce goods and services has increased. As a result the company is experiencing less gross profit margins. Nonetheless, the Net profit margin of ABC Ltd has been maintained for the last two years, Year 3 and Year 4. Whereas in Year 1 company had a high net profit margin and it gradually decreased and company experience loss of (2) % of Net profit margin. This may be because the company’s Gross profit margin decreased from 40 to 33 and affected the company’s net profit margin. Moreover, it may be the reason that, the company has high expense such as high selling and distribution expense, Administration and other general expenses. After experiencing a loss in Year 2, company gain 7% of net profit margin in Year 3 and year 4 also. This shows company has minimized their expenses and cost of sales and increase their revenue by generating more sales. Below show graphical demonstration of ABC Ltd financial performance. According to the above table, all the accounts except the financial expense of ABC Ltd, all others have increased. Total sales increased. Meaning that number of goods and services sold by ABC Ltd have increased and generated a huge amount of revenue. However, the cost of sales also has increased. But compared to sales achieved, cost of sales is less than the sales generated. Meaning that the money generated by sales by the company was spent to make the sales, such as raw material, Equipements, machineries cost. Therefore the company gross profit has increased. The expenses spent to generate the revenue are selling and distribution expenses, administration and other general expenses and financial expenses. All expenses have increased except financial expenses. This may be due to each years increase in sales of the company. As demand for the goods and service increases, more number of good and services are produced. And to deliver the products to customers, costs incurred will be high such as delivery cost, transportation cost and other administrative cost related to the delivery of goods and services. Financing expenses have decreased such as rent paid, electricity, fixtures and fitting etc. As a result Net profit of ABC Ltd increased by $10,845. Part B A) Why credit manager is to blame for poor credit collection There are certain causes why credit manager is to blame for the deterioration in the credit collection period which are beyond the credit manager. Downturn in the economy When the budget was formulated, during that time economy may have been in a very good condition like in a boom. Businesses earn profits and their ability to pay the suppliers would be strong. And based on credit worthiness, ABC company Ltd has released goods on credit facility during that time. After two months of time, the economy turned into recession. During recession, companies reluctant to spend money and have difficulties in paying to debtors, lenders and suppliers. Henceforth customers, who have bought goods from ABC Ltd under the credit facility, would not able to pay as agreed terms and conditions. Liberalize credit policy The next reason which credit manager cannot be blamed, is a formulation of credit policy terms and conditions and implementation of the policy. When developing a credit policy there are certain conditions which should take into account. For example, buyer’s strength in the market, available net profit margin, size and type of buyers, buyer’s creditworthiness and many more. Any credit policy should include the range of payment, terms, prepayment terms, installments, penalty interest, conditions of sales, methods of assessing customer, explaining credit rating and risk codes, legal actions, follow up methods, staff responsibility and authority, relationship with another and arbitration process. If these clauses are incorporated into the policy, and customers are aware before getting into any sales and customer agreed by signing the terms, then the customer will be binding to it. As a result the credit manager would able to claim for the payment accordingly to the agreement, if a customer is disobeying the agreed terms and conditions. Therefore, it is a responsibility of policy makers of the company and senior management to come up with a strong policy and implementing it. And this could be done in coordination with a credit manager. Another reason could be that, even if the company has a strong policy, without acting upon it, we cannot achieve what we want. For example, if the sales persons or sales manager, or senior management, issue goods without checking the credit worthiness of customer with their friends or close customers and they make own payment paying term their way without consent of credit manager. Increased competition among suppliers The business environment is very volatile. Competition among business increases steadily. Being proactive would be the best solution for the success of the company. During the tough competition, it is essential to revise the credit policy terms as accordingly to customer needs and affordability. Otherwise competitors would be offering more attractive conditions and they are likely to get all customers resulting gain the market share in the business sector. And ABC Ltd would not able to get enough customers to achieve the credit targets allocated in the budget. Quality of goods and services If the quality of the products offered by ABC Ltd is very low, then the customer will refuse to buy the products. Even if they buy the product if the quality is below their expected level, then the payment will be held for some time. And it’s a responsibility of the production department to produce the goods with good quality according to customer needs. The goods Delaying in delivering If the company is unable to deliver the goods at the agreed time, then the customer would not able to depend on the company. In other words, failure to deliver the promises will lead to loss of customer and low dependability. Therefore, it is important for production department to provide raw materials and other necessary material to produce goods and it’s their responsibility to deliver the goods to customers on time. If the company fails to provide this, then the customers would prefer other competitors and faces low market share and generate low profit. Relationship with sales and credit department The relationship between sales staffs (or sales manager) and credit manager is very important. The credit manager responsibility is that to provide further guidance to achieve sales to the sales staffs. Why manager might submit a budget estimate that is biased. And ways to Company guard against it. According to the CIMA definition of budget, it is a plan quantified in monetary terms, prepared and approved prior to a defined period of time, usually showing planned income to be generated and/or expenditure to be incurred during that period and the capital to be employed to attain a given objective. There are types of budget, managers use when preparing the budget. One of the methods is incremental budget. The budget is prepared using the previous year budget as a basis with incremental amount is added to the new budget. Resources are allocated based on previous years resource allocations. The main advantage of this type of budget is that it is easy to understand and implement and also save time. This could be one of the reasons why budget estimates are based. The main reason is that incremental budget does not take environment changing factor into considerations. Due to changing is economy, budget need to be revised basically periodically and necessary amendments need to be done. Another problem is that, incremental budget does not have incentives to innovative ideas and to reduce cost. Another type of budget could be fixed budget. In fixed budgets, figures are fixed at the beginning of budgetary period. Any change in circumstance, these cannot be changed. For example, due to high inflation, raw material costs (others as well, such as machinery cost, about cost, rent, electricity) increase more that which is estimated in the budget. In fixed budget this cannot be changed. Therefore, actual expenditure exceeds than the estimated value in the budget. A good way to mitigate the budget that is based is that having shorter review periods. For example, if estimated budget is for one year. Then managers can review the budget after three month period or on quarter basis. The second way to guard the company from base budget is that to approach zero based budgeting. Budget starts from zero and items included in the budget should be justifiable to the budget holder. All expenses allocated for the whole project, should justify each activity separately and develop a questioning attitude. This helps to minimize the over spendinging and inefficient. Therefore company cannot spend more that what it is estimated and from the estimated expenditure, expected profits will be generated. Conclusion From above discussion, we can conclude that, increase in company gross profit would have a direct impact on net profit. Generating more sales will increase the gross profits and by minimizing the company expenses, the companies net profit would increase. And the profitability can be compared against the previous years by using ratios and trend analysis. Secondly, businesses normally prepare the budgets annually and quarterly. Regular evaluation of budgets prevents from overspending and adjust the budgets, according to changing the environment. And also in order to achieve high credit facility a budgeted, not only the credit manager should work on it. Other department staffs like sales and senior management should play an important role in doing so. References Atrill, McLaney, Harvey Jenner 2012, Accounting an introduction, 5th edn, Pearson Australia. FICM, GB 1986, Â © 2004 FECMA , viewed 1 December 2014, http://www.fecma.eu/Documents/FECMA%20Credit%20Policy%20chapt%20%201.pdf>. McLaney, E Atrill, P 2010, Accounting An Introduction, 5th edn, Pearson Education Limited. Riley, Jim 2012, Tutor2u Limited, viewed 1 December 2014, http://www.tutor2u.net/business/accounts/incremental-budgeting.htm>. Schaeffer, MS 2012, Essentials of Credit, Collections, and Accounts Receivable, John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, USA. Page 1 of 14

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Use of Minor Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird Essay -- To Kill a Moc

In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a range of both major and minor characters which are portrayed with varying personalities. These character's interactions help to explain the issues that this text is concerned with. In the novel, the protagonist, Atticus Finch, is a defence lawyer who is appointed to represent a black man, Tom Robinson, who is charged with raping a white woman. The novel is set during the 1930s in America, which was when segregation of blacks and whites was well manifested into the society of those days. A black person had no right to defend himself if accused of a crime by white men. The author depicted several minor characters which helped to build up and expose the personality of the text's protagonist, Atticus Finch. Tom Robinson is a minor character who is black and accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Tom Robinson symbolizes a mockingbird which does not harm any people but is accused of an uncommitted crime. Atticus Finch is appointed to defend Tom Robinson. The portrayal of Tom Robinson in the text helped me understand the char...

Friday, October 11, 2019

Human Kind and Extraterrestrial Life Essay

For centuries ever since man has first looked up at the night sky and wondered what other things existed beyond Earth he has continued to explore the heavens in search for answers. Over a few hundred years the quest for truth has yield substantial amounts of data. It is true that ancient astronomers did nothing more than just attribute mythical and religious meaning to different celestial phenomena. Stars have been given their respective names—a group of them are even linked to gods and mythical figures as constellations, and were used as a timetable for various human activities like navigation and agriculture. However, the improvements in modern astronomy have changed the rules of the game from mere nomenclature to a more profound exploration of space and the myriad possibilities that it brings. The quest for knowing other life outside the planet has never been more exciting and providential as it had been before. Slowly we are beginning to realize that the chances that there are advanced life-forms out there waiting to be discovered are significantly high to support the claim that we are not alone. To say that the entire universe is a big place is to make the biggest scientific understatement. Science has revealed that the universe is so big that there are no mathematical figures to approximate its size. In order to define the known borders of space there is a need to express terms in a special unit called a Light: Or the distance that light travels in one year. Recently, the Hubble Space telescope has pegged the perimeter and edges of the universe to a width of millions and millions of light years (O’Brien, â€Å"Long Live Hubble†). Such distance alone beggars description. Within that given space, there are billions of individual galaxies each with roughly 400 million stars in the system on average. There could be less but there could also be a dozen times more. At any rate, there are an estimated millions of stars with planetary systems like our own. Roughly a fraction of a percent of that number may have planets that host organic elements of life both simple and complex. Some of the complex life-forms may evolve into intelligent life capable of developing competent scientific knowledge and even perhaps communicate with their neighbors using advanced radio technology just like we had been doing at the turn of the last century. Planet Earth appears to be the only planet in the Solar System viable for life. Most planets have noxious environments and harsh atmospheres. Our closest planetary neighbors, Mars and Venus, are either too cold or too hot (Sagan, â€Å"Heaven and Hell†, 76-79). The primordial soup which made life on Earth possible will freeze or dry up anywhere else in the Solar System. Indeed, religion waxes poetic that our world is an astounding and thought-provoking miracle of life. However, evolutionary scientists would say that we are just fortunate that the environment, at one point of our planet’s history, has been conducive to the formation of life and the same has not been interrupted by any outside cause (Dawkins 19). Some planets in other stars may theoretically be as lucky to be able to give rise to life, and theoretically intelligent beings too (21). But just like Mars, Venus and other planets in the Solar System, the chances of life are rare. Even with Earth alone, the statistics reflect how fragile the occurrence of life began millions of years ago. Unless there are kinds of biological species that can withstand even extreme environments and thus would continue to develop despite harsh conditions, then Earth life might just all there is in the universe. Thanks to recent discoveries, however, scientists are inclined to believe that a certain kind of bacterium can live in the highest or lowest temperatures, impervious to both heat and cold, makes it possible that life may still develop or artificially introduced in Mars and Venus or elsewhere regardless of hostile environments (Sagan 9). If that is the case, the chances of life may be higher than previously expected. While scientists are busy in attempting to find life out there, the rest of the world is perpetually fascinated with the idea of the existence of extraterrestrial life. Science fiction and Hollywood movies are in the forefront of providing us with hypothetical images and scenarios of aliens visiting our planet. Alien invasion is one of the most titillating themes that fire up our imagination. H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds and Steven Spielberg’s Independence Day bespeak both our universal desire to feel that we are not alone and the irrational fear that beings more intelligent than us would destroy the planet. The realm of the unknown viz. extraterrestrial life has never been simultaneously awe-inspiring and scary. In addition, fiction writers and film-makers present extraterrestrial beings as creatures that appear, behave and live entirely different from humans. Similarly, if we are to accept the premise that conditions for life in other planets were vastly peculiar, then it is fair to expect that the aliens would probably have tentacles, communicate through ESP, possess superhuman powers, spit venomous saliva, eat through metal or have human like bodies but with pasty white skin and large, black oval eyes. Although they seem to be portrayed differently, the literature on aliens share the common feature that they are antagonistic creatures out to invade and kill all humans Scientists theorize that if other life-forms were capable of making interstellar travel they must have evolved as a species and as a civilization to eschew violence. Otherwise, if such aliens were warmongers as movies and science fiction stories would suggest, then they would have obliterated themselves way before they have developed complex means of space travel. In fact, alien tourists, if there have been some, would have more reasons to fear us than we would have to fear them. Carl Sagan writes that it is more likely â€Å"that the mere fact that they have survived for so long is because they have learned to live with themselves and others† (258). Similarly, he adds that perhaps our fears reflect our own backward thinking as a civilization, â€Å"an expression of our guilty conscience about our past history: The ravages against civilizations only slightly backward than we† (259). In other words, the conquests done by Western civilization against their contemporaries time and again are so imbedded in our history that we expect advanced life-forms to have the same colonizing tendencies. The fascination for extraterrestrial life grows with such gusto that several years after alien hype has reached feverish pitch, numerous sights Unidentified Flying Objects all over the world have been reported. Likewise, people claim to have been abducted and subjected to strange experiments by our curious alien visitors. The encounters are few and far between but each of them fuels our imagination. Thus far, none of the sightings have been confirmed to be true although we desperately believe that one or two are real (Cook, â€Å"UFO’s: the Secret Evidence†). As several critics of alleged alien encounters rightly observes, the relation between alien encounters and weird and wacky people who report them only proves the fact that these reports are a hoax. Meanwhile, humanity has yet to mature as a civilization before we even begin to welcome other intelligent species. Accordingly, science fiction writers posit the theory of the Fermi paradox stating the reason why aliens have not paid us a visit is because they, â€Å"the advanced alien community has cordoned off the earth in a galactic nursery, until the time that we have reached an adequate stage, ready for contact† (Tee, â€Å"Extraterrestrial Life†). Yet scientists and writers remain optimistic about the existence of intelligent life-form. The famous Drake equation translates the possibility of extraterrestrial life into a mathematical formula where N is the number of advanced civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy. It is the product of values assigned with respect to the number of stars in the galaxy, the fraction of which that have planetary systems, a percent of which are suitable for substantial biological formation, the probability that life arises, the variable pertaining to its evolution, intelligence and further multiplied to the reasonable time that intelligent life is able to survive taking into account the possibility of self-eradication due to wars, environmental changes and the like (Ford, â€Å"What is the Drake Equation? †). The value of N could be any number more than one what with the number of stars and galaxies in the universe. Even if the estimate hovers on an insignificant value of 1 or 3, the prospect, that one or more planetary systems have intelligent life and such have survived and evolved into complex societies, is truly astonishing. The statistical computation of the probability that Extraterrestrial beings exist leaves little to the imagination. Scientists are convinced that life exists in other planets that they have established extravagant methods of getting in touch with them. One of the most ambitious projects of making contact to outer beings to date is the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program. The name of the project sums up what it sets out to do—to search the heavens for signs of intelligent life. It sends radio signals and broadcasts them to specified points in space, such as candidate stars and planets. 50 years of sending the messages, a reply has yet to be received. Of course, this does not disprove the claim of alien life, what with the distance that the radio signals have to travel to and fro the recipient, but rather, this only inspires other scientists to develop quicker and more effective means of communication (Shostak, â€Å"Finding Them, Finding Us†). In addition, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been continuously sending golden discs into outer-space, ever since it sent the first men into the moon, containing details about human civilization and how far it has progressed (Sagan 264-265). To this day, the discs hurl into the infinite void with the hope of one day crash-landing into a planet with beings capable of deciphering the code. We have long been fixated on our earthly problems and conflicts, and took pride with all our achievements, but the moment that contact is made, the event would change how we look at ourselves and how we appreciate our place in the universal magnitude of things. If before we could not care much about how badly we treat our close neighbors in the planet, we might fare better as an intelligent species by the mere thought that we are not alone. As such, we have to find ways to learn how to live peacefully and progress scientifically if only to survive long enough to meet our interstellar neighbors. Nevertheless, the question whether or not there is extraterrestrial life remains to be answered conclusively, whether we are alone or not: Either conclusion is mind-boggling. Works Cited Cook, Nick. UFO’s: The Secret Evidence. 18 Mar. 2006. BBC Online Documentaries. 1 May 2008 . Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. London: Oxford University Press, 1990. Ford, Steve. â€Å"What is the Drake Equation? † Aug. 1995. The SETI League. 1 May 2008 < http://www. setileague. org/general/drake. htm>. O’Brien, Miles. â€Å"Long Live Hubble†. 31 Oct. 2006. CNN International. 1 May 2008 < http://edition. cnn. com/2006/TECH/space/10/31/hubble. obrien/index. html>. Sagan, Carl. Cosmos. New York: Ballantine Books, 1980. Shostak, Seth. â€Å"Finding Them, Finding Us†. 28 Feb. 2008. SETI Institute. 1 May 2008 . Tee, Brian. â€Å"Extraterrestrial Life†. The Ten Big Questions. 1 May 2008 < http://www. 123infinity. com/extraterrestrial_life. html>.