Employee Training & Career Development Paper Essay

Every business today wants to hire, motivate and train the most qualified employees. Every company wants to utilize these employees and place them in departments that are best suited for them and the company’s needs. This seems like an impossible goal however, this is goal is what many Human Resources departments do on an everyday basis. Human Resources provide this connection to assist in employee development to utilize each employee’s talent. Human Resources put forth the effort to increase employee improvements by providing training and development opportunities for employees to look for promotions within the organization. Job shadowing involves an employee following another employee while performing their job to see what the job is all about.† Job shadowing gives personnel chances to see first-hand the genuine job duties involved and the skill that is needed to perform the job themselves. (Wise Geek, 2011). Job shadowing works well as an in-house strategy to h elp distribute knowledge more largely in a company which, in turn, helps avoid job silos from starting and helps employees increase their expertise and skills to make their work experience more profound and pleasant. Job satisfaction plays an extremely significant role in workforce retention. (Wise Geek, 2011). Job switching is comparable to job shadowing and just like shadowing it prepares the workforce of tomorrow. It allows employees learn about different job opportunities within an agency, and it is most beneficial for offering extra job skills for employees who want to increase their knowledge through added training opportunities. It also assists in generating job back-up sources for essential positions within the company. Employees who want to learn about other jobs within the company or a different department basically switch jobs for a certain amount of time to learn more about distinctive jobs and how those different jobs intermingle to achieve company goals. (Wise Geek, 2011). Monitoring employees is another way to assist in employee development. Managers observe how an employee is progressing in their day to day tasks. This gives the manager an idea about how well the employee is progressing. Monitoring can help managers decide on what trainings are most  useful. It assists the managers to gain a relationship with the employee while giving on going feedback. It shows an employee that the manager cares about the success of the employee. If a manager did not monitor and give feedback it will then show a lack of interest and the employee will inherit that type of attitude as well. (Wohner, 2011). Many companies face the task of employee development with developing greater confidence, creativity, solutions-finding, and problem solving abilities amongst their employees. Companies need employees at all levels to be more adequate, ingenious, imaginative and independent. This attitude allows employees to perform at higher tactical level, which makes their company more industrious and aggressive. Employee’s efforts will create bigger results. It’s what all companies make every effort to succ eed. (Levine, 2011). For many companies these methods above would assist in helping a company be competitive and successful. However, these methods will not assist an employee to gain courage, maintain a belief in the company and these methods will not help in the maturity of the employee. This is where a company needs to focus on the personality of the employee and not the skills that the job requires. Every employee has a different personality, if a company y can recognize that then they can build up the confidence in their employees. For myself, managers who tell me that they believe I can do it really does not motivate me, they sound more like my mother. If a manger praises my work after I finish a project, then I become more motived to do the best I can. It is all about identifying different personalities. (Levine, 2011). Companies need to deliver learning and experiences that their employees would like for their own individual interest, progress and satisfaction. Performance and proficiency are reliant on the employee’s attitude and emotional maturity. Companies can help their employees to accomplish what they want on a personal level, and this offers a stage for trust, ’emotional contracting’ with the organization, and following skills, processing, knowledge growth pertinent to managing higher responsibilities, and teams. (About.com, 2011). The company that I work for has a program they offer every January call the Fellows Program. This is a program that is offered to college student who are in the junior or senior year. This program allows the student to see opportunities that Olympus is offering. College students can apply for a job within the company, however there is a catch. A college  student must take a job for two years. Within those years they are assigned a department for 6 months. After those 6 months the college student is moved to another department and this is the process for two years. By performing this program, Olympus is grooming their future employees. Most of these college students start to gain relationships and they become comfortable after working with us for two years. Most of the Fellows will stay with the company. This program is successful for the student who did not have to look for a job after graduating, and the company gains an employee that they molded to become successful. In my own career development, I was told early on that if people want to help or give suggestions to me then take it. I tried to act like a sponge and soak up all the information that I possibly could, and I still do to this day. If I am struggling with a project and an employee wants to assist me I allow it. I watch how they perform and I ask questions. I find that this way of learning is where I become most successful. You can tell me how to perform a task all you want however, if you take the time to show me, I will then pick up the knowledge of the task in half the time. Whenever I am offered training I make sure I sign up for it. Sometimes it has been difficult to receive constructive feedback however through time I have learned to deal with it. In 5 years I would like to see myself out of the corporation I work for. I really like working for small companies, these bigger corporations tend to treat employees like numbers. When I worked for a smaller company I knew who had kids, who was still in school, who just got married, it was a personal experience. The corporation I work for looks at employees as numbers, not people. References About.com. (2011). ..Training, Development, and Education for Employees. Retrieved from http://humanresources.about.com/od/training/Training_Development_and_Education_for_Employees.htm Levine, L. (2011). Strengthen Your Business by Developing Your Employees. All Business. Retrieved from http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/employee-development/1240-1.html Wise Geek. (2011). What is Job Shadowing?. Retrieved from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-job-shadowing.htm Wohner, N. (2011). How to Monitor Employee Performance. eHow. Retrieved from

The Tally Stick

â€Å"The Tally Stick† ENLT 121-2 It is not always feasible to express ones love for another human being simply through words or ordinary actions. Jarold Ramsey wrote a poem that demonstrates how simple markings and items can have priceless meanings to them. â€Å"The Tally Stick† is a poem that explains the symbolic intricacies of a stick that he has created for his wife of many years and more to come. The poem begins showing the analogy between their marriage and the general physiology of the stick itself.Ramsey carved their â€Å"lives in secret† (2) to show that his work of art and their memories should remain mysterious. Both the stick and their marriage are beautiful to the public eye, but he only wants the two of them to know the details of why it is so precious. The stick is carved in â€Å"mountain mahogany† (3) which is both very durable and free of voids present in common woods. This quality of both wood and love is exemplified by â€Å"hard an d rare† (3) to symbolize the strength and preciousness of both.Line 5 makes the transition from Ramsey discussing the quality of their love to positively reminiscing their lives together by â€Å"touching and handling† (5) the stick as opposed to observing it. This is what makes the tally stick so meaningful; a couple would ordinarily revisit their marriage by opening a scrapbook, whereas Ramsey has created an artifact that can be felt in addition to observed to stir up more powerful emotions. The most beloved part of the marriage to Ramsey is the actual ceremony itself.The â€Å"intricate notch† (6) at the beginning of the stick, which he explains is â€Å"our wedding† (7), demonstrates how much he values the matrimonial ceremony between them. This intricacy is created where grains â€Å"converge and join† (6) which can be personified to a man and woman becoming one—their convergence making them larger and more whole than they were as indivi duals. He values this moment so dearly that he can give specific details of the wedding such as â€Å"who danced† (9). Because he can recall so many details of this day, the details of the stick are readable even â€Å"with a thumb† (9).This deep grain was chosen to represent this occasion to symbolize its significance, but more importantly because those grains are permanent in the wood just as their love is permanent. There are two specific symbols that Ramsey etched into the stick symbolizing two unavoidable events: life and death. The first symbols carved were â€Å"little arrowheads† (10), and Ramsey explicitly says they symbolize the â€Å"births of our children† (11). Arrowheads were essential for the sustainment of life in ancient times, therefore Ramsey chose them to represent his children that bring life to him and his wife.Along with the arrowheads are â€Å"heavy crosses† (12) which also explicitly represents the loss of their parents an d friends. In the bible, Jesus was forced to suffer by carrying his own heavy cross before crucifixion; the crosses on the stick symbolize both the suffering of Ramsey and his wife and the deaths of their loved ones. Not only does Ramsey include the influential moments of their lives through etchings, but uncontrollable events are also present on the stick. He included â€Å"Events, History† (15) because occurrences outside marriage do have a slight impact on how a couple lives together.These events affected them much less than those such as the birth of their children, and he symbolizes this by marking them as â€Å"random hashmarks† (15). These small scratches were placed sporadically against the â€Å"swirling grain† (16); the swirling grain is more precious and has a direction and purpose on the stick, whereas the hashmarks were chiseled randomly simply to present a reminder to him and his wife. Ramsey goes into detail about two historical events represented by the hashmarks.The â€Å"Year the World Went Wrong† (17) refers to around 1961 – the year the United States sent troops into Vietnam which eventually escaladed into the Vietnam War including China, Russia, and France. Other hashmarks on the stick are the â€Å"Great Men fell† (18). This is mentioned after the ‘Year the World Went Wrong’ which means that these days occurred after 1961, yet were relatively close to that time period. It is possible that men who ‘fell’ (died) included Kennedy in 1963, Malcom X in 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.All four of those men profoundly impacted America and it is likely Ramsey and his wife grieved over their deaths together. In spite of these horrible events occurring, the love between Ramsey and his wife â€Å"run through it all† (19) both in reality and in the grains on the stick. We know that their marriage persevered because their â€Å"lengthening r unes† (19) ran through the hash marks (19), meaning their growing characteristics and companionship as a couple were not affected by these tragedies but instead continued on their natural course.The final stanza returns to the present time and describes the unfinished state of the tally stick. Ramsey believes that he and his wife are approaching death by indicating the stick is whittled â€Å"nearly end to end† (20). While the stick is almost completely whittled, there is in fact still space left, showing his desire to create more memories with his wife so they can be carved on. Although the stick was carved out of â€Å"hard† (4) mahogany, the current state is â€Å"delicate as scrimshaw† (21) because of the amount of wood carved away by memories.It is so delicate that it would not â€Å"bear you up† (21), simply emphasizing the stick’s physical weakness—not even able to support the weight of his wife if she used it as a cane. The fin al stanza is the first time that Ramsey admits his marriage is realistic and not perfect. Outside of the beautiful carvings is wood that has been smoothened simply by handling it. The phrases â€Å"Regrets have polished it† (22) and â€Å"hand over hand† (22) are both used to symbolize times of dispute in the marriage.The effort and friction required to hold the stick by hand while carving it has ‘polished’ it, which is analogous to the effort needed to work through hardships and ‘regrets’ of the marriage. In addition to the Tally Stick’s current state, the final stanza expresses Ramsey’s desires for the remainder of his marriage and life. Ramsey only wants to reminisce meaningful life events with his wife, which are represented by their â€Å"unforgotten wonders† (23). The fingers will feel â€Å"sign after sign† (25) on the stick, which have already been established as memorable events earlier in the poem.Ramsey w ants this remembrance to be innocent and enjoyable as â€Å"children on a trail† (24), like kids playing on a trail in the forest. He does not wish to talk about the hardships in his marriage, as seen through the phrase â€Å"talk softly† (26), clearly indicating a peaceful conversation that would not include any regrets. The final phrase of the poem is the â€Å"eyes go blind† (27). The most provoking thought of this last line does not refer to simply losing vision, but rather is an analogy to dying together so that neither of them has to experience life without the other.Ramsey ends the poem with this desire to express how dearly he loves his wife. â€Å"The Tally Stick† demonstrates how Ramsey’s love for his wife can be objectified through an artwork that he has created. The medium for the masterpiece and the symbols on it are carefully selected so that every part of the stick is significant. The marriage, the milestones, and the hardships of th eir lives together are engraved on the stick, yet Ramsey makes it clear which parts are of most importance to him through detail and emphasizes that he truly believes in the phrase â€Å"until death do us part†.

North American Free Trade Agreement and Company Fruit

1. Why did many textile jobs apparently migrate out of the United States in the years after the establishment of NAFTA? Jobs migrated out of the United States because where the average labor for US was $10 to $12 an hour compared to rates in Mexico at $10 to $12 a day. For example, the company Fruit of the Loom Inc. would benefit more and increase their revenue by paying their employee’s less to perform the job. It is also stated that NAFTA was credited with helping crease increase political stability in Mexico. So this could be another reason for the Jobs migrating out of the United States. 2. Who gained from the process of readjustment in the textile industry after NAFTA? Who lost? Due to this readjustment in which the United States jobs migrated to Mexico had a major effect on workers in the textile mills in the United States. But indeed had a great benefit on consumers in the US. It stated that employment in textile mills dropped from 478,000to 239,000, employment in apparel plummeted from 858,000 to 296,000. This shows that a great amount of workers were left empty handed searching for new employment. But on the other hand, this adjustment made it more reasonable for people like myself. Due to textiles moving to Mexico, prices dropped on clothing. Now it makes it easier for consumers to buy clothing at a cheaper price rather than spending a lot of money just to do so. This shows that the market will grow because people can and willing to spend more money at the cheaper rate. In this case, Mexico and U.S will benefit. Mexico would increase jobs as low cost production moves south. And U.S will increase a prosperous market and lower the prices for consumers from goods produced in Mexico. Especially when prices are at a discounted rate. 3. With hindsight, do you think it is better to protect vulnerable industries such as textiles, or to let them adjust to the painful winds of change that follow entering into free trade agreements? What would the benefits of cost of protection be? What would the costs be? I have a two-sided opinion on this matter. I feel that in a way we should protect industries such as the textiles because jobs would be lost and wages levels would decline tremendously in the United States and Canada. Mexican workers would emigrate north and pollution would increase due to Mexico’s more lax standards. And also Mexico would also lose its sovereignty which is not an important factor. But on the other hand, we shouldn’t protect because this would prosper in the market & benefit the consumers.

Organisational behaviour assignment based on case study Essay

Organisational behaviour assignment based on case study - Essay Example Through this approach, organisations are expected to be able to understand the flaws and strengths of its operations in a more efficient manner, which can further be considered in the process of enhancing organisational operations (Cole, 2000). From a generalised perspective, the study of organisational behaviour might also be crucial in the case of A & S Fashion Limited. Started in the year 1993, the company has developed from a small business to adding a large customer base. However, since the year 2011, the company has been continuously failing to reach its targeted sales, which further impacted its reputation in the targeted market. Different reasons have been stated in this concern, addressing the probable drivers that led to business deficiencies in A & S. In order to deal with this situation, the company will essentially need to understand the organisational behaviour by comprehending its workplace environment. Contextually, the aim of the paper will be to analyse the current operational situation of A & S and identify the major flaws that could have lead to such a vulnerable performance of the company. In this context, concepts of psychological contract, motivational gap and communication mechanisms will be taken into account in the discussion henceforth. Implementation of Psychological Contract in the Company Due to Negative Responses of the Staff For the poor performance of the company in the last couple of years, several potential reasons can be identified to have emerged in the scene. In this regard, the negative responses of the staff of the organisation might be a potential reason for the decline in the performance level of the business operations. Arguably, a generalised perspective to this context affirms that employees are the most vital assets in any organisation and constitute the vital elements of contribution in raising the performance of the business (King & Grace, n.d.). In fact, studies have revealed that the performance of businesses is directly dependent on the approach and the conduct of the employees (Vance, 2006). Hence, their satisfaction, which further impacts their working behaviour, is quite vital to be monitored continuously and managed efficiently for the welfare of the organisation. It is in this context that applying measures to understand the psychological contract in A & S shall be essential to identify the rudimental causes of the negative responses obtained from the staff. As can be observed from the case scenario, the employees of A & S have been deciphering a degree of negative response, which has in turn affected the coordination and cooperation between groups and departments as well. Such non-cooperative behaviour has altogether affected the productivity and efficiency of the organisation as every department of the business has been reported to be falling to perform at the expected level, increasing instances of inter-group conflicts. To be precise, the marketing department in A & S has been ac cusing the HR department for their deficiency to recruit professionals as per the need of the specific department. The finance department of the business has also been accused for being incapable to provide enough funds required for

Breaking the chains of psychological slavery Essay

Breaking the chains of psychological slavery - Essay Example The author of the paper has presented his agreement or disagreement with the views presented by Akbar in the first three chapters of the book. The Psychological Legacy of Slavery In the first one of series of essays presented in Akbar’s book, Dr. Akbar defines the misery of blacks over the period of those 300 years, in which the black raced experienced brutality and humiliation in the hands of whites. According to the author, the blacks were forced into slavery which left behind deep psychological trauma in the mindset of black people and socially isolated them. Akbar states that, despite of the fact that world has acknowledged the brutality of slavery experienced all around the world, they still do not know or do not want to know the root cause of problems faced by black people, i.e. the slavery. The problems identified by Akbar pertaining to black peoples’ attitude, were directed towards their behavior at workplace, leading teams, feeling inferiority complexes and how the community divides them from white people. Akbar argues that the negative impact of slavery on black peoples’ attitude towards life can also be noticed in the way they form families and perceive discrimination on the basis of race and color. In my personal opinion, I would like to disagree with Akbar when he suggests that the effects of slave past can be noticed in the attitude towards profession. These days, blacks are dominating major positions in a number of key businesses in the world. On the other hand, blacks are provided with equal opportunities to excel in their profession and achieve their assigned targets. Another factor that has been identified with relation to Black’s attitude towards community division, I would like to agree with Akbar here. This is because still there are evidences where whites are discriminated on the basis of color and race. The recent example is of major sporting events like football leagues and hockey matches. But, due to prevalen ce of law and anti-racial regulations implemented by the government and by employers at workplace, Black people are now encouraged to report that to law enforcing organizations. Liberation from Mental Slavery The second chapter of the book discusses how to break the mental chains of the slavery and its adverse impact on the mind set-up of individuals. Based on Akbar’s idea of faith, the author argues that some of the time, people believe what is not actually practical. Similarly, blacks were sometimes were provided with false and rumored news about the whites and vice versa. I agree with the point raised by Dr. Akbar about faith. Faith is something that is meaningless and limitless. Faith reflects the level of trust an individual have for another individual. Based on faith, people make decisions that are critical to the situations in their lives. In this manner, to ensure successfully achieving objectives or to make something happen in your favor, one must have faith. Similar ly, if individuals’ belief that they are going to get freedom, they first must have faith on their belief, so as to ensure that full commitment and honesty is reflected in our efforts towards achieving freedom. Coming back to the denial of slave mentality of blacks, Akbar states that to make freedom possible, the blacks must have to believe that they are going to achieve freedom. This freedom gave their confidence level a boost which proved to be a vital weapon in their efforts to achieve freedom. Giving the example of Harriet Tubman’s efforts to free slaves, Tubman expresses her faith that she is going to free slave, which other wise would not have been possible in the absence of faith and

How have African-Americans worked to end segregation, discrimination, Essay

How have African-Americans worked to end segregation, discrimination, and isolation to attain equality and civil rights - Essay Example Now this is about the same time that African Americans also first started making their appearance in the military. To maintain unity and to help stop aggression black were beginning to be recruited. Still at this time the racial tension between the blacks and whites was very critical. The battle to end slavery was supposed to have ended, but in reality had just begun. In 1863 Abraham Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation to allow blacks to join the military. However the American society still largely discouraged any social relations with people of different color. So, although the process of integration had already started there was still a huge battle to be bought for everyone involved (Massey, Douglas S., p.110). During the Civil War, the South literally depended on black labor to help them maintain their present economy. Without the black at this time, the south would not have had enough people to produce the grain in which the completely relied upon. The Confederated autho rities also used their slaves to construct forts, and some states such as Virginia even required slave owners to lease their slaves out for labor. The south was also very hard and cruel to their slaves. The Confederate leaders treated the blacks as if they were animals and forced them to do as much hard work as they could. The south still basically believed that blacks were meant to be slaves and should remain under complete control of their masters. Now the North, at the same time was now employing about 200,000 of approximately one half million blacks that escaped slavery into the Union territory. As the first steps in the desegregation of the nation the North was letting the former slave come into their land and was employing them as teamster, carpenters, cooks, nurses, and scouts. Many of the escaped blacks even worked for the Union army as informants to explain many of the Confederated armies’ plans and information (Godsil, Rachel D., p 1110). The blacks eventually becam e a very important part of the military service in the Union military forces. Even though most of the leaders were still white, the African American people had finally started making real progress with the integration into the white society. This first major step into society was basically seen as a trial by blood. It was simply known that whenever someone was willing to give his life in the line of battle for the same cause as his military force, it was considered the ultimate sacrifice and was now completely accepted in on the battle lines. However, even though the blacks were now helping with the labor and even the fighting by their own free will now, there was still much hatred and conflict between certain groups of people who still wanted racial segregation in their land. Even though it was considered illegal to act in violence just because of the race of a person, there were still many groups even in the North country who just could not completely accept the colored people amo ng them, and this also lead to much bloodshed in their own territory. There were 38 African American people lynched by the Klu Klux Klan in 1917, and 58 more lynching the following year. After the civil war 70 black veterans were also killed in cold blood because of all of the hatred still within the general society as a whole (Payne, Richard J.,p. 91). The Klu Klux Klan was a racial hatred group that was responsible for many murders of the blacks at that time, and even still

External Analysis of Blackberry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

External Analysis of Blackberry - Essay Example The present 9000 series has extended the capabilities of blackberries (Baldauf and Stair, 180). The series is now able to receive RSS feeds, display full HTML web pages, and other networking abilities. This short paper will deal with the threats and opportunities of the Blackberry Company. Major threats faced by Blackberry The company faces a myriad of threats in which the leading is competition from companies producing similar products. Motorola gave a notable competition to the company in the year 2007 (Blackberry Product Fans, 2008). This occurred because Motorola had superior products that competed with then RIM blackberry phones. There are also other mobile phones capable of sending and receiving emails including Nokia and Ericson (Blackmore, 5). These have also offered competition to the Blackberry products. Nokia has been a dominant cell phone provider in the world. This has enabled Nokia to compete with Blackberry well in the world market (Evers and Johnston, 120). Motorola h as been able to establish a brand appreciation that is strong with its consumer market. The Motorola Company has made product promotion in the market successfully. The Motorola marketing staff has made extraordinary efforts in boosting this venture of promotional marketing (Cook, 3). Another advantage of Motorola lies in the relationship existing between the company and the National Football League. This makes the company products famous in the world market and stands a chance of making tremendous sales to consumers. Samsung is another competitor worth mentioning in this case. The weakness of blackberry cell phones in web interface is a weakness that creates a loophole for other companies to compete best in the market. Thus, with the recent improvements in the Blackberry Technologies, there has been a noted improvement in the company’s share of the world market. Most countries treat Mobile companies as experimental budget and cuts. There has been a drying up of funding for th e mobile marketing firms and mobile service providers. When the global market share of Nokia fell to around 38.9% that of Blackberry rose by about 5%, showing the impact of the improvements in Blackberry recent IT technologies (DATAMONITOR, 2010). Continuous improvements will bring many achievements for the company in the future. Opportunities for the Blackberry Company Despite the threats enlisted above Blackberry, have some crucial opportunities to help in boosting its future endeavors. Blackberry has recently developed exceptional products, which possess advanced technologies in Information Technology (Hislop, 22). The present world has had flooding of IT pursuits in small gadgets, and the company’s enhancement of its products is an excellent move. The present blackberry cell phones have numerous features, which is another opportunity that takes the company ahead of its competitors. Blackberry has been able to meet the needs and wants of customers in the world market. This is an opportunity, which if the company works to continue building on it, will yield tremendous achievements. The company has displayed a brand loyalty for its consumers thus establishing trust from its market (Mennecke and Strader, 123). Maintenance of this brand loyalty will help the company meet future challenges from the external environment. The blackberry phones at present bear a leading edge of radio technology, which is crucial, add on making the company’

Oral history Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Oral history - Essay Example Mr Skipper, a supporter of the Democratic Party has had quite an interesting career with because of the all the issues and controversy surrounding his dismissal as county superintendent and his unending support for the vocational, adult, and special education of the minorities. He was an activist and this is apparent from his demands that all students should have equal access to text books and his conflicts with the religious leaders over high school play Mrs. Best Not only has Mrs Best campaigned very eagerly for the right of the women particularly married women to be in high level teaching jobs, she has also fought for the rights of school which have a majority of ethnic students to have better access to the state funding and textbooks. Skipper His record reflects his struggle as he spoke against racism and lay stress over the "cultural pluralism vs. "melting pot" issue. He created much controversy with his proposals to teach Communism and sex education in the classroom. Dick debates whether the Superintendent should be an administrator or a primarily an educator and the fear of politicizing this office. Yes she has played a vital role to get the

7 pages Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

7 pages - Assignment Example If people buy a lot of drinks or many tickets are sold, the players’ salary increases. If there are only a few people who buy the tickets or the drinks, the players’ salary decreases. Q.1. When there is underutilization, a country uses fewer resources than those that it can use. The production possibilities frontier is that line on the production possibilities graph which indicates the maximum possible output. Q. 2. The Product Possibilities Curve abbreviated as PPC shows the optimum production level hat economies can attain. For example, if a person compare the main level of production for an economy, with the actual curve, it is possible to determine the economy’s efficiency. Q. 3. Opportunity cost is demonstrated when making a comparison between data on different points on the production possibilities frontier. When the production of an element goes up, the curve on the PPC shows the production curve decreasing. Q. 4. If there is a decrease it does not mean that the production possibilities for farm’s output have decreased. If the decrease in farms was higher than the production possibility then the farm output would increase and vice versa. Q. 6. Certain events such as natural disasters for example, floods and hurricanes are likely to move the PPC down and to the left because there would be a reduction of productivity in the economy since most businesses in operation. Q. 6. Repairing a leaking roof and paying the night security guard are fixed costs because the payment does not change despite the events surrounding the expenses. Cotton, food and electricity at the mill are variable because they always change. Q. 3. Regulations affect the output decisions of producers because it may make it too expensive or cheaper. For example, companies will not continue to supply if the regulations support the expensive

Mr S Ndzimba at Uj Essay Example for Free

Mr S Ndzimba at Uj Essay Redemption Song Analysis â€Å"Redemption Song,† a magnificently composed song by Bob Marley relates to oppression and deliverance of African slaves, who were brought from Africa to Jamaica. The general theme of this song is the beauty of the redemption of people after oppression. Support of this theme is found in Bob Marley’s connotation and tone. Connotation, the diction of words, is the most significant aspect of this song that supports the theme. Bob Marley’s terminology is responsible for creating a truly entrancing song. Bob initiates the song on a delicate level by describing the obliteration of the African people by slavery; â€Å"Oh pirates yes they rob I; / Sold I to the merchant ships, / Minutes after they took I / From the bottomless pit. (Marley 1-4). These very lines portray the appalling technique used to take Africans from their homeland to toil for others. The next line, â€Å"But my hand was made strong / By the hand of the Almighty. / We forward in this generation/ Triumphantly,† (Marley 5-8) illustrates the authority given to the slaves by God. Through His hand, the present generation has been capable of moving onward and prospering. The most eminent lines of the song, â€Å"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free our minds† sustains thought that it is not the responsibility of the oppressors to free the oppressed; this assignment can only be completed by the oppressed themselves. Through the complete song, Bob Marley maintains an optimistic tone. He appears to believe that through all the pain and agony of slaves his generation will be able to formulate a difference. Evidence of this is found in the lines â€Å"We forward in the generation / Triumphantly† (Marley 3-4). This strictly means that descendents of Africans have been given an opportunity to right and improve the prospects their ancestors never had. Overall, â€Å"Redemption Song† is a incredibly stunning song that relates to not only African slaves but all others that have been oppressed. Bob Marley’s main purpose of this song is that, in the end, it is up to the oppressed to determine their freedom and destiny.

Launch Of Green Tea In UAE: Marketing Plan

Launch Of Green Tea In UAE: Marketing Plan A marketing plan provides a sound framework for developing the marketing strategy for a product. It has a list of action items like sales objective, budget requirement, resource requirement etc. It is a very important part of the overall business plan. In the first submission, we had already talked at length about the cultural and economic analysis of the market and features of the product. This submission will carry forward from where we left in the last assignment. We will take a closer look at the intricacies of running a business like understanding the target market, designing a suitable promotion strategy, having an overview of distribution and production process etc. The last part explained in detail the benefits of the green tea. It also explains how it protects the body against the most important carcinogens or tumors that can attack the body which is: indirect chemical carcinogens, physical carcinogens and direct chemical carcinogens. We also analyze how to market the product and how will it work in the UAE. Such as: Culture analysis in the UAE, economic analysis in the UAE and competitive market analysis in the UAE. Traditional approach to look at any product based marketing involves understanding of: Financial data- Factors like what will be the estimated product cost, distribution cost, expenses etc. Product data- It involves understanding of product pricing and other formalities like packaging etc. Sales and distribution data It involves what should be the sale targets and associated costs and revenues. Advertising and sales promotion data which caters to promotion strategy for the product. Thus preparing a good marketing plan can be a very complex process. But in a nutshell the aim of any marketing plan is very simple, which is to understand the factors and situation which have an impact on successful running of the business. We have looked at the complete marketing plan from the perspective of our product-Green Tea hp. This will be a new product in UAE market. As a result the challenge with this product is to start afresh with all marketing strategies. This project deals with various aspects of a marketing plan. To begin with it addresses the marketing objectives. Marketing objectives encompass setting realistic sales and profit expectations. This involves analysis of the total market for the product and the share for our product. Besides it also involves understanding the target consumer. Next section talks about marketing strategies. Marketing strategies outlines programs which will help us reach the expected sales and profit targets outlined in marketing objectives. This involves how much and when to spend on advertising and other promotional activities. Next we have discussed the implementation intricacies for our business. Tasks such as distribution from USA to UAE and price determination for the product are dealt with in this phase. These tasks are closely related to the financial statements and budgets. For any new business, it is very critical that a close check should be kept on the budget allocated and required. It is always good to have a planned budget before embarking on any new venture. Last but not the least we have also looked at the resources required to sustainably run our new business. Understanding the mode of generating financial resources, personnel resource and production capacity have been dealt in great detail. Marketing Plan Marketing Objectives Target Markets A target market is a specific group of people which a business thinks as their potential customers. They have similar characteristics like age, demographics, income etc. They also have similar buying patterns and can be classified as a separate category. The business tries to target this category when developing marketing strategies for its products or services and all of its marketing messages and campaigns are dedicated towards the target market. To develop a powerful marketing plan, we should answer following questions regarding the target market: How well do we understand the needs of our target market? Can we relate to what our target consumers need and what we have to offer? Are there any ways by which we can offer highly customized products for different groups? What product should be made generic and what should be offered to a broad set of consumers? A well defined target market can build the success of any company. While making products available to a huge market looks attractive, we would like to target specific customers to make ourselves known in the market. This is because green tea is new product in UAE and is not well known. In our previous submission, we had highlighted that we would specifically target the age group of 15-50.This was based on the consumption pattern of this group. Demographics As we know UAE has a large foreign expatriate population. The total population of the UAE is estimated at 2.3 million people. Only about 20 percent which represent 460,000 people of these are UAE locals. The rest are foreign workers. We would target all the people for our product. The Age breakup of UAE is as follows    0à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢19 years: 27.4% (female 40,328,895, male 42,667,761 😉 20à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢64 years: 60.1% (female 90,813,578, male 89,881,041 😉 65 years and over: 12.6% (female 21,991,195, male 15,858,477) The above breakup highlights the huge proportion of working age group population in UAE. Lifestyle Lifestyle is one important key factor used in determining which segments are used to target customers. Some important information in this section is there which includes how the Emirates market lives, their hobbies, their interests and their extracurricular activities. Emirates are living in extremely hot climate and they use tea as part of greeting to their guests most of the time. Frequency Its important to try and find out how frequently target segment will use the offered product or service. Specifically, businesses should always determine if theyre looking for on time sale and be in premium segment or to target more customers more often through new and innovative marketing techniques. Emirates have decent per capita income and they usually prefer the large packs and try using new products that come in the market. One of the major factors which contributes to their type of behavior is the diversity in their population. Exposure to various cultures makes them easily accept and experiment new products more often. Desires / Needs Business should be surely discovering the general need of the country they are planning to enter with new product. They should be aware of the basic desire and need of the emirates before launching Green Tea Hp here. Another point is that UAE development taking care of health sector is participating in the general issue by health and is making awareness campaigns about the importance of using the green tea and replaces the unhealthy food habits by using the healthy products. This will lead to decrease in the obesity and the diseases in the country. Therefore we can say that there is desire and need of Emirates which is developing towards this product of Green Tea hp. Expected Sales and Profit Expectation Sales and Profit objectives define the projected amount of goods to be sold. Thus it is very important for the success of any business that realistic objectives should be set. Once the sales objectives are set, everything else like marketing budget, channels to be used, number of sales personnel to hire etc. is based on these objectives or expected sales figures. For our product i.e. green tea we would look to cater to different tastes of the expatriate population. According to our research, we found that total UAE tea sales volumes showed a growth of 9% in 2009, or at 4,472 tons. (www.hktdc.com). Thus the change in tea sales from 2008 to 2009 is 369 tons. The below table summarizes the sales figures for the next year. Expected Sales Table    Growth in Sales in 2009 4472 Percentage Growth in 2009 9% Sale in 2009 49,688 Sales in 2008 49688/1.09=45585 Change in Sale from 2008 to 2009 4103 Projected Sales in 2012(assuming same growth rate) 49688+(4103*3)=61997 This market is primarily controlled by Lipton (www.usa2uae.com, 2009). Most of the new players like Green Tea Hp would aim at getting a minor market share to begin with. Based on the estimates from other new players like entering into this segment, like wagh bakri from India, we would look to target at least 1 percent (www.usa2uae.com, 2009) According to people in tea industry, UAE is looking for new and fresh taste in the tea segment. Already available products do not cater to the expectations of the people. Since the migrant population comes from different backgrounds, they have different tastes. Thus our green tea with many flavors would be able to fulfill this need to some extent. Thus we can hope to hit at least 1 percent of the market share. Thus 1 percent of projected sales in 2012 is 620 tons (approx). To calculate the profit margin we would take industry standards for gross profit margin and cash profit margin. We would take conservative estimates by assuming values lower a leading player in this industry. For our purpose we have taken Tata Tea data (www.moneycontrol.com) and calculated accordingly for green tea. Market Share Average Price of tea in last year Total revenue 620 Ton 3451.5 dollars/ton 620*3451.5=2139942 dollars We have assumed the market price of tea at 3541.52 dollars per ton Company Gross Profit Margin Cash Profit Margin Profit Dollars Tata Tea Beverage 10 Percent 9 Percent NA Green Tea Hp (UAE) 8.7 percent 8.7 percent 2139942*.087 = 186174 Promotion Mix Advertising Objective Objective of advertisement will be to attract health conscious customers towards the green. Since the green tea belongs to premium segment therefore more stress will be given to attract urban area consumers who are willing to try something new. Actually if we try to segment people of UAE, we can segregate people into two categories. One who prefers to try new products available in the market and they are usually called experimenters. Other category try to retain their own family retained brand which will bar them from experimenting any new product. Our work, as a green tea promoter, should attract these early experimenters and make a mark among them. Because the late buyer or safe buyers usually change their buying decision only when are too much exposed to any new product and when they really get to know that product is fine and can be used and have superior benefit as compared to their already using product. Hence, we are going to keep our target consumers to the premium family product thing. It will include kids, teenagers, fathers and Mothers. But the main target will be the teenagers who really care about their health. Teenagers generally have the tendency to experiment with totally new product. They try to use whatever there is in fashion. They want to be different from old generation and there they try every new thing which makes them different from their previous generation. That is why it is suggestible to make them a target customer and make our ad strategy as per their symbol of change. Therefore to target teenager and people in their twenties is be our prime strategy target. We need to position our product as youth icon thing. We have to make its image to look as fashionable and belonging to premium class. To make this we will be using some Hollywood star as an endorser which is youth icon in the eyes of Emirates. Media Mix We are going to use the media mix in a way to reach every single people in Emirates in order to make them of this new product in the market. Since ours is the first company launching this product in UAE therefore it will be our tough task to educate and inform consumers about the health benefits and differentiation from the entire existing product available in the United Arab Emirate market. Therefore we need to use following promotion media mix: Advertisement in magazines, newspapers and television. TV program. Kiosks. Billboards. Banners. The way we going to use this are to make this promotion in various phases. In first phase in which product need to be made aware in the UAE market is to use the media which is most widely used in the United Arab Emirates. Therefore we are going to take the initial advertisement through the use of the maximum reach basis. Since we all know that television is the best mode to reach to maximum population in minimum time. This will accompanied with the Message Message which green tea should be cashing is to convey a royal brand Image and keep a youth icon associated with product. Idea is to convey the health benefit and Premium product category among youth. Message should be something like conveying New and Young: Tried me!!. Cost Advertisement Newspaper Advertisement    20000 TV Advertisement    30000 Kiosk Advertisement    10000 Magazine Advertisement    10000 Billboard    10000 Banners    10000 Promotions 10000          Advertising Expense    $ 100,000.00 Sales Promotion Objective Objective of sales promotion will be to attract more and more customer in very first year. This should be done with the help of affordable small packaging of size as small as 100g. This should be the smallest package that should be available to the customer because smaller than this package will affect the brand image which is the last thing company want to do. Premiums Gift with purchase is the very common promotion techniques used by marketers for promoting the product. It is used in a way to associate our product with something of real use to the segment we are targeting. Since here we are targeting the youths therefore we can say that if we need to give some goodies free with our green tea product we need to offer something which is of real use to the teenagers and adults. A small teddy bear or a fancy branded pen with the 1 kg pack will attract consumer towards our product. Coupon Other way to attract the shopper towards our product is to let them buy the product with some free movie coupon. This thing which is really famous among the teenagers is to offer them free movie tickets on lucky draw to some consumer. Something like free movie coupons to every 5th shoppers can create a magic. This is cheap from the point of publicity and can work a lot in gaining momentum for the product. Cost Cost allotted to all this promotional strategy will be very less compared to advertisement expense we are incurring on the product. The main reason for this is because our main aim is to achieve more of awareness and less of selling. We want to do marketing rather than selling. We are going to produce what is needed there not we will sell whatever we have produced. Total Cost allotted to promotion will be $10000 annually. Personal Selling At this stage personal selling will be avoided by Green Tea HP. This is totally new product in the market. Surely personal will help in sale but we are avoiding this to check our brand image deterioration. We are planning to use this in B2B strategies but not in the business to customers strategy. Other Promotional Method All promotional strategy which we are planning is already described in above. As of now Green Tea hp product will not be experimented with some strange promotional technique. It can work but we dont want to take risk for this totally new product in United Arab Emirates market. Distribution: From Origin to Destination Port Selection United States is bounded by sea on both sides. In the west, it has Pacific Ocean whereas on the east side, it has Atlantic Ocean. UAE on the other hand lies northwest of the Arabian Sea. Origin Since the manufacturing of Green Tea happens in Utah, we are interested in looking for major trading ports near Utah. Utah lies towards the western side of US. Thus two major ports nearby are Port of San Francisco, California It lies on the western edge of the San Francisco Bay with a total trade capacity of 2,654,714 short tons. This is a major port with high amount of export trade. Port of Coos Bay .Oregon It is located on the Pacific coast, with major cities nearby. E.g. It Washington to the north and California to the south. This port too has high trading volume and is a good option since it had many logistics operator in nearby states. Destination UAE has seaports throughout the region. The major ports are Port Jebel Ali, Port Khor Fakkan , Port Rashid, Port Saeed ,Port Khalid and Port Zayed. Packaging Packaging is required to protect the products from damage during transit and also during storage. Packaging also plays a crucial role in information transmission and sales. Marking and Labeling Regulations On any package, many types of labels are used. These may include trademarks, product certifications and food authority approvals etc. To make full use of packaging, we intend to publicize the health benefits of green tea through labeling. Approvals from health authorities and results of study on green tea can be highlighted through package. Containerization During shipping of containers, one needs to take care of identification and bar codes and RFID numbers for easy tracking and shipment of goods. Another important aspect to consider is the container standards. There are many container system standards worldwide. It is essential that the same standards are used by both the trading partners for easy identification of goods. Costs Packaging represents a significant portion of the total cost on a product. For example, in tea industry, it is estimated that the cost of packaging can be as high as 30% of the total cost. This is primarily due to special type of packaging required to keep the tea fresh and increase the shelf life. Another cost consideration in packaging is that it is extremely expensive to create a new packaging design including graphics and structure. Thus the choice of packaging should be a very thought out process. For our product, GreenTea HP, we would make investments in generating a stable packaging system. We would restrict our packaging costs to 10 percent over the long term. This includes the countrys industrial, agricultural, and animal products. The competent ministries and departments approve the bill and issue a certificate of origin for all national products meant for exportation. A copy of these documents should be submitted upon processing an export application. The customs authorities employ the temporary deposit system in order to simplify and facilitate the procedures for the importers. A deposit is an amount of money that the customs collects pending payment of the customs duties or presentation of the original documents. Price Determination Transportation Cost Transportation Cost will be there but that will be borne by wholesaler only. The wholesaler needs to have enough margins as commission in order to bear this cost and still not make any losses. After the wholesaler the further transportation cost will borne by retailer. Because of all this, both the retailer and the wholesaler are getting hefty commission. Handling Expenses Handling Expenses will be borne by company itself as most of these handling charges are there as freight cost are from factory to onboard travelling. Custom Duties Custom duty is paid by company only as it is importing the raw tea leafs from elsewhere. The amount of custom duty generally depends upon the amount of import that is done. Company is paying $50000 as custom fees for the product for very first year on annual basis. Whole and Retail Mark Up and Discounts Final Price Product Cost    $ 2,020,000.00 Selling price (Profit Margin 8.7%)    $ 2,195,740.00 Selling Quantity we are targeting (Ton)    620 Company Price       Selling price per ton    $ 3,541.52 Selling price per Kg    $ 3.54 Selling price per 250g Pack    $ 0.89 Selling Price per 100g pack    $ 0.035 Wholesale Price (@13% WS Commission)       Selling price per Kg    $ 4.00 Selling price per 250g Pack    $ 1.00 Selling Price per 100g pack    $ 0.04 Retail Price (@12.5% Retail Commission)       Selling price per Kg    $ 4.50 Selling price per 250g Pack    $ 1.13 Selling Price per 100g pack    $ 0.05 Pro-formal financial Statement and Budget Marketing Budget Advertisement/Promotion Expense Advertisement Newspaper Advertisement 20000 TV Advertisement 30000 Kiosk Advertisement 10000 Magazine Advertisement 10000 Billboard 10000 Banners 10000 Promotion 10000 Advertising Expense $ 100,000.00 Distribution Expense Distribution Cost Store Payroll 20000 Store Management 10000 Rent 10000 Utilities 10000 Depreciation 10000 Repair 20000 Maintenance 13000 Total Distribution Expense 93,000.00 Product Cost Processing Raw Green tea cost Raw product (1000 ton) 1,000,000.00 Processing Variable Cost 230,000.00 Processing Fixed Cost 270,000.00 Final Green Tea product (620 ton) $ 1,500,000.00 Product Cost Percentage of Selling Cost Green Tea Product Cost(620 ton) $ 1,500,000.00 74.3% Custom expense $ 50,000.00 2.5% Packaging Cost $ 200,000.00 9.9% Selling Expense $ 73,000.00 3.6% Advertising Expense $ 100,000.00 5.0% Distribution Expense $ 93,000.00 4.6% Misc Expense $ 4,000.00 0.2% $ 2,020,000.00 Selling price (Profit Margin 8.7%) $ 2,195,740.00 Final Price Product Cost $ 2,020,000.00 Selling price(Profit Margin 8.7%) $ 2,195,740.00 Selling Quantity we are targeting (Ton) 620 Selling price per ton $ 3,541.52 Selling price per Kg $ 3.54 Selling price per 250g Pack $ 0.89 Selling Price per 100g pack $ 0.04 Other Cost Misc Expense $ 4,000.00 Pro forma annual profit and loss statement (Profit year) Profit And Loss Statement Income Revenue    $ 2,195,740.00 Expense          Cost of Goods Sold    1,000,000.00    Processing Variable Expense    230,000.00    Processing Fixed expense    270,000.00    Custom expense    $ 50,000.00    Packaging Cost    $ 200,000.00    Selling Expense    $ 73,000.00    Advertising Expense    $ 100,000.00    Distribution Expense    $ 93,000.00    Misc Expense    $ 4,000.00    Total Expense    2,020,000.00          EBIT       $ 175,740.00 Interest       $ 25,000.00 EBT       $ 150,740.00 Tax @ 20%       $ 30,148.00 Net Income       $ 120,592.00 Resource Requirements Finances In a product life cycle, different financial needs arise at different points in time .The funding stages of a business are as follows: Seed capital It is the amount you need initially to set up and plan your business activities. Start-up capital It is the amount of money required to maintain operational activities like buying raw material, processing etc in the first year. It is also called working capital Mezzanine (expansion) capital It is required to expand the current facilities. e.g. to upscale the production to full installed capacity or to buy a new larger business. For our product, Green Tea, finances will be required to start business operations, logistics and distribution, to pay for customs, for setting up packaging facilities and so on. We need a sum of around 500,000 dollars as calculated in above sections, of which 230,000 is variable cost and 270,000 are fixed cost. Capital funding can be of two types Debt Capital and Equity Capital. Debt capital means taking a loan which can be paid back over a period of time. This gives an easy way to maintain control over the company as well as get funds. The most common type of debt funding for a new business like ours is secured loans. To start any business, the first and foremost option that comes to mind is to avail business loans. A business can also avail secured loans from banks by keeping some property as collateral with the bank. Amount of secured business loans depends on value of the security kept with the lender. Generally a secured loan can fetch an amount of 50,000 to 100,000 dollars. It can be paid back in a period of 5-30 years depending on the terms and conditions. Equity capital is another way of funding in which people or firms become a part of the company. In this way they earn a portion of your profits in ways of dividends or can make huge money when the company goes public. Thus to determine the type of funding, we need to ask, that whether we are comfortable paying monthly installments or we would like to give up ownership rights in our company. Along with this, we need to ask following questions: Does my business qualify for debt financing? Am I willing to lose the secured collateral if the business fails? Am I willing to share the confidential financial information of my company? Some of other choices for funding a business include: Personal savings. Borrowing from family and friends. Making a partner and using his personal funds. Approaching a commercial finance company. Getting venture-capital fund. Thus to raise the funds of 1500,000 dollars, we can make following arrangements. Funds Breakup    Seed Capital 500,000 Dollars Secured Loans at 5 Percent 500,000 Dollars Equity Capital for 10% stake in Company 500,000 Dollars Personnel Every organization should be clear about its human resource needs. Thus planning can help in getting the right number of people at the right place. This kind of planning is largely dependent on the organizations overall goals. Forecasting of personnel depends on the following factors: Mission of the organization. Projected Turnover. Quality of employee skills. Technological advances in production and packaging. Personnel can be acquired from any of the following two sources Internal External Internal recruitment refers to promotion of employees from within the organization to fill the gaps. This involves listing of an employees education and skill set and based on that making recommendation for promotion. A company also considers performance levels of employees over past years. External Supply of qualified candidates refers to getting the required personnel from outside the organization. This involves having a good knowledge about the supply conditions in different occupations and awareness about the general business environment. The information about such conditions and availability of personnel can be found in: Monthly updates of national bank. Publications of various associations. Publications of various employment agencies. Since ours is a new product, we would primarily be focusing on external sources to fill our personnel needs. Also we would like to estimate the number of personnel required on the basis of ratio analysis. It involves forecasting the employee numbers based on the ratio of some factor like sales volume to the number of people required per unit of sales. Our product has sales of 620 ton. Production Capacity It refers to the volume of products which can be manufactured in a plant or factory with a given amount of resources. Production capacity depends on the efficiency of machines and workforce. It is essential that highly efficient processes should be put in place for the same. Another important concept to consider while deciding on the production capacity is capacity utilization. It gives a relationship between the actual production that happens in a plant with the total installed capacity and potential production. For Green Tea HP, we would be targeting an actual production capacity of around 650 ton in the first year. But we plan to have installed capacity around 1500 ton. We would scale up the production in a phased manner. Good production planning will help make better decisions in terms of sales, profit, expenses etc. To calculate production capacity, we should consider various factors like number of facilities, number of employees and equipment etc. Also number of employee required (discussed in previous section on personnel planning) plays a crucial part in the same. We need to determine the number of hours per week for employees. For our product, we assume an industry standard of 40 hours per week. The time spent in breaks, lunch time etc would be deducted from this time to calculate actual time spent on the production. Once we have actual time spent on production and the number of employees employed, we can calculate the actual production. Actual Production = Actual hours spent in production * Number of Employees Sources Tea Processing Article Retrieved May 15, 2011, from Tea Manufacturing firm inputs Website: http://www.enjoyingtea.com/teaprocessing1.html Technology Trends in Tea Manufacturing Article Retrieved May 15, 2011, from Tea Manufacturing firm inputs Website: http://www.teauction.com/home/techtrend.asp

Effect of Video Games on Brain Functions

Effect of Video Games on Brain Functions The Immersion of the Human Mind  In Video Games Stefan Nikolov Contents (Jump to) Abstract Literature Review Current Perceptions Abstract This research paper was created with the intention of taking the reader on a guided journey towards understanding how the human mind functions within the virtual world of video games. It explores the interaction between the senses of the nervous system and the game’s artificial reality and attempts to establish a connection between an individual’s brain capabilities and the demanding requirements of a game’s level environment and attempt to find a balanced relationship between the two. The paper is based around a research, conducted in order to come up with approximate statistics about how the game’s world triggers brain sensors and how and how much the human consciousness responds according to the information input it receives. A racing track, named the â€Å"Blackstone International Circuit† was created as a supporting piece of level design work. With the help of an external controller, a steering wheel with resistance and force feedback, fellow students, who took part in the research, were required to compete three laps around the circuit. The track was also released on several online websites and that made possible the involvement of other anonymous individuals. After they had their turn, they were asked to complete a track questionnaire with questions related to their experience. The data of the questionnaire was later collected and analysed in order to establish a statistics database of how the separate senses take part when the human mind is engaged. The results revealed that the brain’s involvement was maximised and participants felt fully immersed within the game environment. That allowed the collection of subconscious activity that was categorised to determine the type of game presence they had – tactical, strategic or narrative. Findings also helped support the claim that a person with a strong co-ordination and reflex abilities, which are the main part of having a tactical game presence, would be called a â€Å"good gamer†. The majority of participants in the survey belonged to the group of players that have tactical presence and had a very similar approach. Throughout this paper, objective analysis and criticism, as well as self-assessment and reliable sources were the foundation for building a valid and evident piece of academic writing. The paper concludes with suggested criteria for analysing the mind’s activity when playing a video game and getting clearly distinguished results about the type of people that play video games in today’s world. Literature Review At the beginning of each life experience, there is the perception of it. It is the initial start of the human mind’s interaction with the surrounding environment and ultimately serves as the foundation, on which events occur and build up. In the Oxford dictionary, the definition for the word â€Å"perception† is â€Å"the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.† The environment of reality is consisted of an infinite number of information flows, which inevitably and constantly interact with the mind. If the â€Å"filter† of perception did not exist, there would be an extreme mental overload, as the amount of streaming actions would be too big to comprehend. Blake and Sekuler (2006) state that â€Å"what is crucial is that perception provide us with a useful view of the world†, rather than detailed and accurate one; â€Å"where useful means being able to interact safely and effectively within our environment.† Perception acts like an information distributer to the mind, allowing only relevant data to reach the brain, while the unnecessary parts of the occurring event may even not make their way through. The two authors also explain that â€Å"stimulation comes in various forms of physical energy: thermal, mechanical, chemical, acoustic and electromagnetic.† As a consequence, the human brain’s ability to accept and process information is applied through the five senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Working together, they create a complete image of the surrounding environment, enabling us to co-ordinate and interact with at a level of full immersion. The word â€Å"immersion† originally meant â€Å"to submerge someone or something in a liquid.†, however, since the invention of video games and entertainment media in general, the meaning has evolved significantly, as far as it affects the human mind. According to Wikipedia, â€Å"immersion†, in relation to a video game, can also mean â€Å"a perception of being physically present in a non-physical world.† The immersion in the video game world can be split into three different types – tactical, strategic and narrative (Adams, 2005). The first two are easy to achieve, as they require problem solving; tactical is the type that requires skill and repetition of actions on the way to success; Strategic immersion involves calculation and prediction to overcome obstacles. However, narrative immersion is hard to accomplish, as a lot of elements must work together – story, characters, setting, acting, presentation, to compile everything together in a successful emotional state. Rigby and Ryan (2010, p.84) explain how Authenticity is a key factor to the believability of an experience. It is what provides ground for the extra step towards immersion, as people usually choose to keep their distance from things that they consider fake. Authenticity makes a product trustworthy and reliable, and helps the individual achieve the desired blending of the real (factual) and the imaginary (mental) world. According to the authors, each person has an individual set of requirements, called â€Å"schema†, which is applied to every experience in order to compare it to previous ones and determine if it can be classified as â€Å"authentic†. According to Madigan (2010), it is spatial presence that comes closest to what game players perceive as immersion. It is considered to exist when the elements of a game world are accepted as â€Å"real†, allowing one to submerge fully into a product of the imagination and feel like they are as much present in the scene, as they would be in reality. The process takes place over two defined stages. At the First stage, a player is accepting the surrounding world, composed of a variety of objects, sounds and events, which help create a saturated mental model of the game’s virtual universe. The Second stage is engaging the mind on a subconscious level, where it feels part of a flawless reality and is fully immersed within the experience. It has the imagination filling in the imperfections of a certain part of a game level, for example, which were imposed by the limitations of the machine or the level of object detail. Daphne Bavelier, a cognitive research scientist, in a keynote presentation (2012) about the relationship between the human brain and playing fast-paced computer games, suggested that doing so actually improved the brain’s capabilities. According to her team’s research, people who often play action games tend to solve problems faster, perform better in multitasking and recognise and react to the surrounding environment more accurately and with greater precision than people who do not. That is due to the fact, that, when fully immersed inside the game world, the brain would have to process often times a lot more information than in a lot of real-life situations, which would essentially serve as training process and help the individual improve on problem solving. The results of that research were valid even months after it was conducted. A very important, if not crucial factor for achieving a full immersive experience, when playing a game, is Realism. McMahan (2003) splits Realism of video games into two sub-divisional types – Social and Perpetual. The first type suggests the comparison between social interactions within a game’s environment compared to the real world, but the Perpetual Realism is the level of visual resemblance of the objects in that environment to the ones in reality. Most fast-paced games in today’s world offer the possibility of complete interaction of the mind and game world, due to the fact that computer graphics and processing of game data is becoming rapidly faster with each year that passes. Game genres like any modern First-Person Shooter (FPS) game, such as Call of Duty or Battlefield, require almost the same skill set for a proper playing experience. According to Gamer Institute (2014), the top skills of a professional player are Love of the Game, Unwavering dedication, Manual dexterity, Twitch reflexes, Strong multi-tasking, Analytical ability and Emotional Control. One of the most realistic genres of games in today’s world is the Simulator. It considers factors, such as physics, lighting, shadows, shapes or events to create a world, which resembles reality as close as possible. Depending on the type of simulator, reality’s properties can be used for a variety of purposes. Some games, such as Moon Tycoon (2001) tend to focus on events that cannot occur in the current state of the world we live in. Others, such as SimCity (2013), use reality to propose a virtual representation of events in a real-time game universe. A Racing Simulator is the type of game that would make a significant difference in how the mind can deal with reality. According to SAE (2014), the delay between events in the racing simulator can even cause motion sickness in drivers; that is why it is unacceptable, as â€Å"it can reduce effectiveness of driver-in-the-loop (DIL) systems used for studying vehicle dynamics†. A game called rFactor Pro (2008) was developed to ensure the maximum of the virtual reality is extracted and a life-like experience is delivered to the drivers in order to get them fully engaged and prepared for a race. SAE also writes that, as of 22 Jan 2014, the game is currently the dominant software in the simulator market, used in F1 and NASCAR teams to mentally prepare drivers. RFactor Pro is an upgraded version of rFactor, a racing simulator game, developed by Image Space Incorporated (ISI) and released in 2005. RFactor has a very large community and a rich and diverse database of game extensions, called otherwise â€Å"Mods† – tracks, cars, menu interface images, sounds and miscellaneous add-ons, developed almost entirely by third-party source, such as myself. The game itself has a very realistic physics engine that enables accurate simulation of life-like racing experiences – tire and engine wear, fuel consumption, wind resistance, tire grip, etc. It engages the players in a believable environment (roads and racing tracks) to get them concentrated on the objective of racing against other cars or beating a time record. According to Angel Ever (2014), safety is the biggest benefit of racing simulation. In virtual reality, there is no possibility for the risk of real-life damage and danger. This removes the â€Å"hazard† factor, while preserving all other fun factors that driving a fast car can provide. A player is not required to wear safety equipment, or have their car inspected at all times, in contrast to a racing driver. Moreover, real racing is a lot more expensive, compared to virtual one, as the cars’ integrity is reset at the beginning of each playing session. There is also the freedom to drive, regardless of the rules of the real world and experience pure fun when doing so. On the other side, a research, conducted by Continental Tyre UK (2011), suggested that people who often play driving games tend to be poorer drivers in real life. According to results, gamers are likely to take more risks, speed and be susceptible to reckless driving more often than non-gamers. Around 16% of all the participants agreed that driving games would make someone perform better in real conditions, while 40% said that virtual experiences contribute to dangerous behavior on the real roads. Current Perceptions The process of investigation is iterative and information is collected in a database for later evaluation. Since the method used in it does not change over time, that means that as the quantity of participants grows, the results’ accuracy grows as well. At the beginning of the project I already had a personal understanding of how a player interacts within the game world, based on my gaming experiences in the past. I wanted to examine the brain’s activity and how important it was for a player to have a complete image of the surrounding environment in order to extract the maximum of their performance. Several categories of interest were defined in order to achieve a guideline

Custom Written Essays: A Comparison of Hamlets Gertrude and Ophelia

A  Comparison of Gertrude and Ophelia  of Hamlet      Ã‚  Ã‚   Gertrude and Ophelia occupy the leading roles for females in the Shakespearean drama Hamlet. As women they share many things in common: attitudes from others, shallow or simple minds and outlooks, etc. This essay will delve into the various facets of what they hold in common.    John Dover Wilson explains in What Happens in Hamlet how the prince holds both of the women in disgust:    The exclamation â€Å"Frailty thy name is woman!† in the first soliloquy, we come to feel later, embraces Ophelia as well as Gertrude, while in the bedroom scene he as good as taxes his mother with destroying his capacity for affection, when he accuses her of    such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose From the fir forehead of an innocent love And sets a blister there.    Moreover, it is clear that in the tirades of the nunnery scene he is thinking almost as much of his mother as of Ophelia (101).    Hamlet’s disgust for his mother is so great that it even â€Å"envelops and exceeds her† (Elliot 25). In the closet scene he attacks her with â€Å"the indulgence of an obsessive passion† (Knight 70). Such aggressiveness is contrary to the natural direction of both Ophelia and Gertrude. They are both â€Å"tender of heart,† and â€Å"to Hamlet, Ophelia is no better than another Gertrude† (Bevington 9). Both are motivated by love and a desire for quiet familial harmony among the members of their courtly society in Elsinore. At the first social function in the play, Gertrude advises out of love:    Dear Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever... .... â€Å"Hamlet and His Problems.† Selected Essays. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1950. Rpt. in Twentieth Century Interpretations of Hamlet. Ed. David Bevington. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.    Kermode, Frank. â€Å"Hamlet.† The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974.    Knight, L.C. â€Å"An Approach to Hamlet.† Twentieth Century Interpretations of Hamlet. Ed. David Bevington. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Rpt. from An Approach to Hamlet. Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press, 1961.    Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos.    Wilson, John Dover. What Happens in Hamlet. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.      

History of the Tibetan Genocide :: essays research papers

For 48 years, China has occupied Tibet. In Tibet's history, there has been over 17 percent of the Tibetan people killed, and 6,000 monasteries ruined. For starters, Tibet was never part of China. During the first few years when China was in control of Tibet, the Chinese declared that Tibet should be part of China, because an Emperor of Tibet once married a Chinese princess. Years later, the Chinese said that Tibet was part of China because of the warrior Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan and the Mongolians were in control of Tibet, but they never made Tibet belong to China. Secondly, the Tibetan people and the Chinese are totally different, culturally and socially speaking. Both peoples have their own culture, way of life, and religion. Of course the language is very diverse, too. Tibet had their own government before the Chinese took over. It was led by His Royal Highness, the Dalai Lama. Before the Chinese came in and took over Tibet, Tibet had nothing to do with China. The Chinese invad ed Tibet in July of 1949. They caused many disasters and much sadness to the Tibetan people. Today Tibet is nothing but a prison. The Chinese continually spy on the Tibetan people. Seventeen percent of the Tibetan population was killed. Many Chinese forcibly removed Tibetans out of their homes at any time, day or night, and sometimes these people were thrown into prison. These people also were often killed for no reason. Ever since the Chinese have taken over the Tibetan people, there have been over 1 millon people killed. There were 6 million Tibetans living in Tibet before the Chinese came and took over the country. In the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, the natives of Tibet are being rid of by the Chinese; the Chinese are filling up Lhasa with Chinese people and the Chinese want to make Tibet throughly Chinese. Today, the Tibetan people are a minority in their own country! All the better jobs go to the Chinese people living in Tibet. The Tibetan people cannot find jobs for themselves, t he best job sometimes they can get is to become a truck driver. What the Chinese are really doing is committing against the Tibetan people, a cultural and religious genocide. The culture of Tibet is based on Bon's ancient beliefs, and also on Buddhism from India. The Tibetans take the best of the two religions, and their entire culture is based on that. History of the Tibetan Genocide :: essays research papers For 48 years, China has occupied Tibet. In Tibet's history, there has been over 17 percent of the Tibetan people killed, and 6,000 monasteries ruined. For starters, Tibet was never part of China. During the first few years when China was in control of Tibet, the Chinese declared that Tibet should be part of China, because an Emperor of Tibet once married a Chinese princess. Years later, the Chinese said that Tibet was part of China because of the warrior Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan and the Mongolians were in control of Tibet, but they never made Tibet belong to China. Secondly, the Tibetan people and the Chinese are totally different, culturally and socially speaking. Both peoples have their own culture, way of life, and religion. Of course the language is very diverse, too. Tibet had their own government before the Chinese took over. It was led by His Royal Highness, the Dalai Lama. Before the Chinese came in and took over Tibet, Tibet had nothing to do with China. The Chinese invad ed Tibet in July of 1949. They caused many disasters and much sadness to the Tibetan people. Today Tibet is nothing but a prison. The Chinese continually spy on the Tibetan people. Seventeen percent of the Tibetan population was killed. Many Chinese forcibly removed Tibetans out of their homes at any time, day or night, and sometimes these people were thrown into prison. These people also were often killed for no reason. Ever since the Chinese have taken over the Tibetan people, there have been over 1 millon people killed. There were 6 million Tibetans living in Tibet before the Chinese came and took over the country. In the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, the natives of Tibet are being rid of by the Chinese; the Chinese are filling up Lhasa with Chinese people and the Chinese want to make Tibet throughly Chinese. Today, the Tibetan people are a minority in their own country! All the better jobs go to the Chinese people living in Tibet. The Tibetan people cannot find jobs for themselves, t he best job sometimes they can get is to become a truck driver. What the Chinese are really doing is committing against the Tibetan people, a cultural and religious genocide. The culture of Tibet is based on Bon's ancient beliefs, and also on Buddhism from India. The Tibetans take the best of the two religions, and their entire culture is based on that.

Prison Reform in the 19th Century

So, every time I re-read a source or try to write, I keep thinking back to what I am actually trying to argue. I've finally figured out my argument: Hawthorne portrayed Hollingsworth as a failure because he did not believe in the prison reform efforts of the time. I came to this through looking at a lot of parallels in my sources, and finding different reasons for why my hypothesis is true. The two types of prison reform in the early 1800s were meant to reform criminals through very strict methods. They were so strict that prisoners were not allowed to communicate at all. I think that the strictness of these systems was too harsh for many people. Also, these systems died out quickly because people started to realize that reforming criminals did not actually prevent crime itself. So, because Hollingsworth's school was never accomplished, Hawthorne is showing how these types of systems will fail. Advocates of prison reform were also very extremist. Like other reforms of the time, prison reform had advocates to only stuck to one idea. For example, people believed that the source of criminal misbehavior was the family. Thus, prison chaplains were brought in to inspire the criminals and be their new family. However, this idea of replacing an entire family with a chaplain was obviously not going to help criminals that much. But, everybody believed that religion was the only way to solve the problem. This extremism is shown through Hollingsworth – he does not want to believe in any other ideas. His failure is a warning against the extremism of prison reformists. One of my sources described how many of the reform movements failed in the early 1800s. Dorothea Dix helped improve insane asylums and hospitals, and was able to cause a vast increase in funds to help these causes. However, even with all the money that asylums got, they were not prevented from class discrimination. Depending on one's race, he/she would receive different treatment, and some would receive it faster than others. Also, many looked down on reform movements in general because they feared that constantly giving help would make criminals dependent on others. Thus, they would not know how to take care of themselves. Transcendentalists saw philanthropy in general as a threat to self-reliance. So, Hawthorne was disoriented with prison reform because the ideas behind the reform only caused more problems – like increasing class divisions and only hurting the poor more.

Review the article What is strategy? by Michael .E. Porter Essay

Michael Eugene Porter is a Professor at The Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, based at the Harvard Business School. He is generally recognized as the father of the modern strategy field. One of his great writing is â€Å"What is strategy?† published in 1996. The beginning of the article raises a mistake of Operational Effectiveness for Strategy that many companies had suffered for almost two decades. In the article, Operational Effectiveness means performing similar activities better than rivals perform them. To achieve this objective, companies based on its strength using their best available technologies, skill, management, human resource, eliminated wasted effort, motivated employees†¦ As the result of this, they could offer lower cost but superior quality to the customers meanwhile moving toward the frontier. In this case, customers and suppliers received a lot of benefit. But for the companies the fast and dramatic profit they received at the early time day by day became nothing. They just run faster and faster in the endless race of Operational Effectiveness, no one could win. One of the reasons for this is so irony. Competitors imitated the best practices in technology, management, input improvement. Therefore most of the com panies look nearly the same. There were no difference and competitive advantage anymore and the sinking price ever nearer to marginal cost. We can see it clearly in mobile phone market; Samsung is facing with the imitation from Chinese companies for example Xiaomi. Those new entrants put a heavy threat on market share and made Samsung lose a lot of money. By finding out and describe the matter really clearly, this article has shown the conflict in operating the companies. Managers have tried to get the better but receive the worse. It explains why many companies got stuck in their management trap for almost twenty years. To make it clearer, a very typical example falls into Japanese companies which imitated and emulated one another, tried to satisfy any need from customers. This argument from Porter helps managers avoid mistake and remind them about strategy. In the second part of the article, the method to solve the matter is introduced: â€Å"Strategy rests on Unique Activities†. Porter suggested that to avoid copying, and to be different, managers have to choose a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value, and perform activities different from competitors. It is Strategy positioning including three sources: The first one is â€Å"Variety Based Positioning†. The companies use this if they can create a particular product or service using distinctive set of activities to satisfy one common need of a group of customers. A very good example for this case is Jiffy Lube International. It just focus on automotive lubricants, no other car repair or maintenance service. Therefore, their service is faster at lower cost, persuading customer to get oil changes. This way will attract customers with strong and specific need especially the wise customers who believe in the advantage of specialization. The second one is â€Å"Needs Based Positioning† meaning serving all or most of the needs of a particular group of customers. To illustrate this case, Porter showed a very excellent example of Ikera. This company tried to serve all the home furnishing needs of its target customers who were happy to trade-off service for cost and need stylish furniture, in-store child care, extended hours. Besides according to the customers’ life period or special occasions, companies can offer different kinds of services, for example, BIDV bank can offer student a loan for study, after that another loan for buying car, house or when he needs some money for his wedding or business. The third one is â€Å"Access Based Positioning†: Segmenting customers who are accessible in different ways (geography, scale, or other differentiator that requires customizing of activities to reach this group of customers). For example, in Indian rural places where the roads were too poor that car and truck can not approach, Unilever group used local people to carry their products (shampoo†¦) and deliver to the local people in those remote places. In practice, some companies likes Blackberries, Samsung can attract normal customers by advertising but for famous people who create the fashion trend and influence community’s preference, the best way is sponsor or giving them the new expensive product as a present and paying them to use it. Anyway, there is an argument that is strategy doesn’t mean niche approach and the most important is that decision on selecting a set of activities has to meet a group of customers’ common needs. The more valuable the company’s position is the more attractive for rivals to imitate. Competitors can reposition itself or straddling (Continental airline maintain its full service while imitated Southwest point-to-point routes, no meal, low fare†¦). In order to make strategic position sustainable and avoid a burden of functions, companies have to trade-off. And it is mentioned in the third part of the article. â€Å"Trade-off† creates the need for choice and protects against repositioning and straddles as well as limit what a company offers. The company trades-off for three reasons; the first is in consistencies in image or reputation. For example Neutrogena has built it image for medical reputation, other brand can not copy because of huge expense. Some famous singers, actors or actresses never appear in small-time, unimportant show or event which may blur their image and rep utation. The second is from activities themselves, different position need different standards, method, and equipment (Ikea)†¦. A university lab room is just used for teaching or checking models in simple cases. It can not be used to do business in complex case like the lab room in industry. Finally; it comes from limit on internal coordination and control. Continental lost a lot of money when imitating Southwest to add a new service for point-to-point flight. However, in practice, trade-off is not easy. It’s not sure to choose what to remain and what to give up. In psychology, managers always want to make their company grow. When seeing the competitors who are successful and get a lot of profit, it’s hard to ignore without jump into that business. Therefore, trade-off requires thoughtful decision and sensitive impression. Furthermore, Porter argues that to gain competitive and sustainability every thing has to be â€Å"Fit†. That is the way activities relate to another. They are combined to fit and reinforce another. Activities can be performed separately but the give effect on each other. Since competitors are facing an entire ecosystem, with elements that allow and strengthen each other existence, they need to be very persistent, capitalize, or creative to be able to replicate or break the company’s strategy. To break a single chopstick is easy but it’s impossible to do the same with a bundle. Samsungà ¢â‚¬â„¢s success is achieved by a combination many aspects. Their products are well designed by excellent designers who are often visit world’s wonders, museum, and learn more knowledge from specialists. In addition, they have 33 technology centers for research. Their new management philosophy is another strong point, quality control and positive changes are extremely focused. On the other hand, Long Thanh milk fell to get fit. Their product â€Å"Lothamilk† is really good on quality and preferred by customers but the conflict among the leaders, the problem in management, and weakness in promotion prevent them from being in the top and growth. In the last part, Porter mentions about Rediscovering Strategy. One of main point is Failure to choose. Managers have been confused about the necessity of making choices. Scaring of leaving behind, companies imitated one another rush to meet all the needs of customers. Focusing on the efficiency frontier could lead one to think that companies should be able to beat its rivals simultaneously on all dimens ions. Another one is Growth Trap that means blind pursuit of growth has a diluting effect on a company’s strategy. Neutrogena suffered such a painful experience when they expanded into a wide variety of products: eyes-makeup remover, shampoo†¦which are not unique and weaken their image. Everything became worse when they began turning to promotion. The second point is Profitable Grow: Too often efforts to develop might harm the strategy but managers can choose suitable activities and cost to element their performance, deepen the long-term position. For example, Maytag organized it value brands into separate units with different strategic position while creating umbrella appliance company for all its brands to gain critical mass. The last but not least important is The Role of Leadership. The managers’ making choice or decision is really important. They have to choose what to do and what to trade-off. In Samsung’s management, when the CEO’s decision is made, all the members in this company have to strictly follow without any other argument or objection. In conclusion, improving in Operational Effectiveness is essential but it’s not enough because company need strategy for long-term success. Therefore, every company has to create preservable positive difference to set up it position, know how to trade-off, keep fit, and flexible enough to adapt wit h major constructional changes in its industry. The article â€Å"What is strategy† helps the readers to find out the difference between operational Effectiveness and Strategy, Then managers can realize the way to develop a valuable and sustainable strategy to control the company’s growth and maintain its composition as well as avoid mistake, and copy from the rivals. After reading this managers can combine positioning, trade-off, fit together to have a good strategy. It also shows us Strategy is the direction and capacity of an organization over long-term, and it is very important for the success of any business organization. Besides all the arguments in the article are in a good order. At the beginning, the problem was raised, and then came many explanations leading the solution. Each argument is made clear by a typical example which is clearly analyzed. On the other hand, the subjects in examples are reused many times, that helps the readers feel familiar and understand deeply about every case. Moreover, the information in the article is really useful and practical for management because it is the result of a careful research based on real, practical situations of some famous companies from all over the world. In addition, the business reality reflected in this article clearly illustrates the theory in the book. Finally, it is well designed and easy to understand. Therefore, all readers from beginning or advantage levels can enjoy it and find some thing useful for them. — The end —