Book Report: “Deaf Again” by Mark Drolsbaugh Essay

Deaf Again is the story of Mark Drolsbaugh, and was written to show the world a deaf perspective, of how they live, struggle on a daily basis. Deaf Again is about Mark Drolsbaugh journey from being born hearing, to becoming hard of hearing during the first grade, and the difficulties of being forced into the mainstream and not knowing of the joys of the deaf community and deaf culture until he is in his twenties. Mark starts his story by talking about his mother’s natural birth. He was born in Pennsylvania to his deaf parents Don and Sherry Drolsbaugh. Mark was born able to hear and learned to talk and know a little how to sign because of his parents. This all changed when he was in first grade. Mark began to experience significant hearing loss. His grandparents were informed and Mark was taken to different doctors, audiologists, and speech pathologists to try to fix his deafness. Since Mark was not completely deaf, his grandparents held on tightly to what hearing and speech their grandson had left and to find ways to improve it. All the negativity that Mark dealt with towards being deaf, made him also feel negative towards his deafness. His Grandparents believed the way to improve Mark’s hearing was for him to keep attending school with children who could hear, because if he were to go to a school that would sign and help him accept his deafness it would â€Å"ruin† Mark ’s chance at being able to be â€Å"fixed†. School was difficult for Mark because his classrooms contained more than twenty students and the information he had to learn would only go over his head. Mark would wear hearing aids, and because of this he was also ridiculed and made fun, because he was different. Mark would get into fights and have report cards saying that his behavior could be improved. Mark’s grandparents made a smart move and had Mark transfer to Plymouth Meeting Friends School, PMFS for short. It was a small school with two teachers and eight kids to each classroom. Mark began the third grade at PMFS with welcoming children, making him feel comfortable. Mark not only would have a challenge with his deafness, but religion as well. Mark’s family was Jewish and would have problems when celebrations would come around. To relieve stress from school and his family, Mark would play baseball with the children in his  neighborhood. The problem was not playing baseball, it was his friend Sekou. Sekou was African American; during this era there was extreme racial discrimination. Sekou’s family was proud of their culture, while Mark wished his family had some pride with Mark being deaf. When it was time for Mark to shift to high school, his grandparent had him attend Germantown Friends School. Germantown Friends School was one of the best schools in Philadelphia, but the problem was that the school was much larger and the curriculum was known to be tough. Mark persevered and began attending the high school even though he would be the first student who was deaf at that school. At first the transition was very difficult because of Mark not knowing what was going on in the classroom and for a long time he was unable to catch up until he had an interpreter named Emily come to help. Despite his difficulties connecting to other students, Mark made many friends from joining the baseball team at GFS. Unfortunately, throughout his high school years Mark still felt inferior trying to fit into the hearing world. Mark knew he needed help and depended on his friends when they would go to parties he needed his friends to explain what was going on and as more people joined the conversation it became clear to Mark that it was pointless to ask â€Å"what did they say† etc. there were too many people for him to keep up with. He knew he didn’t belong and even though he tried, he knew people would always view him as different. Soon Mark graduated and he struggled with what he was going to do for the next chapter of his life. He took a job working at a supermarket and was satisfied with just that until a woman named Linda Baine offered him a position at PSD as a dorm supervisor. Working at PSD, Mark began to learn about deaf culture and the deaf community. With the shutting down of the dorms because of the small amount of students living in them, Mark was out of a job. Linda had encouraged him to attend Gallaudet University, a university for the deaf. Soon Mark transferred from Temple University to Gallaudet and moved to the university’s location, Washington D.C. Mark had never really had many friends who were deaf or was a part of deaf culture, but at Gallaudet, all that changed when he met fellow students who were just like him. He learned that he no longer had to try to fit in with the hearing world; he had finally found people who he could communicate fully and have meaningful conversations with people who saw him as their equal. At Gallaudet, Mark  also learned leadership skills and he learned to have the courage to speak up for himself. In hearing schools, Mark was unable to provide any input or offer discussion when it came to group projects because of the language barrier. But now since all his peers know sign language, he is able to express his opinion and lead when it came to schoolwork. It was there where Mark met his future wife, Melanie McPhee. Mark and Melanie would later get married and then graduate and both were successful in obtaining jobs within their community. Mark and Melanie have three kids together that are all hearing. Their children learned ASL as well as spoken language and are thus bilingual. Mark had a main argument throughout the book that he would bring up a lot; to teach deaf children ASL at a very early age. Instead of trying to force deaf children to speak spoken language, to teach them ASL because it is at these early years in a child’s life that language development be implemented in order for the child to not fall behind in school. The problem most parents are doing is not teaching their deaf children any language so when they enter school, they are far behind. Parent who do this are actually causing harm to the children cause now they believe they are not good enough and will live their life less than what they are. I agree with Mark because language is very important because in our society, we are constantly communicating and if a child does not learn this, they suffer greatly mentally and emotionally. Most professionals (and hearing parents of deaf children) see deafness as a disability, something that needs to be cured or fixed. When children see this attitude that their parents are against signing, the child picks that up and feels the same way that it is wrong to be deaf it is wrong to sign, and their self-esteem suffers. The other problem is that most deaf children that are born into hearing families don’t become a part of deaf culture and the deaf community. Mark never felt like he belonged in the hearing world but when he discovered the deaf community and deaf culture, he found the place where he belonged, with people who understood him. It’s important for children and adolescents to have a sense of belonging and that can only be found in the deaf community. A prime example of how the deaf community helps people who are deaf is Mark; his book is evidence that the deaf community helps the deaf find belonging in their community. As Mark Drolsbaugh puts it, the number one challenge was I-S-O-L-A-T-I-O-N. This is his story and how he overcame the obstacles and  became the deaf man he was born to be.

Macbeth Monologue

Monologue The witches were telling the truth. I was shocked when they said I was the thane of Cawdor I thought it was just lies. But now Angus and Ross told me officially that I am the thane of Cawdor. Wow this is a huge honor, a new title the thane of Glamis and Cowder. But what did he do? That’s right he is a traitor. But why have I taken his position? What have I done to disserve this title? Indeed I fought in the battle but so did countless others.What sets me apart from those courageous souls fighting alongside me? Witches actually exist? Magic is around us? If they are truly all powerful, perhaps they deserve this title more than I do. But they are ugly I have to say honestly. Is it weird that they knew who I am? That’s right they are witches after all. One of them did say something which I think I heard wrong, she said al â€Å"all hail Macbeth-that shalt be king hereafter† but what will the king do wrong, he is the king after all, a noble king.I’m sure they are mistaken; he is a wonderful ruler and a great role model. Aha! They must not be witches, I am not of royal descent, so I am not able to claim the Kings thrown. Here’s my guess, they were lucky, or perhaps they are not supernatural but supernaturally smart. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. I refuse to believe what they say because they are just imperfect speakers. By sinels death I know I am thane of Glamous and know thane of Cowdor

Treetop Forest Products Ltd

Marketing: In business, firm marketing generates the revenues that the financial people manage and the production people use in creating goods and services. The challenge that faces marketing is to generate those revenues by satisfying customers’ wants at a profit and in a socially responsible manner. However, marketing is not limited to business organizations.Whenever we try to persuade somebody to do something: donate to RED CROSS, not to litter the highways, save energy, vote for candidate, we are engaging in marketing; thus marketing has a broad societal meaning and it is applicable not only for profit making but also for not profit organizations. Many scholars define marketing as follows: 1. According to American Marketing Association, marketing is defined as the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers or users. . According to William J. Stanton, Marketing is a system of business activities designed to plan , price, promote and distribute want satisfying goods and services to present and potential customers. 3. According to Evans and Berman, Marketing is the anticipation, stimulation, facilitation, regulation and satisfaction of consumer and public’s demand for products, services, organizations, people, places, and ideas through the exchange process. 4.According to Philip Kotler, Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others. Generally, the definition of marketing can be grouped in to two: classical (narrow) definition and modern (broad) definition. Classical Definition: In classical terms marketing can be defined as the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers. This definition is too narrow to describe marketing.It emphasizes the distribution aspect of marketing. Modern Definition: In broade r terms marketing is defined as a system of business activities designed to plan, price, distribute and promote want satisfying products (goods and services) to present and potential customers. In marketing, there are combinations of activities, which start before the creation of a product and don’t end until customers are satisfied. Therefore, product planning, pricing, distribution and promotion are the main activities performed in marketing.Marketing includes anticipating demand, which requires a firm to do customer research on a regular bases so that it develops and introduces products that are desired by consumers, Management of demand which consists of stimulation, facilitation, and regulation of tasks; and satisfaction of demand which involves actual performance, safety, availability of options, after sale service and other factors. From the above discussions, we can conclude the following about marketing: a. Marketing is the business activity concerned with the flow o f goods and services from producers to consumers. . Marketing generates and facilitates exchange c. The concept of marketing lies on needs, wants, and demands of customers. d. Marketing is greater than selling. e. Marketing is an integrated activity. f. Marketing is concerned with customer satisfaction. MARKETING FUNCTIONS The following are the basic marketing functions: 1. Environmental Analysis and Marketing Research: Involves monitoring and adapting to external factors that affect success or failures, such as the economy and competition; and collecting data to resolve specific marketing issues. 2. Consumer Analysis:Involves examining and evaluating customer characteristics, needs, and purchase processes and selecting the group of consumers at which to aim marketing efforts. 3. Product Planning: ( including goods, services and ideas) Involves developing and maintaining products, product assortments, product images, brands, and packaging, and optional features; and deleting falteri ng products. 4. Distribution Planning: Involves establishing relations with distribution-channel intermediaries, physical distribution, inventory management, warehousing, transportation, the allocation of goods and services, wholesaling and retailing 5.Promotion Planning: Involves communicating with customers, the general public and others through some form of advertising, publicity, personal selling, and/or sales promotion. 6. Price Planning: Involves determining price levels and ranges, price techniques, terms of purchase, price adjustments, and the use of price as an active or passive factor. 7. Broadening the organizations' /individuals' scope: Involves deciding on the emphasis to place, as well as the approach to take, on international marketing, service/ -non-profit marketing and societal issues. 8. Marketing Management:Involves planning, implementation, and controlling the marketing program (strategy) and individual marketing functions; and appraising the risks and benefits i n decision making. According to W. J. Stanton and McKarthy, there are eight economic activities in marketing that are broadly classified into three: 1. Exchange: -Buying -Selling 2. Physical Distribution – Transportation – Storage 3. Facilitating /Auxiliary/ – Financing – Marketing research and information – Risk bearing – Product standardization 1) Exchange: It is the process by which parties provide something of value to one another to satisfy the needs of each.The seller provides a needed product Goods Services Seller Buyer Money Credit The buyer offers something in return a) Buying: It is acquisition and procurement of goods for eventual resale or for production of other goods or rendering of services. b) Selling: It is not only just to make sales but also to find buyers, stimulate them, and provide advice and service to buyers. It involves advertisement, personal selling, customer service, publicity, etc. 2) Physical Distribution: Refer s to handling and movement of goods from production area to market center.It consists of a) Storage: It provides proper handling and storage of goods until they are demanded and sold. b) Transportation: It is the shipment and movement of goods from their manufacturing place to the market center /place of sale/. It enables to make goods reachable to the consumers. 3) Facilitating Function /Auxiliary Function: these are functions that facilitate and assist the proper performance of other functions of marketing. It encompasses a) Financing: To carry out business operations smoothly, it requires finance or money. Marketing as a major business activity, leads us to the need for money or finance.Without it, organizations are unable to schedule their operations. The activity of financing involves the proper handling and management of the inflow and outflow of money. Accordingly, finance is defined as the management function, which involves effectively obtaining and using money. Sources of finance include revenue from sale of company products and services, rental of business properties, from sale of stock, or from loan and credit agencies. b) Market Research and information: Managers of businesses do not make decisions on the basis of common sense or intuition. They require information.Therefore, to make marketing decisions and to design effective marketing policies, managers should get information regarding tests, preferences, attitudes and needs of customers; position of competitors, capacity of suppliers and creditors. For the success of business, market research is an important activity that involves gathering, analyzing, and interpretation of data collected regarding the needs of consumers. c) Risk Bearing: Business organizations when they are established, it is with the objective of getting profit, expansion, growth, etc. Nevertheless, they fail to achieve their objectives because of uncertainty of the future.Hence, the chance or the possibility of loss that bus iness face is known as RISK. d) Product standardization and Grading: These are facilitating functions that are used to identify the quantity and quality of production. When goods are standardized and graded neither the buyer nor the seller is required to check each and every part of the product. It saves the time of both buyers & sellers. Standardization enables customers to know that there is always definite or standard quality in a particular package; and grading indicates that a package labeled with grades A, B, or C are always uniform and the same everywhere and ever time.The field of marketing is a crucial one for several reasons: it stimulates demand; a large number of people are employed on marketing positions; it supports entire industries such as advertising and marketing research; all people are consumers in some situations; it is necessary to use scarce resources efficiently; it impacts on people's beliefs and life styles; and it influences the quality of our lives. The s cope of marketing is quite broad and diversified. To perform the marketing functions, marketing Performers are required and they are organizations or individuals that undertake one or more marketing functions.They include manufacturers, service providers, wholesalers, retailers, marketing specialists, and organizational and final consumers. Each performer has a different role. One party usually does not perform all the functions. This is due to costs, assortment requirements, specialized abilities, company size, established methods of distribution, and consumer interests. TASKS OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT Marketing managers in different organizations might face any of the following states of demand. The marketing task is to manage demand effectively. The various states of demand and the corresponding marketing management task according to P.Kotler are the following: 1. Negative demand: This is a state in which all or the major parts of the society, dislikes the product and may even pay a price to avoid it. Examples are vaccination, alcoholic employees, dental work, and seat belts. The corresponding marketing task is to analyze why the market dislikes the product and whether product redesign, lower price, or more positive promotion can change the consumer attitudes. This marketing task or activity is known as CONVERSIONAL marketing which tries to change people’s want rather than serve their wants. . No demand: This is a case where target customers may be uninterested in or indifferent to a particular product. For example, farmers may not know about a new farming method; college students may not be interested in taking foreign language courses. Marketing managers are concerned with finding ways to connect the product’s benefits with the user’s needs and interests. This marketing task is known as STIMULATIONAL marketing; it tries to stimulate a want for an object in people who initially have no knowledge or interest in the product 3.Latent demand : Consumers have a want that is not satisfied by any existing product or service. This state of demand where many customers share a strong need for something that does not exist in the form of actual product is called LATENT demand. Examples include the need for harmless cigarettes, more fuel-efficient cars, etc. In this case, marketing managers respond by trying and developing effective goods and services that will satisfy the demand through analysis and measurement of the potential market.The marketing task is called DEVELOPMENTAL marketing and its task is to measure the size of the potential market and trying to develop a new product or service that would satisfy the demand. 4. Falling demand: Sooner or later, every organization faces falling demand for one or more of its products. For example, churches have seen their membership decline, and private colleges have seen fewer applications. The marketer must find the causes of market decline and re-stimulate demand by finding new m arkets, changing product features, or creating more effective communication and the marketing task is REMARKETING. . Irregular demand: It is a state in which the timing pattern of demand is marked by seasonal and volatile fluctuations causing problems of idle capacity and overworked. For example museums are under-visited during weekdays and overworked during weekends. The corresponding marketing task is SYNCHROMARKETING, i. e. , to find ways to alter the time pattern of demand through flexible pricing, promotion and other incentives so that it will better match the time pattern of supply. 6. Full demand: The organization has just the amount of demand it wants and can handle.It is a state where the current level and timing of demand is equal to the desired level and timing of demand. The marketing task is MAINTENANCE marketing and is designed to maintain the current level of demand against changing consumer preferences. The organization maintains quality, and continually measures sat isfaction to make sure it is doing a good job. 7. Overfull demand: It is a state in which demand is higher than the company can or wants to handle. The marketing task is called DEMARKETING and its task is finding ways to reduce the demand temporarily, or permanently.De-marketing involves such actions as raising prices and reducing promotion and service. It does not aim to destroy demand, but only to reduce it. It calls for using normal marketing tools in reverse. 8. Unwhole-Some demand: Unwholesome products such as cigarettes, alcohol, and hard drugs will attract organized effort to destroy the demand or interest in particular product or service. The corresponding marketing task is known as COUNTERMARKETING it is a difficult task in that the aim is to get people who like something to give it up. Marketing manager cope with these tasks by arrying out marketing research, planning, implementation and control. The demand levels and corresponding marketing tasks are summarized as follows : State of demand| Marketing task| Formal Name| 1. | Negative demand| Disabuse demand| Conversional marketing| 2. | No demand| Create demand| Stimulation Marketing| 3. | Latent demand| Develop demand| Developmental marketing| 4. | Falling demand| Revitalized demand| Remarketing marketing| 5. | Irregular demand| Synchronize demand| Synchro-marketing| 6. | Full demand| Maintain| Maintenance marketing| 7. Overfull demand| Reduce demand| Demarketing marketing| 8. | Unwholesome demand| Destroy demand| Counter marketing| 2. 3. MARKETING MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS We have described marketing management, as the conscious effort to achieve desired exchange outcomes with target markets. Now we ask what philosophy should guide these marketing efforts? What weights should be given to the interests of the organization, the customers and society? Very often these interests conflict. Clearly, marketing activities should be carried out under a clear philosophy of efficient, effective, and responsible mark eting.There are five competing concepts under which organizations conduct their marketing activity. 1. The production concept: This concept holds that consumers will favor those products that are widely available and low in cost. Management of production oriented organization concentrates on achieving high production efficiently and wide distribution coverage. Organizations that appreciate this concept assume that consumers like products that are widely available and accessible at low cost. The production concept is one of the oldest concepts guiding sellers.The assumption that consumers are primarily interested in product availability and low price holds in at least two types of situations. The first is where the demand for a product exceeds supply as in many Third World countries. Here consumers are more interested in obtaining the product than in its fine points. The suppliers will concentrate on finding ways to increase production. The second situation is where the productâ€⠄¢s cost is high and has to be brought down through increased productivity to expand the market.Texas instruments provides a contemporary example of the production concept: Texas Instruments is the leading American exponent of the â€Å"get-out production, cut the price† philosophy. Ford put all of his talent into perfecting the mass production of automobile to be down their instruments all of its efforts in building production volume and improving technology in order to bring down costs. It uses its lower costs to cut process and expand the market size. It strives to achieve the dominant position in its markets.To Texas Instruments, marketing primarily means one thing bringing down the price to buyers; this orientation has also been a key strategy of many Japanese companies. 2. The product concept: Under this concept, marketing managers assume that consumers will prefer those products that offer (provide) the most quality, performance, with good features. Managers in this pr oduct-oriented organizations focus their energy on making quality products and improving them over time. These managers assume that buyers admire well-made products and can select, purchase and appreciate product quality.Products oriented companies often design their product with little or no customer input. These managers are caught up in a love affair with their product and fail to appreciate that the market may be less â€Å"turned on. † They trust that their engineers will know how to design or improve the product. Too often they will not even examine competitors products because â€Å"they were not invented here. † A General Motors executive said years ago† â€Å"How can the public know what kind of car they want until they see what is available? † GM’s designers would develop plant for a new car. Then manufacturing would make it.Then the finance department would price it. Finally, marketing and sales would try to sell it. GM failed to ask cust omers what they wanted and never brought in the marketing people at the beginning to help figure out what kind of car would sell. The product concept leads to â€Å"marketing myopia† a focus on the product greater than on the customer’s need. Railroad management thought that users wanted trains rather than transportation and overlooked the growing challenge of the airlines, buses, trucks, and automobiles. Churches and the post office all assume that they are offering the public the right product and wonder why their sales falter.These organizations too often are looking into a mirror when they should be looking out the window. 3. The Selling concept: Under this philosophy/concept/, marketing managers assume that consumers purchase products if the organization undertakes an aggressive selling and promotion effort. Therefore, firms emphasize and direct their effort on promotion and selling of their products. Most firms practice the selling concept when they introduce new products and when they have over capacity. The selling concept holds that consumers, if left alone, will ordinarily not buy enough of the organization’s products.The organization must therefore undertake an aggressive selling effort. The concept assumes that consumers typically show buying inertia or resistance and have to be coaxed into buying, and that the company has available a whole battery of effective selling and promotion tools to stimulate more buying. The selling concept is practiced most aggressively with â€Å"unsought goods,† those goods that buyers normally do not think of buying such as insurance, encyclopedias, and funeral plots. These industries have perfected various sales techniques to locate prospects and hard sell them on product benefits.Most firms practice the selling concept when they have over capacity. Their aim is to sell what they make rather than make what the market wants. In modern industrial economies, productive capacity has been built up to a point where most markets are buyer markets (i. e. , the buyers are dominant), and sellers have to scramble hard for customers. Prospects are bombarded with television commercials, newspaper ads, direct mail, and sales calls. At every turn, someone is trying to sell something. As a result, the public identifies marketing with hard selling and advertising. 4.The Marketing Concept: The marketing concept is different from the above three concepts. Managers under this concept assumes that the key to achieving organizational goals is based on the determination of the needs and wants of consumers and delivering or providing the desired satisfaction more efficiently, and effectively, than competitors. When we compare the marketing concept with the selling concept, the selling concept focuses on the needs of the seller; the marketing concept focuses on the needs of the buyer. Selling concept focuses on the needs of the seller; marketing on the needs of the buyer.Selling is preoccupi ed with the seller’s need to convert his product into cash. Marketing is preoccupied with the idea of satisfying the customers’ needs of the product and the whole cluster of things associated by creating and delivering the product. The marketing concept rests on four main pillars, namely target market, customer needs, coordinated marketing, and profitability. These are shown in figure below – The selling concept Starting pointFocusMeans Ends FactoryProductsSelling ; Profits throughpromotion sales volume The marketing concept Starting point focus meansEndsTarget market Customer CoordinatedProfits through Needs marketingCustomer Satisfaction Here we examine how each pillar of the marketing concept contributes to more marketing that is effective. i. TARGET MARKET: No company can operate in every market and satisfy every need. Nor can it even do a good job within one broad market. Companies do best when define their target market (s) carefully and prepare a tailored marketing program. An auto manufacture can think of designing passenger cars, station wagons, sports carts, and luxury. But this thinking is less precise than defining a customer target group.One Japanese carmaker is designing a car for the career woman, and it will have many features that male-dominated cars don’t have. Another Japanese carmaker is designing a car for the â€Å" town man,† the young person who needs to get about town and park easily. In each, the company has clarified a target market, and this will greatly influence the car design. Societal Marketing Concept: It holds that the organization should determine the needs, wants, and interests of the target markets and deliver the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than competitors in a way that maintains or improves the customer’s and the ociety’s well-being. The societal marketing concept calls upon marketers to balance three considerations in setting their marketing poli cies. Originally, companies based their marketing decisions largely on short-run company profit. Overtime, companies began to recognize the long-run importance of satisfying consumer wants, and introduced the marketing concept. Now they are beginning to think of society’s interests when making decisions. The societal marketing concept calls for balancing all three considerations-company profits, consumer wants, and society’s interests.

Critique of self-determination theory Assignment

Critique of self-determination theory - Assignment Example reatest strength of the self-determination theory in education is concentric upon the means by which it serves to help educators understand the concept of motivation within their stakeholders (Brophy, 2010). Though one may be tempted to view the self-determination theory of education as something of a hands off approach, the truth of the matter is that the theory itself encourages educator involvement in the form of integrating understandings of the value of risk within the students. Even though the series by its very nature places the most responsibility within the hands of the student/stakeholder, a proper understanding of motivation by the educator is sufficient to ensure that a given degree of self-determination will ultimately be realized. Likewise, with regards to the greatest weakness, the reader can readily understand that due to the great differentials and personality type that exists within the student body, not all individuals will fully integrate with a self deterministic approach to education. As with any theory, the weakness of the self-determination theory in education hinges upon the fact that although it helps to adequately explain a majority of educator/student involvement, it is ultimately not 100% effective in explaining all educator/student involvement. With regards to the work of Edwards Deci and Richard Ryan, the self determination theory is understood in a slightly different way. Accordingly, these authors note that the self-determination theory, though effective, ultimately seeks to reward those that most actively integrate with the process of education (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Even though this is not a bad thing, it necessarily implies that those students that do not seek to actively participate or motivate themselves will be at a significant disadvantage if this theory is applied universally within education. The authors note that the application of this theory can be seen as something of a reward mechanism whereby the students that

Outline and critique the main themes in martin luther kings Jr.s Essay

Outline and critique the main themes in martin luther kings Jr.s theology. can it inspire the contemporay church to be a 'voice of conscience' in society today - Essay Example Other than the colored church traditions, King sought from other intellectual sources to back up his noble course of liberating his people from oppression. National and international public figures like Mahatma Gandhi and Thoreau inspired him with their individual philosophies. He borrowed the nonaggressive protest tradition that the two advocated. He also gave secular interactionism a chance, alongside protestant liberalism in an attempt to have in place a harmonized approach of theology amid struggle for equality. It’s apparent that the key hindrance to Martin King talented theologian is the narrow, shallow, elitist, and racist definition of theology. These flaws restricts its methods and subject matter to problems and issues that other races tend to identify. King at all times steered from the front. He passionately sought to transform all the forms of oppression in his society. He aspired to establish a fair and a nondiscriminatory society. Thus, it is possible to analyze his involvement with such events as the famous successful Montgomery bus boycott (1953-56). In addition to the defeat in Albany (1961), the Birmingham demonstrations(1963), the Sejma March for goring rights (1965) and his encounter with racism in Chicago (1966). Moreover, Kings had dialogue with black power advocates during and after the Meredith Mississippi March (1966). He arranged the preparation for Poor Peoples March on Washington (1967), had a stand against the Vietnam War (1967-68), and had his last march with garbage workers in Memphis (1968). Martin King was keen not to restrict his theological pursuit to the afflictions of one minority group. As much as his initial drive was motivated by the oppression of the black, his theological vision was diverse and in fact, universal. He targeted the entire humanity as he thought of the brown Vietnamese

World War 1 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

World War 1 - Assignment Example The alliances enhanced the countries’ defenses since they would rely on the support of their allies in case another country out of the alliance aggrieved a member state. Furthermore, the zoning of the world into the east and the west besides the military alliances instigated the war by enhancing conflicts among the countries. With such a political structure, any simple conflict among countries would result in a global war and so was the case with the First World War. The zoning intensified speculation among countries. The west strived to spy on the east and vice versa. Additionally, different countries invested in enhancing their military might a feature that would turn the First World War into a stage for displaying military might among the countries, which had formed strong alliances with their friends. Coming from the backdrop of political and military allies, the largest western economies practiced imperialism. Such was a political arrangement in which the countries strive d to extend their territories.

Business ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 4

Business ethics - Essay Example that there was a big problem with epidemics of AIDS along with hepatitis B, hepatitis C and some other lethal diseases among American medical workers during the 1990s. The problem concerned the fact that the syringes that hospitals provided their workers with were extremely unsafe, as they were constructed the way that it was easy to get a needlestick injury if used inappropriately. Hence, nurses often got injured in some extreme medical situations that required fast actions; very often they got injuries with the syringes that contained the blood of the patients that had the lethal diseases mentioned above. The cost of such injuries was estimated at $400 million to $1 billion a year. Thus on December 6, 1991, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) brought in safety precautions and obligated hospitals to provide their workers with special trainings concerning prevention of the injuries like that. However the prevention measures caused a lot of discussions, as they were not efficient at all. The point was that considering the difficulty of nurses’ work and their obligation to react immediately most of the time, it appeared to be impossible to teach them how to avoid accidents involving injuries. About 70 percent of all the needles and syringes used by U.S. health care workers were manufactured by Becton Dickinson. Even though the huge harm had been done to medical workers, production of a new design of safer syringes required a lot of funds and resources, as reorganization of manufacturing would cost a lot of money for Becton Dickinson. Therefore the company wanted to shorten their expenses and the only measure they suggested was putting warning labels on their production without any actual engineering changes in the syringes. However, on December 23, 1986, a patent for a syringe with a tube surrounding the body of the syringe that could be pulled down to cover and protect the needle on the syringe was issued to Norma Sampson (a nurse) and

How does Learning and Employee Development contribute to Essay

How does Learning and Employee Development contribute to organisational success and performance within social care services - Essay Example The most essential component of a learning and development plan as per the respondents’ view are the skills and second most essential learning component required to enhance service delivery quality according to the respondents is that of knowledge. These findings are very positive and reflect a developmental, growth oriented attitude. Trained staff is more competent and can perform better than untrained staff (Garavan, 1997). To attain training there must be motivation among the members and they must be interested in learning and developing in order to benefit from the training programs offered to them. The research study has revealed that all the respondents realize the importance of learning and development training programs and are willing to learn and grow for the betterment of their selves and organization in turn. Garavan (1997) further suggested that a strategically integrated model of Human Resource Development would ensure that the concepts of training, development, e ducation and learning and backed up and embedded in strategic plans, operational plans, policies and work practice. The findings reveal that the respondents are well informed about the importance of all these components of training and therefore it can be safely said that such a plan as suggested by Garavan (1997) can be very feasible for an organization like Loretto Care where chances of its acceptance at the managerial level appear to be quite high. The Scottish government also realizes the importance and need of learning and development based training. This is reflected in the vary requirements the government has set to be considered before admitting an individual to a degree course in social work. The social work training providers are required to make sure that all the students they induct are registered with SSSC within a month, have the basic language skills to benefit from the training they will be provided with and possess a willingness and potential to learn basic effectiv e communication skills and information technology expertise that is required to work effectively and competently in any field of study in today’s world including social work (The Scottish Government, 2006). The second research question attempted to explore the impact of learning and development programs on individual and organizational performance. The responses of the managers have revealed that they believe there is a great impact of learning development programs on individual as well as organizational performance. To identify how exactly this impact is attained, the respondents were further asked to identify the factors that underlay the individual and organizational benefits achieved from learning and development. The highest scoring factors in this respect, based on the questionnaire results turned out to be: career development, motivation and sense of achievement and success. It means that majority of the respondents believe that learning and development programs lead t o enhanced performance by increasing these three factors among the workers. This finding of the current study is in line with those of Hoque & Bacon (2008); Mathieson (2006) and Jones

Managing Employee Retention and Absenteeism Essay

Managing Employee Retention and Absenteeism - Essay Example Retention of employees has become one of the main challenges for human resources professionals. Employment opportunities have sky rocketed in the recent years and employees today have numerous choices. There is a great demand for skilled and experienced labour. Therefore, it has become very hard for organizations not just to attract the best talent but also to retain them. Studies in the recent years have shown that managing employee retention has become a top priority to HR professionals leaving behind employee relations issues, performance management issues, etc (Taylor, 2002).Top most priority when it comes to managing employee retention is to understand why employees quit. It is only when HR professional understand the intrinsic motivators of the employees that they can effectively manage employee retention. There are various challenges or issues that HR managers face with respect to employee retention and following are few important ones:Theoretically, numerous reasons can be po inted out for employees quitting the company. But studies and researches have shown that the number one reason that employees leave their job is the relationship they have with their immediate supervisors or managers. Whatever are the policies, culture or human resource strategies of a company, at the end of the day employees communicate and deal with their immediate supervisor or manager (Halpern & Lubar, 2003). Employees’ perception of the company depends on the interaction with their supervisor or manager.

Personal Fitness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Personal Fitness - Essay Example Children, who exercise, benefit from the lowered risk of chronic pain in future (Harvey, 2015). Perhaps the most rewarding thing that a person can do to help themselves would be to have regular physical activities, because it not only lowers a person’s weight, but it reduces the risk of diseases such as certain cancers. In addition, it promotes the mental well-being of a person. According to Evers et al (2012), behavioral interventions which applied to a group of people showed that their adherence to physical and mental activities increased as their physical activities increased. Though personal fitness may only involve one person and not as a group of people in a fitness center, Angle (2014) argues that exercising when a person in under the supervision of professionals is extremely important. According to Blitz (2015) getting the right balance between instructing oneself and when using the equipment instead of being supervised is extremely important. As noted by Brett and Chris (2013) the duration that an individual exercises matters because the longer the exercise duration, the lower that it impacts on the individual. This shows that personal fitness is not only a matter of exercising, but knowing how to exercise. Douw et al (2014) proposes that to get the maximum benefits of exercising, a person needs to understand the benefits involved in exercising. Lastly, as noted by Kranz at al (2013) exercising using personalized mobile devices is helpful, for people who want supervisors during exercise routines. Personal fitness does not only mean that a person wants to look better or eat better. It also means that the person is aiming at decreasing his or her risk of diseases, feeling both mentally and physically better and be in a position to perform better at work, school or at home. To show that exercise has many benefits which are not necessarily related to

Ability to recall from memory an event Essay Example for Free

Ability to recall from memory an event Essay A study by Loftus and Palmer (1974) into the accuracy of Eye Witness Testimony aimed to find out if changing the wording of a question could distort ones ability to recall from memory an event. They showed their participants a series of car crash videos before asking them to fill out a questionnaire. One of the most important questions included asking the participants what speed the cars were travelling at. They used an independent measures design to divide the participants into 5 conditions: Smashed, Collided, Bumped, Hit, Contacted. The results from this experiment provide good research into accuracy of eyewitness testimony because it found that by changing the wording of a question, it significantly influenced the speeds given by the participants. For example, those in the smashed condition provided the highest average of speed of 40.8mph, whilst those in the contacted conditions average were merely 31.8mph. Similarly, when called back a week later and asked if any broken glass was seen, they found that although there wasnt any present, 32% in the smashed condition said they had seen broken glass. Loftus and Palmer therefore concluded that by using the word smash it gives suggestions of strong impact and thus shows that leading questions have an impact on the accuracy of eyewitness ability to re-call situations. The strengths from this study include providing useful insight for the police so they know that when interviewing witnesses they should be aware of the way they phrase their questions to ensure the memory of the witness isnt distorted in any way. Similarly, it shows that juries should be thoughtful before accepting the validity of a witness when listening to eye witness testimonies.  On the other hand there are also weaknesses to this study. Firstly, it lacks mundane realism and ecological validity because the film shown has less emotional impact than a real life situation would and the participants knew they were about to watch a film so thus transferred their full attention to the video, whereas in real life they would be taken by surprise. Similarly, contradictory evidence from Yuille and Cutshall (1986) weakens the credibility of this study. They interviewed people that had witnessed an incident where someone was shot dead and fatally injured and found that the witnesses accounts were not influenced by the leading questions and were in fact very clear. This suggests that more intense incidents perhaps improve ability of re-call. Other psychological research into anxiety and violence tells us more about accuracy of eye witness testimony. Yerkes-Dodson Law for example believed that an increase in arousal increases performance up to a certain point, which they called optimum level. They believed that once arousal when higher or lower than this level it would affect memory performance. This is supported by Peters (1988) who found that those receiving inoculations in a clinic (an anxiety generating event) found it difficult in accurately identifying the nurse who issued their jab. One can conclude that this was due to the high levels of arousal surrounding the participant during the time of the jab. Moreover, researcher has been conducted into whether attention focus or anxiety was the sole reason behind poor recall. Loftus Burns (1982) found that details of less-violent crimes were more accurate than details of highly violent crimes. Whilst Clifford scott (1978) found that witnesses to violent incidents generally re-call less than witness to non violent, regardless of whether a weapon was used. This shows that the level of violence involved in the incident had a strong influence on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Lastly, there is also research into how age affects accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Studies have shown that children are more likely to get influenced if tested on eye witness testimony than adults due to things such as language ability or memory processes. Evidence into language ability comes from Goodman and Schaaf (1997) who found that the more complex the question, the less accurate the answer given by the child. This suggests that one aspect of ensuring that eyewitness testimony remains accurate is to not test the child on skills that they are not fully developed in yet e.g. complex language. This is backed by a study by Ceci et al (2000) who found that children aged between 3-4 years were more influenced by leading questions. Research into memory processes shows that children may lack detail but not accuracy when it comes to re-call, which was found by Goodman and Reed (1986). Similarly, Memon et al (2003) studied the accuracy of young and older eye witnesses found that after 35 minutes there was no difference in accuracy of identification however, after 1 week, the older generation worsened significantly more than the younger generation.  To conclude, there has been a great deal of research into the accuracy of eye witness testimony and this has shown that there are many things that influence someones ability to re-call a situation accurately. Therefore, one could say that Eye witness testimony isnt the most accurate method.

Amazon Ebusiness Essay Example for Free

Amazon Ebusiness Essay Amazon was founded in 1994, spurred by what Bezos called regret minimization framework, his effort to fend off regret for not staking a claim in the Internet gold rush. Company lore says Bezos wrote the business plan while he and his wife drove from New York to Seattle , although that account appears to be apocryphal. The company began as an online bookstore; while the largest brick-and-mortar bookstores and mail-order catalogs for books might offer 200,000 titles, an online bookstore could offer more. Bezos named the company Amazon after the worlds largest river. Since 2000, Amazons logotype is an arrow leading from A to Z, representing customer satisfaction (as it forms a smile); a goal was to have every product in the alphabet. In 1994, the company incorporated in the state of Washington, beginning service in July 1995, and was reincorporated in 1996 inDelaware. The first book Amazon.com sold was Douglas Hofstadters Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. Amazon.com issued its initial public offering of stock on May 15, 1997, trading under theNASDAQ stock exchange symbol AMZN, at an IPO price of US$18.00 per share ($1.50 after three stock splits in the late 1990s). Amazons initial business plan was unusual: the company did not expect a profit for four to five years. Its slow growth provoked stockholder complaints that the company was not reaching profitability fast enough. When the dot-com bubble burst, and many e-companies went out of business, Amazon persevered, and finally turned its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001: $5 million or 1 ¢ per share, on revenues of more than $1 billion, but the modest profit was important in demonstrating the business model could be profitable. In 1999, Time magazine named Bezos Person of the Year,  recognizing the companys success in popularizing online shopping. Amazon.com products and services: Amazon product lines include books, music CDs, videotapes and DVDs, software, consumer electronics, kitchen items, tools, lawn and garden items, toys games, baby products, apparel, sporting goods, gourmet food, jewelry, watches, health and personal-care items, beauty products, musical instruments, clothing, industrial scientific supplies, and groceries. The company launched Amazon.com Auctions, a Web auctions service, in March 1999. However, it failed to chip away at industry pioneer eBays large market share. Amazon.com Auctions was followed by the launch of a fixed-price marketplace business, zShops, in September 1999, and the now defunct Sothebys/Amazon partnership called sothebys.amazon.com in November. Auctions and zShops evolved into Amazon Marketplace, a service launched in 2001 that let customers sell used books, CDs, DVDs, and other products alongside new items. Today, Amazon Marketplaces main rival is eBays Half.com service. In August 2005, Amazon began selling products un der its own private label, Pinzon; the trademark applications indicated that the label would be used for textiles, kitchen utensils, and other household goods.In March 2007, the company applied to expand the trademark to cover a more diverse list of goods, and to register a new design consisting of the word PINZON in stylized letters with a notched letter O whose space appears at the one oclock position.. Coverage by the trademark grew to include items such as paints, carpets, wallpaper, hair accessories, clothing, footwear, headgear, cleaning products, and jewelry.On September 2008, Amazon filed to have the name registered. USPTO has finished its review of the application, but Amazon has yet to receive an official registration for the name. Amazon MP3, its own online music store, launched in the US in September 25, 2007, selling downloads exclusively in MP3 format without digital rights management.[This was the first online offering of DRM-free music from all four major record companies. In August 2007, Amazon announced AmazonFresh, a grocery service offering perishable and nonperishable foods. Customers can have orders delivered to their homes at dawn or during a specified daytime window. Delivery was initially restricted to residents of Mercer Island, Washington, and was later expanded to several  ZIP codes in Seattle proper. AmazonFresh also operated pick-up locations in the suburbs of Bellevue and Kirkland from summer 2007 through early 2008. In 2008 Amazon expanded into film production, producing the film The Stolen Child with 20th Century Fox. Amazon.com has incorporated a number of products and services through development and acquisitions. The Honor System was launched in 2001 to allow customers to make donations or buy digital content, with Amazon collecting a percentage of the payment plus a fee. The service was discontinued in 2008. and replaced by Amazon Payments. Amazon launched Amazon Web Services(AWS) in 2002, which provides programmatic access to latent features on its website. Amazon also created channels to benefit certain causes. In 2004, Amazons Presidential Candidates allowed customers to donate $5–200 to the campaigns of 2004 U.S. preside ntial hopefuls. Amazon has periodically reactivated a Red Cross donation channel after crises such as the 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean. By January 2005, nearly 200,000 people had donated over $15.7 million in the US. Amazon Prime offers two day shipping with no minimum purchase amount for a flat annual fee, as well as discounted priority shipping rates. Amazon launched the program in the continental United States in 2005, in Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany in 2007, and in France (as Amazon Premium) in 2008. Launched in 2005, Amazon Shorts offers exclusive short stories and non-fiction pieces from best-selling authors for immediate download. By June 2007, the program had over 1,700 pieces and was adding about 50 new pieces per week. In November 2005, Amazon.com began testing Amazon Mechanical Turk, an application programming interface (API) allowing programs to dispatch tasks to human processors. In March 2006, Amazon launched an online storage service called Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). An unlimited number of data objects, from 1 byte to 5 gigabytes in size, can be stored in S3 and distributed via HTTP or BitTorrent. The service charges monthly fees for data stored and transferred. In 2006, Amazon introducedAmazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), a distributed queue messaging service, and product wikis (later folded into Amapedia) and discussion forums for certain products using guidelines that follow standard message board conventions. Also in 2006, Amazon introduced Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a virtual site farm, allowing users to use the Amazon infrastructure to run applications ranging  from running simulations to web hosting. In 2008, Amazon improved the service adding Elastic Block Store (EBS), offering persistent storage for Amazon EC2 instances and Elastic IP addresses, static IP addresses designed for dynamic cloud computing. In 2007 Amazon launched Amapedia, a wiki for user-generated content to replace ProductWiki, the video on demand s ervice Amazon Unbox, and Amazon MP3, which sells downloadable MP3s. Amazons terms of use agreements restrict use of the MP3s, but Amazon does not use DRM to enforce those terms. Amazon MP3 sells music from the Big 4 record labels EMI, Universal, Warner Bros. Records, and Sony BMG, as well as independents. Previous to the launch of this service, Amazon made an investment in Amie Street, a music store with a variable pricing model based on demand. Also in 2007 Amazon launched Amazon Vine, which allows reviewers free access to pre-release products from vendors in return for posting a review, as well as payment service specifically targeted at developers, Amazon FPS. In November 2007, Amazon launched Amazon Kindle, an e-book reader which downloads content over Whispernet, via the Sprint Nextel EV-DO wireless network. The screen uses E Ink technology to reduce battery consumption. In 2008 Amazon stated that its Kindle-based library included 200,000 titles. In December 2007, Amazon introduced SimpleDB, a database system, allowing users of its other infrastructure to utilize a high reliability high performance database system. In August 2007, Amazon launched an invitation-only beta-test for online grocery delivery. It has since rolled out in several Seattle, Washington suburbs. In January 2008 Amazon began rolling out their MP3 service to subsidiary websites worldwide. In December, 2008, Amazon MP3 was made available in the UK. In September, IMDB and Amazon.com launched a Music metadata browsing site with wiki-like user contribution. In November, Amazon partnered with Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend to offer products with minimal packaging to reduce environmental impact and frustration with opening clamshell type packaging. Amazon Web Services launched a public beta of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud running Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server. Amazon Connectenables authors to post remarks on their book pages to customers. WebStore allows businesses to create custom e-commerce websites using Amazon technology. Sellers pay a commission of 7 percent, including credit-card processing fees and fraud protection, and a subscription fee of  $59.95/month for an unlimited number of webstores and listings. Why Amazon.com is successful as a business on internet and has excellent capabilities supported by information system and e-commerce? Amazons initial business plan was unusual: the company did not expect a profit for four to five years. Its slow growth provoked stockholder complaints that the company was not reaching profitability fast enough. When the dot-com bubble burst and many e-companies went out of business, Amazon persevered, and finally turned its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001: $5 million or 1 ¢ per share, on revenues of more than $1 billion, but the modest profit was important in demonstrating the business model could be profitable. In 1999, Time magazine named Bezos Person of the Year, recognizing the companys success in popularizing online shopping. Amazon changed the way it does business through the years. First it was an online book seller. Next it expanded into selling music and videos. Then it offered toys, consumer electronics and software to its customers. These were linked with a host of new products until this very day. Amazon has a constantly evolving product line. Its competitors have a hard time catching up with the innovator. During its initial years of operation, Amazon was not making any real profit. It practiced instead the habit of reinvesting its income into new markets. This it did to make possible for its customers to make wider choices for the companys offerings. Inventory management is an important function for any business and its efficient implementation can play a major role in reducing costs within a company. Policies, procedures, and techniques employed in maintaining the optimum number or amount of each inventory item. The objective of inventory management is to provide uninterrupted production, sales, and/or customer-service levels at the minimum cost, Levi D. S. et al (2003). Levi explains that a high-quality inventory management system provides a smooth and efficient supply chain by reducing costs and time. Initially when a company is established, key individuals may perform su ch tasks as purchasing, manufacturing or inventory control with little problem in terms of overlapping functions. But as a company expands it may be necessary to concentrate on core functions in the aim to have specialized personnel in every department. Each function has an important part to play in the supply chain. The correct management of  inventory enables a company to reduce liabilities and cost of overstocking, to streamline operations and to have better utilized staff. Amazon.com, the worlds largest online retailer and one of the nations biggest book sellers, is one of the iconic companies of the Internet era, Eells S. (2010), and by realizing the importance of inventory management can only improve its supply chain. From the text we can see that when CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos went about setting up Amazon.com, he had a clear aim to offer customers a wide selection of books but at the same time did not want to spend time and money on opening stores and warehouses and in dealing with the inventory. Bezos was hesitant in deciding to maintain Amazons own warehouse but realized that this was the only way for the company to keep customers satisfied. Internet shopping was rapidly expanding and with Amazon now stretching its ranges from not only books but to CDs, toys and hardware, they too were a growing industry. Amazon began setting up warehouses throughout the US, strategically placing them in states with little or no sales tax in order to reduce costs. These warehouses were very well maintained and completely computerized, with each item having a separate code which made inventory management a lot easier. Within the large warehouses, Amazon held all products which were available on the website. This was not always a good idea as it cost Amazon money in order to stock these goods. In the holiday season of 1999, Bezos was determined not to disappoint any customers; therefore he ordered larger amounts of every product. With this large amount of inventory, Bezos found it very diffic ult to manage, so aimed to rearrange the warehouses to accommodate the demand in different regions. They then decided to outsource some of its routines activities so that they could concentrate more on their core competencies. Deciding whether to outsource or not was a difficult decision for Amazon but seen in the Strategic outsourcing book by Greaver M. (1999), he explains that there quiet a number of reasons how outsourcing can be a major advantage. These points are broken into 6 headings; 1. Organizational reasons Enhance effectiveness and focus on what you do best and also makes the company more flexible 2. Improvement driven reasons Improve operating performance and also management and control 3. Finally driven reasons Reduce investment assets and free up these resources for other areas of the business 4. Revenue driven reasons Gain market access and  business opportunities along with accelerating expansion 5. Cost driven reasons Reduce cost through superior provider performance and lower cost structure 6. Employee driven reasons Increase commitment and energy in non c ore areas. Amazon decided to outsource its inventory management, and with this they decided not to stock every item offered on its site. It stocked only the most popular and frequently purchased items and as for the other items, they were requested from the distributor on ordering. The item would be sent to Amazon, unpacked and finally sent to the customer. Amazon entered into an agreement with Ingram Micro Inc. to use its knowledge and experience in the electronic goods and supply chain management in order to provide logistics and order-fulfillment services for desktops, laptops and other computer related accessories. From the case, Kevin Murai, President, Ingram Macro U.S. informs everyone the advantages in which they can offer to Amazons supply chain and satisfaction of customers, â€Å"The customer fulfillment services we are providing to Amazon.com’s computer store will minimize the number of touches to the product, while ensuring a seamless shopping experience for Amazons customers from start to finish†. A collaborative approach was obvious from this. A collaborative partnership has become an alternative approach to care, replacing traditional hierarchical approach as the desired approach to care. The features of collaborative partnerships are (1) Power sharing and sharing of expertise; (2) the pursuit of mutually agreed on, person centered goals and, (3) a dynamic process that requires the active participation and agreement of all partners in the relationship, Elsevier M. (2006). Both Amazon and Ingram Micro both shared the passion for customer satisfaction which was the main driving force to the success of their partnership. Amazon has identified its core competencies as: customer convenience and accessibility, massive selection, personalized service, quality of the site content, quality of its search tools and price, Mulqueen K. (2009). By entering into this partnership it gives Amazon more quality time to put into its core competencies. During the initial stages of Amazons warehousing, it aimed to have every item in stock in o rder to maximize customer satisfaction. By having this inventory, it would enable Amazon to meet the needs of the customers when they purchased the goods online. When the customer chooses the item, Amazon takes it from inventory and sent it to the respective  customer. We can see the logic in which Bezos takes as he is aiming to satisfy every customer in order to build a positive image and reputation of the company. Holding this much inventory on the other can be quite costly and also for a small business which Amazon was when taking on this method can be very difficult to manage. Amazons warehouses were a quarter mile long and 200 yards wide storing millions of books. Each warehouse cost Bezos around 50 million and not only this he started to realize that having all these large amounts of stock was unutilized cash which could be used to improve the business elsewhere. The below image (fig 1.1) gives you an idea of the scale of the warehouses and how an effective inventory management structure is vital. Learning from the difficult holiday season of 1999, Bezos outsourced some of their core competencies in order to pay more attention to othe r areas of the business. In our opinion this was a step in the right direction as when Amazons partners shipped the goods Amazon revamped the layout of their warehouses which makes the items easier to find and allowed customer orders to be sorted more efficiently. In early 2001, when Amazon partnered with Ingram Micro Inc., we feel that this was the correct decision for Amazon in the aim for efficient inventory management and it didn’t take long for changes to be made to the stocking of inventory. Amazon decided to stock only the most popular and most frequently purchased. If an item which wasn’t in stock, Amazon simply ordered in from the distributor and who then shipped it to Amazon where they would unpack it and send it to the customer. This may seem like a longer process but we feel this step which significantly reduce costs and better utilized Amazons finances. This is evident from the case as in December 00; their gross profit was 656.8 million where it was almost doubled in December 02 where the profit was 1,074.9 million. By doing this method, inevitably Amazon reduced holding costs. This method was proving to be a positive for Amazon as the improved inventory management helped Amazon record its first ever profit in 2001. From being initially in a deficit of $2.86 billion seven years earlier, Amazon recorded a net profit of $5 million in the fourth quarter of 2001. By Amazon outsourcing its inventory management, we could see the improvements almost immediately from their financial reports in the case. It is clear in our opinion, that Amazon made the right decision when outsourcing this function. It has reduced cost by keeping fewer inventories  and at the same time has partnered with a company with a great deal of expertise in the technology functions which can again be a major positive for the company. This shows again that outsourcing the inventory function was the correct decision for Amazon. The transfer of Amazons inventory management as shown in the case was a positive influence on the company and we feel that it was a successful task. The reason for this is simple; Amazon has tried and tested various inventory techniques from when it was first established. At first Amazons inventory was too great and was seen to be unutilized cash. Bezos realized that this unutilized cash could possible to used to benefit over departments within the company. The task of outsourcing this area made a profit for the company immediately, at the end of 2001, Amazon had a sales record of 1.1 billion which was a 15% increase on the same period of the previous year. Then again in 2002, we can see from the case that Amazon recorded sales of 3.93 billion which was a 26% increase on the year previous. These figures show that the task of outsourcing inventory for Amazon was an important function which has shown to get record sales for the company and along with the expertise given by Ingram Micro was overall a positive influence on the company. Overall, Amazons decision to outsource its inventory management and concentrate more on other funct ions within the business was the correct decision in our opinion. This is proven by the increase in profit since doing so. Amazon managed to outsource this function and still satisfy their customers which is one of their core values along with being innovative. According to businessweek.com, Amazon in 2010 had a net income of $231 million in comparison to $177million in 2009 which again is an indication that the company’s decisions have only had a positive impact as the company continues to grow. This is a positive for the company but in comparison to its main competitor, EBay had a net income of 397.65 million in 2010 which is also seen on businessweek.com. This shows that there is a lot of work done but still in order to compete with its competitors it must still strive to improve. Amazon prides itself on a strong brand, excellent customer service and a well designed, easy to use website. Its use of E-Business strategies enables the company to cut costs better than its competitors and empower its customers by offering them choice. It could be argued that Amazons’ most valuable asset is its CEO and Founder Jeff Bezos. Bezos innovative style has grown the company from  strength to strength and latest figures, according to the website www.siliconrepublic.com show an increase in profit of 36% to $12.95bn for 2010 from a sink to 3.7pc from 5pc at the end of 2009. In 2001, Amazons CEO, Jeff Bezos welcomed competitors rather than fighting them. This decision was initially seen as somewhat controversial. According to Vogelstein (2003) the decision caused such a stir in the book-publishing community that the Authors Guild formally stepped in. They wanted used books sold on a different page from newly published ones. Amazon was able to do this as a result of its efficient inventory management. Vogelstein (2003) states that Amazons warehouses are so efficient that they need to be replenished 20 times per year and they can now handle three times the volume they handled in 1999. The net result of this initiative is increased profits as can be seen from the case. The success of Amazon can be attributed to E-Business. Tedeschi (1999) state; Business on the Internet is cutting significant cost out of the supply chain, with better procurement and resource planning. With Amazon, these cost savings are passed onto the end customer. Through price comparison and transparency on its webpage, customers could make informed decisions based on price. This created massive popularity with its customers. E-Business also creates brand strength. According to Matthewson (2002) a recent survey demonstrated the importance of online brand building, as it showed that six out of ten internet users directly typed into their browser the address of the brand they are interested in buying. The website is said to attract 81 million unique visitors each month .Amazon has capitalized on this process known as cyber-branding. This essentially promotes the company through superior customer service. Its logistics in both inventory efficiency and technology gives it a superior edge over its competitors. Its operations are very efficient due to the strategic locations of its warehouses and headquarters, which have enabled Amazon to cut a lot of its costs. The market in which amazon.com operates and how it is organized by region and country: Amazon.com has always sold goods out of its own warehouses. It started as a bookseller, pure and simple, and over the last decade has branched out into  additional product areas and the third-party sales that now represent a good chunk of its revenue (some estimates put it at 25 percent). Both retailers and individual sellers utilize the Amazon.com platform to sell goods. Large retailers like Nordstrom, Lands End and Target use Amazon.com to sell their products in addition to selling them through their own Web sites. The sales go through Amazon.com and end up at Nordstrom.com, Lands End.com or Target.com for processing and order fulfillment. Amazon essentially leases space to these retailers, who use Amazon.com as a supplemental outlet for their online sales. Small sellers of used and new goods go to Amazon Marketplace, Amazon zShops or Amazon Auctions. At Marketplace, sellers offer goods at a fixed price, and at Auctions they sell their stuff to the highest bidder. Amazon zShops f eatures only used goods at fixed prices. If an item listed on zShops, Marketplace or Auctions is also sold on the main Amazon.com, it appears in a box beside the Amazon.com item so buyers can see if someone else is selling the product for less in one of the other sales channels. The level of integration that occurs on Amazon is a programming feat that few (if any) online sales sites can match. Another sales channel called Amazon Advantage is a place where people can sell new books, music and movies directly from the Amazon warehouse instead of from their home or store. Sellers ship a number of units to Amazon, and Amazon handles the entire sales transaction from start to finish. In all of these programs, Amazon gets a cut of each sale (usually about 10 percent to 15 percent) and sometimes charges additional listing or subscription fees; in the case of Amazon Advantage, the company takes a 55 percent commission on each sale. The Advantage channel is something like a consignment setup, a sales avenue for people who create the ir own music CDs or have self-published a book and are simply looking for a way to get it out there. One of the latest additions to Amazons repertoire is a subsidiary company called Amazon Services. Through Amazon Services, Amazon sells its sales platform, providing complete Amazon e-commerce packages to companies looking to establish or revamp their e-commerce business. Amazon sets up complete Web sites and technology backbones for other e-commerce companies using Amazon software and technology. Target, for instance, in addition to having a store on Amazon.com, also uses Amazon Services to build and manage its own e-commerce site, Target.com. But selling goods isnt the only way to make  money with Amazon.com. The Web sites affiliate program is one of the most famous on the Web. Through Amazons Associate Program, anyone with a Web site can post a link to Amazon.com and earn some money. The link can display a single product chosen by the associate, or it can list several best seller products in a particular genre, in which case Amazon updates the list automatically at preset interv als. The associate gets a cut of any sale made directly through that link. The cut ranges from 4 percent to 7.5 percent depending on which fee structure the associate signs up for (see Amazon Associates for complete program details). The associate can also take advantage of Amazon Web Services, which is the program that lets people use Amazons utilities for their own purposes. The Amazon Web Services API (application programming interface) lets developers access the Amazon technology infrastructure to build their own applications for their own Web sites. All product sales generated by those Web sites have to go through Amazon.com, and the associate gets a small commission on each sale. References * about Ingram Micro. [Online] Available from: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=98566p=irol-aboutIMOverview * Aryasri A R (2007) Managerial economics and financial analysis, 3rd Ed, Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi * Bolumole, Yemisi A., Frankel R., Naslund D, 2007. â€Å"Developing a Theoretical Framework for Logistics Outsourcing†, Transportation Journal, [e-journal], Vol. 46 Issue 2, p35-54, 20p, , Available through: Business Source Premier database [Accessed 18 February 2011] * Coltman et al (2000) E-Business: Revolution, Evolution or Hype? 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Ganga River Pollution In India Environmental Sciences Essay

Ganga River Pollution In India Environmental Sciences Essay All of us have seen a river large or small, either flowing through our town, or somewhere else. Rivers are nothing more than surface water flowing down from a higher altitude to a lower altitude due to the pull of gravity. One river might have its source in a glacier, another in a spring or a lake. Rivers carry dissolved minerals, organic compounds, small grains of sand, gravel, and other material as they flow downstream. Rivers begin as small streams, which grow wider as smaller streams and rivers join them along their course across the land. Eventually they flow into seas or oceans. Unfortunately most of the worlds major rivers are heavily polluted. The pollution of environment is the gift of the industrial revolution. Prior to this the agrarian cultures created significant environmental deterioration in the form of soil erosion- through deforestation and overgrazing. The environmental degradation is a by product of modern civilization. There has been a steady deterioration in the quality of water of Indian rivers over several decades. Indias fourteen major, 55 minor and several hundred small rivers receive millions of litres of sewage, industrial and agricultural wastes. Most of these rivers have been rendered to the level of sewage flowing drains. There are serious water quality problems in the cities, towns and villages using these waters. Water borne diseases are rampant, fisheries are on decline, and even cattle are not spared from the onslaught of pollution. According to World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) five rivers in Asia serving over 870 million people are among the most threatened in the world, as dams, water extraction and climate change all take their toll. The Ganges, Indus, Yangtze, Salween-Nu and Mekong-Lancang rivers make up half of the WWFs top ten most threatened river basins. India has a large number of rivers that are lifelines for the millions living along their banks. These rivers can be categorized into four groups: 1.Rivers that flow down from the Himalayas and are supplied by melting snow and glaciers. This is why these are perennial, that is, they never dry up during the year. 2. The Deccan Plateau Rivers, which depend on rainfall for their water. 3. The coastal rivers, especially those on the west coast, which are short and do not retain water throughout the year. 4. The rivers in the inland drainage basin of west Rajasthan, which depend on the rains. These rivers normally drain towards silt lakes or flow into the sand. River Ganga (Ganges) of India has been held in high esteem since time immemorial and Hindus from all over the world cherish the idea of a holy dip in the river under the faith that by doing so they will get rid of their sins of life. More than 400 million people live along the Ganges River. An estimated 2,000,000 persons ritually bathe daily in the river. Historically also, Ganga is the most important river of the country and beyond doubt is closely connected with the history of civilization as can be noticed from the location of the ancient cities of Hardwar, Prayag, Kashi and Patliputra at its bank. To millions of people it is sustainer of life through multitude of canal system and irrigation of the wasting load. Hundreds of the villages and even the big cities depend for their drinking water on this river. It is believed, a fact which has also been observed, that the water of Ganga never decays even for months and years when water of other rivers and agencies begins to develop bac teria and fungi within a couple of days. This self purification characteristic of Ganga is the key to the holiness and sanctity of its water. The combination of bacteriophages and large populations of people bathing in the river have apparently produced a self-purification effect, in which water-borne bacteria such as dysentery and cholera are killed off, preventing large-scale epidemics. The river also has an unusual ability to retain dissolved oxygen. With growing civilization and population all over how long Ganga will retain its self purification characteristics only time can judge.     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   SOURCES: The Gangotri   Glacier, a vast expanse of ice five miles by fifteen, at the foothills of the Himalayas (14000 ft) in North Uttar Pradesh is the source of Bhagirathi, which joins with Alaknanda (origins nearby) to form Ganga at the craggy canyon-carved town of Devprayag. Interestingly, the sources of Indus and the Brahmaputra are also geographically fairly close; the former goes through Himachal Pradesh and fans out through Punjab and Sind (Pakistan) into the Arabian Sea. The latter courses for most of its tremendous length under various names through Tibet/China, never far from the Nepal or Indian borders, and then takes a sharp turn near the northeastern tip of India, gathers momentum through Assam before joining the major stream of the Ganga near Dacca in Bangladesh to become the mighty Padma, river of joy and sorrow for much of Bangladesh. From Devprayag to the Bay of Bengal and the vast  Sunderbans delta, the Ganga flows some 1550 miles, passing (and giving life to) some of t he most populous cities of India, including Kanpur (2 million), Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, and Calcutta (14 million). The largest tributary to the Ganga is the Ghaghara, which meets it before Patna, in Bihar, bearing much of the Himalayan glacier melt from Northern Nepal. The Gandak, which comes from near Katmandu, is another big Himalayan tributary. Other important rivers that merge with the Ganga are the Son, which originates in the hills of Madhya Pradesh, the Gomti which flows past Lucknow. Previous Work: A number of investigations have been carried out on the physiochemical and biological characters of the Ganga. Lakshminarayana (1965) published a series of papers reporting the results of studies carried out at Varanasi during the period between March, 1957 and March, 1958. it was observed by him that the values of the most of the parameters decreased during rainy season while no marked variation was observed during winters and summers. In the same year Chakraborty et.al. (1965) from Kanpur reported the water quality of Ganga at J.K. Rayons water intake point and at Golaghat and Bhairoghat pumping stations situated at the upstream of the river. It was concluded that the water quality gradually deteriorated as it passes from Bhairoghat pumping station to the J.K. Rayon water intake point in summers because in this stretch the river received waste waters from number of sewage drains.   A year later Saxena et.al. (1966) made a systematic survey of the chemical quantity of Ganga at Kanpur. According to the study, the biological oxygen demand, i.e. B.O.D. varied from 5.3ppm (minimum) in winter to 16.0ppm (maximum) in summer. The chloride ranged between 9.2 and 12.7 ppm and the river was found to be alkaline in nature except in rainy season. He concluded that the tanneries significantly increased the pollution load of river as they discharge huge amounts of effluents containing organic wastes and heavy metals. It was further reported that forty five tanneries, ten textile mills and several other industrial units discharged 37.15 million gallon per day of waste water generating BOD load of approximately 61630 Kg/day. Subsequently Agarwal et.al. (1976) studied the bacteriological population of the river water and concluded that addition of untreated waste and sewage was responsible for the presence of pathogenic organisms posing threat to the residents of the Varanasi city. Hydrobiological features of the river Ganga was studied by   Pahwa and Mehrotra (1966). The authors studied a stretch of 1090 kms. of river Ganga extending from Kanpur in west to Rajmahal, in Jharkhand state, in the east. They reported that the turbidity was maximum (1100-2170 ppm) in monsoon and minimum ( less than100 ppm) during January to June. The pH of the river water ranged between 7.45 (minimum) during June to August and 8.30 (maximum) during January to May. The dissolved oxygen, i.e. D.O. count ranged from 5.0 to 10.5 ppm with maximum values during January and February. While the minimum values were recorded in monsoon. Bhargava (1982) in a survey of total length of the river Ganga found that quality index was far above the prescribed limit at Kanpur. He further found that the Ganga water was having unusually fast regenerating capacity by bringing down B.O.D. owing to the presence of large amount of well adopted micro-organisms. According to the research Ganga is rich in polymers excreted by various species of bacteria. These polymers being excellent coagulants remove turbidity by coagulation, setting the suspended particles at the sewage discharge point. At the 1981 session of Indian Science Congress at Varanasi, scientists expressed concern at the growing pollution in the river Ganga in presence of the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi who inaugurated the session. At her instance, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, the then member, Planning Commission asked the Central Board for Preventation and Control of Water Pollution, New Delhi to conduct studies on the state of the river Ganga. In collaboration with the State Pollution Control Boards of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal and the centre for study of Man and Environment Kolkata (Calcutta), studies were conducted on the Sources of pollution including all human activities, land use pattern and water quality of the river at selected sites during 1981-82 and report entitled Basin, sub-basin inventory of water pollution in the Ganga basin part-II was published in 1984. according to this report sewage of 27 class I cities and towns and effluents from 137 major industries were the main source of pollution of the river. In addition cremation of dead human bodies and dumping of carcasses aggrevated the pollution of the river. It was Chandra (1981) who conducted studies on the pollution status of river Ganga at Allahabad, pointed out that industries manufacturing nitrogenous fertilizers have significant role in polluting the river water.   Study carried out in 1986-87 on physico-chemical properties of river Ganga water at Buxar (Unnao) clearly revealed that extent of pollution varied in different seasons. Usually all the 23 parameters studied showed high values in summer and lower during monsoons except turbidity which was high in rainy season. Values of BOD, COD, DO and H2S were recorded high than the tolerance limits. Study on water quality of river Ganga at Kalakankar (Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh) revealed that even at such a remote and undisturbed place like Kalakankar the river water was not safe for drinking and bathing. It was also noted that the river showed an alkaline trend throughout the course of study. According to the research done by Mehrotra (1990), the various sources responsible for pollution of the river in Varanasi city are domestic sewage effluents of the industries, burning of dead bodies at the ghats, use of detergents, insecticides and pesticides used in agriculture. Study revealed the presence of toxic metals like   mercury ( 65 to 520ppb), Lead( less than 10 to 800 ppm), chromium (less than 10 to 200 ppm) and nickel (less than 10 to 130 ppm) in the sediments of Ganga river at Varanasi city.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Upstream from Varanasi, one of the major pilgrimage sites along the river, the water is comparatively pure, having a low  Biochemical oxygen demand  and fecal coliform count. Studies conducted in 1983 on water samples taken from the right bank of the Ganga at Patna confirm that  escheria coli  (E.Coli.), fecal streptococci and vibrio cholerae organisms die two to three times faster in the Ganga than in water taken from the rivers Son and Gandak and from dug wells and tube wells in the same area. The chemical pollution of the river Ganga in Patna city in Bihar state has been found somewhat alarming beside the storm drain, especially in the regions like Rajapur, Mandiri and Krishnaghat. According to the report published in a book by Mr. U.K. Sinha (1986), the concentration of iron is higher in sediments collected from 10 metres along the bank at Mandiri region. The concentration of all the toxic metals i.e copper, zinc, nickel and cobalt are higher in all the sediments collected from near the storm drain and diminishes towards mid-region of the river. The concentration of zinc is highest in the sediments collected from near the Mandiri storm drain, Antaghat storm drain and Krishnaghat storm drain. The concentration of copper is highest in the sediments collected from near the Krishnaghat storm drain suggesting the presence copper due to utensil work being done in Thatheri Bazar and hospital wastes also, said report. Present situation: For some time now, this romantic view of the Ganges has collided with Indias grim realities. During the past three decades, the countrys explosive growth (at nearly 1.2 billion people, Indias population is second only to Chinas), industrialization and rapid urbanization have put unyielding pressure on the sacred stream. Ganga, the most sacred of rivers for Hindus, has become polluted for some years now. But a recent study by Uttarakhand Environment Conservation and Pollution Control Board says that the level of pollution in the holy river has reached alarming proportions. Things have come to such a pass that the Ganga water is at present not fit just for drinking and bathing but has become unusable even for agricultural purposes. As per the UECPCB study, while the level of coliform present in water should be below 50 for drinking purposes, less than 500 for bathing and below 5000 for agricultural use-the present level of coliform in Ganga at Haridwar has reached 5500. Based on the level of coliform, dissolved oxygen and biochemical oxygen, the study put the water in A, B, C and D categories. While A category is considered fit for drinking, B for bathing, C for agriculture and D is for excessive pollution level. Since the Ganga waters at Haridwar have more than 5000 coliform and even the level of dissolved oxygen and biochemical oxygen doesnt conform the prescribed standards, it has been put in the D category. According to the study, the main cause of high level of coliform in Ganga is due to disposal of human faeces, urine and sewage directly into the river from its starting point in Gaumukh till it reaches Haridwar via Rishikesh. Nearly 89 million litres of sewage is daily disposed into Ganga from the 12 municipal towns that fall along its route till Haridwar. The amount of sewage disposed into the river increases during the Char Dham Yatra season when nearly 15 lakh pilgrims visit the state between May and October each year. Apart from sewage disposal of half-burnt human bodies at Haridwar and hazardous medical waste from the base hospital at Srinagar due to absence of an incinerator are also adding to pollution levels in the Ganga. The result has been the gradual killing of one of Indias most treasured resources. One stretch of the Yamuna River, the Ganges main tributary, has been devoid of all aquatic creatures for at least a decade. In Varanasi, Indias most sacred city, the coliform bacterial count is at least 3,000 times higher than the standard established as safe by the United Nations world Health   Organization.  Ã‚  Coliform  are rod-shaped bacteria that are normally found in the colons of humans and animals and become a serious contaminant when found in the food or water supply. A study by Environmental Biology Laboratory, Department pf Zoology, Patna University, showed the presence of mercury in the Ganga river in Varanasi city. According to the study, annual mean concentration of mercury in the river water was 0.00023 ppm. The concentration ranged from NT (not traceable) to 0.00191 ppm. Study done by Indian Toxicological Research Centre (ITRC), Lucknow during 1986-1992 showed maximum annual concentration of mercury in the Ganga river water at Rishikesh, Allahabad district and Dakshineswar as 0.081, 0.043 and 0.012 ppb respectively. Ganga river at Varanasi was found well within the maximum permissible standard of 0.001 ppm prescribed for drinking water by the World Health Organization. The mercury studied in the Ganga river could be traced in biotic as well as abiotic components of the river at the study site. The Hindu devotees take bath in the river where mercury was detected in 28%, 44%,75%, 96%, 42% and 89% of the river water, sediment, benthic fauna, fish, soil and vegetation samples respectively. Though mercury contamination of the river water has not reached an alarming extent, its presence in the river system is worrisome. In the study annual mean concentration of the metal in the sediments was 0.067 ppm. Sediments constitute a major pool of mercury in fresh water. As Ganga enters the Varanasi city, Hinduisms sacred river contains 60,000 faecal coliform bacteria per 100 millilitres, 120 times more than is considered safe for bathing. Four miles downstream, with inputs from 24 gushing sewers and 60,000 pilgrim-bathers, the concentration is 3,000 times over the safety limit. In places, the Ganges becomes black and septic. Corpses, of semi-cremated adults or enshrouded babies, drift slowly by. The tannery industry mushrooming in North India has converted the Ganga River into a dumping ground. The tanning industry discharges different types of waste into the environment, primarily in the form of liquid effluents containing organic matters, chromium, sulphide ammonium and other salts. As per an estimate, about 80-90% of the tanneries use chromium as a tanning agent. Of this, the hides take up only 50-70%, while the rest is discharged as effluent. Pollution becomes acute when tanneries are concentrated in clusters in small area like Kanpur. Consequently, the Leather-tanning sector is included in the Red category of industries due to the potential adverse environmental impact caused by tannery wastes. Highly polluted sediments are adversely affecting the ecological functioning of rivers due to heavy metal mobilization from urban areas into biosphere. Distribution of heavy metals in sediments of the river Ganga and its tributaries have been carried out by several workers. Monitoring of Ganga River from Rishikesh to Varanasi indicated that Kannauj to Kanpur and Varanasi are the most polluted stretches of the river Ganga . Analysis of upstream and down stream water and sediment revealed a 10-fold increase in chromium level.