Middle East Meets West

The Etymology of the Middle East itself finds its roots on Western colonization as American Naval General Alfred Thayer Mahan first coined the Middle East to refer to the areas surrounding the   Persian Gulf in 1902   (Koppes, 1976). Due to the strategic location of the Persian Gulf as the gateway to India, the USA, British and Russian Empires seek the control of it and of its surrounding cities for the purpose of military strength and oil production. Since Germany has ample supply of oil, it is the American and the British colony that came head on to control the Middle East. However such term â€Å"Middle East† expanded in scope especially in the First World War as it does not only pertains to the Persian Gulf but it also includes other Arabic countries or countries that are communists (Laciner, 2006).     For the purpose of this essay we are to define the Middle East as the countries near the Indian and Atlantic Oceans and near the six seas. These now includes the region of India, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Turkistan, North Africa, Arabia, Caucasus and Indian Peninsula. Since the Middle East is a rich basin of oil, industrialized country has aimed to colonize long before World War 1. The oppression experienced by the Middle Easterners date back to the concept of capitalism. From the 16the century to the present, the Middle East has been subjected to colonization, legal and illegal intervention from Western countries in the guise of peace troops to aide the government in combating terrorists. The first Western Colonizers and oppressors of the Middle East is the Turkish Ottoman Empire which extended through the entire Middle East and some parts of Europe and America. However the Middle East did not fall in the hands of its colonizers without a fight. The Ottoman Empire needed to defeat the powerful government of Egyptian Pasha Mohamed Ali in 1840 to control the Middle East. Due to the advancement in technology and weaponry of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East gained its power. Nationalism, which became a popular mindset in the Second World War, weakened the hold of the Ottoman Empire to the Middle East therefore giving them freedom. However, due to colonial expansions of America and Europe, these countries organized national liberation movements which are now labeled as terrorists. In 1856 Britain went to war with Iraq since they are placed in strategic location as gateway to India and China.   To date, Iraq is in constant need to be on guard as they hold the world most valuable resource and that oil. It can never be denied that countries need to secure resources for their people to ensure safety in the country, thus, developed countries will forever see the Middle East as a rich resource that awaits their presence. Thus the need for strengthened military force in their country is needed to safe guard their people and their resource. A country such as Iraq may be small in terms of land area as compared to the United States and Europe but it is a rich country due to its immense oil depot. This alone gives them power. However the thing with the countries in the Middle East is that they themselves have their own wars. They exists side by side enjoying little land area and they accommodate wars within their borders. Given that these countries fail to Unite may have revealed their downfall. The middle east in itself is a large area with enormous capacity to supply crude oil to the world thus making their National per capita income bloated. If these countries unite their power will not be limited to their land area alone. They have the potential to be far more powerful than the united sates or other developed countries. They have with them the resource and the man power, the only thing that’s missing is unity. However I do recognize the fact that each country in the Middle East is composed of diverse individuals and ethnic groups that needs to be recognized in their own rights, but it seems that what they fail to accept is the fact that for them to resist Western colonization, oppression and intervention they have to unite and be a country of power far greater than the USA. References Koppes, C.R. (1976). â€Å"Captain Mahan, General Gordon and the origin of the term â€Å"Middle East†Ã¢â‚¬ . Middle East Studies Laciner, D. (2006). Is there a place called ‘Middle East’? Turkish Weekly.   

Should Men Be Allowed to Have More Than One Wife?

Argumentative Essay â€Å"Man fi have, nuff gal and gal ina bungle, gal from Rema and gal from Jungle†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Is a popular song by Jamaican reggae artiste Beenie Man. The song suggests that men should have multiple partners, a belief to which many Jamaican men also subscribe. A man having more than one wife is called Polygyny a form of polygamy that has been much debated in a lot of countries for years. Polygyny although illegal in Jamaica, remains acceptable in many cultures who argues that it should be practiced here.However, Men should not be allowed to have more than one wife in Jamaica as this would cause our morals and values to deteriorate and contribute to more troubled marriages which will have a negative impact on the children produced by these marriages. Polygyny is a form of polygamy in which a man has more than one wife (oxford dictionary); helps in the deterioration of moral beliefs and values which will affect our structured system negatively.Polygyny is In a hi ghly Christian based country such as Jamaica men being allowed to have more than one wife will significantly fail from uplifting our moral beliefs of a stable family unit of one man, one woman and children. According to the BOHRD (2011), Christianity contributes to more than half the religious population. This religious group firmly believes that Polygyny should not be practiced and a marriage is the union between one man and one woman in which we as a country has adopted.To start allowing men to be able to have more than one wife will only deteriote our moral standards and belisfs. in almost every country where polygamy is practiced it is only polygyny which is allowed and women marrying more than one man are forbidden. Right there is a violation gender inequality as enshrined in (OECD. 2010) a . This act will promote a hypocritical and biased society when it comes to issues of men vs women and hence will promote the abuse of our women. Polygamy also caused many problems within the home between the two wives.Usually there is at least one wife who is not happy with the arrangement. This is because the new wife is usually younger and has more to offer than the first wife. This jealousy causes a lot of friction in polygamist marriages. If the man buys something for one wife he needs to get something for the other. Even with buying something for both wives one of them often claims that the other received something better. The same thing is true for what he buys for each of their children. This impossibility of satisfying multiple wives at the same time causes many conflicts in polygamist marriages.The results of these conflicts are anywhere from the mistreatment of the others children to trying to convince her husband to divorce the other wife. This is so common that in Eastern Africa if two wives of the same man get along together people say that he must have used magic on them to accomplish this. Do you see a man having multiple wives to be any particular benef it to females, or is the benefit largely to the male â€Å"husband? † And in this economy, many men cannot afford to maintain one household and family, let alone two or three equally for each wife.How can broke men aspire to be polygynous when they do not have the wealth to meet the standards of such a situation? Children from such families can no longer earn good education; for there is little to go round among three-four households. They can not afford a balanced meal; being subsistence farmers, who relay on the bounty of the land, when drought heats, they will have to go without food if they don't get from charitable people who are also short. Women turn to have less self esteem, they see themselves through the male's eyes. hen a woman stands by the mirror instead of seeing herself through her own imagination, she thinks of how he will see her, so she is using his imagination, to define herself-worthy. In my opinion, polygamy served its purpose in those times, but now, it has become the decadence of the family community, and society at large, destroying self-esteem in women, and bringing unmeasurable suffering on children born from such families. There are reports of happy families but these are few and they could be in denial of reality, one would suggest.

SWOT Analysis Tencent Limited Holding

IntroductionIn March 2010 McKinsey published an article dealing with the obsession of the Internet of the Chinese population by concluding the following statement „People in the country’s 60 largest cities spend 70 percent of their leisure time online. Seismic changes in the consumer market are likely as a result.â€Å"1 China’s Internet population increased at the end of 2012 to a total number of 564 million users compared to approximately 250 million users in 2008, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIN).2 The main reasons for this enormous growth is strongly connected with different aspects, as for instance the general growth of Gross-Domestic-Product (GDP), lower priced computers, more affordable telecom connection fees, government support to Internet usage, and low-cost entertainment aspects. This affected, that also lower income groups started to use the Internet.3 Answering to this fast development and growth of Chinas Internet p opulation, the Internet service industry is about to increase up to 17 percentages in 2013. In the last years, the Internet service industry achieved even annual growing rates up to 20 percentages, resulting of the booming demand.The Internet market seems to be quite satisfied for the moment but even in the next years researches forecast an annual growth of approximately 10 percentages. This is due to the expansion of existing offers in the area of e-commerce and advertisement services.4 Observing the numbers, 148 million people have already experienced Internet shopping since 2010 and it is expected that 30 million people will additionally make use of it by the end of 2015.5 The Economist stated, â€Å"the future of e-commerce is China†.6 Besides the e-commerce and advertisement services also the application services became more and more important over the last years because of the introduction of smartphones and tablets.7Recognizing the trends, Tencent Holdings Limited deci ded 20 years ago to enter the market and finally became the largest Internet Service Portal in China. Tencent still enjoys a quasi monopoly position, which is hardly endangered due to rising competition. That is the reason why they need to think about using new opportunities and fending upcoming threats. Consequently Tencent should carry out a Strengths-, Weaknesses-, Opportunities-, Threats-Analysis (SWOT-Analysis), which includes the study of their own weaknesses and strengths in the internal dimension and the resulting opportunities and threats giving from external influences.This paper will firstly give an overview about the internal strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore Tencent’s external environment will be analyzed and the results will be used for defining the opportunities and threats of the company Before starting with the literal SWOT-Analysis for Tencent the first Chapter gives a short explanation about SWOT-Analysis in general.2 Definition SWOT- Analysis As mentio ned in the introduction, there are two different parts of changes in the environment, which lead to affect the performance of companies. This chapter will explain the difference between internal and external environment and their interaction. Furthermore the next part will explain the so-called SWOT-Analysis in detail.Internal environment analysis points out strengths and weaknesses of a company that in turn, supports decision-making processes concerning the handling of upcoming threats and opportunities.8 Knowing which strengths and weaknesses the company has to face, the internal environment analysis studies aspects like assets, people or knowledge on the one hand and financial deadlines or gaps in capabilities on the other hand.9 Analyzing the internal environment is very important because it defines the capability of the company to deal with the threats and opportunities given by the external environment.10 External environment deals with all developments on the marketplace, inc luding political, economical, social, legal and technical conditions as well as customers, competitors, suppliers and the public. Changes in the external environment or the so-called STEEP (socialcultural, technological, ecological, economical, political/legal)  force the companies in most cases to rethink their actual strategy, to make use of the emerged opportunities and to prevent occurring threats.11 As for instance using the development of a new market as opportunity or dealing with threats as new competitors or decreasing demand.12 To use opportunities means to develop a best-practice strategy. Regarding this, companies have to decide, whether it is the best opportunity to offer something in short supply, to provide something in a better way what already exists, or to create a totally new product.13 Concerning to that, the company has to know if there exists demand, needs and wants for the product they want to provide.14 Facing threats and not trying to fend them often leads to decreasing profits or lower sales. On the one hand knowing these threats gives the opportunity to react and trying to avoid, that threats are going to influence the company’s performance.15 On the other hand firms often do not have control over the threats, which affects the company negatively like for instance new competitors are entering the marketplace. This results in giving up potential customers and thus decreasing demand.16Bringing the internal and external environment analysis together is what you call a SWOT-Analysis. The SWOT-Analysis evaluates all strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a company, which builds the base for a strategy formulation.17 Meaning that knowing the strengths and reduce weaknesses help companies to use opportunities on the one side, On the other side to use strengths and develop strategies to avoid that weaknesses will become the target of threats. After this short definition of the SWOT-Analysis the next step will be to work out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the Tencent Holdings Limited. 3 SWOT-Analysis of Tencent Holdings Limited3.2 Internal Environment AnalysisAs mentioned in the Introduction the Internet Industry in China is booming. To cover all possible marketplaces in the Internet Tencent offers a broad range of products and services. Besides the most popular service, the instant Messenger called QQ including numerous added services, Tencent provides online media, (wireless) internet value added services, interactive  entertainment services, especially in the online-gaming sector, e-commerce platforms and services as well as online advertisement services.18 Tencent also follows latest trends, as for instance launching a mobile application of a messaging service and added games and a mobile payment system, because of the latest development of using smartphones and tablets instead of personal computers.19 Tencent is one of the oldest Internet corporations in China and wi th its QQ platform the company reached 798,2 million user accounts by the end of 2012.20 As a result, Tencent influenced the communication world in China fundamentally. Another strengths lies definitely in the broad product and service offer of Tencent and the way in which they create synergies. The company offers seven main business lines, starting from instant messaging to online advertisement services. Besides just offering free services, Tencent tries to bind their users to the company’s value-added and paid services, in order to make profit.21 The strategy aims to offer the Internet population the possibility to use a wide variety of services in one company.Furthermore Tencent could gain a lot of experiences and knowledge over the past 20 years as one of the first providers in the Internet service sector, which significantly strengthened the company’s research and development abilities. Despite having already the mature technology in the market, half of the employ ees of Tencent belong to the Research and Development department, to ensure Tencent’s current market leading position and sustain this competitive advantage. Additionally to that the Tencent Research institute, which is China’s first Internet institute with the main goals in research and development of core technology on the Internet, supports the corporation in being innovative.22 Another strength of Tencent is their workforce as Tencent sees them as the â€Å"most precious asset and emphasized on the training of employees† by using different Training Systems.23 Moreover Tencent Holdings Limited is the third largest Internet operator in the world and the largest listed company in China.24 Benefitting from many advantages due to the companiescompany’s size there are also weaknesses the company has to face. In the following part the internal environment focuses on revealing the weaknesses of Tencent.Regarding the large variety of the product range Tencent, Tencent faces the fear of cannibalization because it creates a competitive situation in between their products. An example can be giving by the different instant  messaging services WeChat and QQ or TM and RTX, which serve the same purpose. Besides that QQ mobile messenger gets more and more the look of WeChat, which makes it even more competitive and leads to higher confusion for the consumers.25 Moreover Tencent greatest weakness is being not really innovative rather than being a â€Å"copy cat†. This occurs with the fact, that Tencent copied a lot from successful western companies. QQ for example is a copy of the Israeli invention ICQ and SOSO, the search engine of Tencent uses especially Google as a model.To conclude the internal environment analysis, one can summarize, that Tencent is a highly developed company with a lot of market power due to their long existence. On the opposite Tencent can notcannot convince with real innovative power. To get an idea what influence s TencentsTencent’s decision externally the next step will be to analyze the current market situation of the Internet market in China.3.1 External Environment AnalysisTencent operates in a highly challenging and rapidly changing environment. To get an idea what external impacts Tencent has to face it is important to know, what external factors the Chinese Internet market is about. As already mentioned China, faces a fast growing market in e-commerce because of the increasing number of Internet shoppers. The government noticed the importance of this growing market as well and plans to â€Å"upgrade the technological capabilities of e-commerce†.27 Another importance opportunity lies in using the governmental support, which is communicated in the 12th five-year plan and includes the support for the â€Å"new-generation IT† and additionally the advance of the information networks, mobile communication and the Internet.28 China is nowadays the largest Internet market in the world, which implicates that it is also one of the most competitive markets in the world.In addition to the high development of the Internet scene many companies entered the market in the last years, which leads to a highly competitive situation in general. Chinas Internet population is still growing but the annual growing ratio halved already from 20 percentages in the last years to 10 percentages as forecasted. Besides that, more and more  startups enter the markets, which results sooner or later in a fully satisfied market and a loss in profit and market share.As an example for the highly competitive market, the image below shows the current competition situation on the search engine market in China.There are already eight providers only for search engines on the market including international companies like Yahoo and Google. The low market share of these international companies underlines the fact, that there are still restrictions from the government concerning the fu lly market entry of these companies.Image : China Search Engine Market Share in August 201330Even if governmental regulations already have relaxed a bit, Chinese Internet sector faces still a lot of restrictions. Chinas Internet companies benefit by this, because many foreign websites are still blocked and they are not exposed to powerful competitors like Facebook. This in consequence creates the possibility to develop and strengthen own applications. On the other hand it could become a threat as soon as the government decides to abolish this restrictions. Chinese Internet companies then have to face the full international competition against global players as for example Google.31 After giving this overview about the external and internal environment the next chapter will use this information by concluding recommendations about Tencent’s future strategy.3.3 SWOT-Analysis and RecommendationsTencent entered the Internet market in many different dimensions and accordingly place s their product and service offering. Due to the previous analysis, there are especially three main product categories where Tencent should use their opportunities in further expansion. Firstly, Tencent should, due to the growth-intensive market segment, expand their e-commerce offer by developing for instance their website Papai.com. To even attract more possible Internet shoppers, they also should expand their online advertisement services. Thus, they can make use of synergies they already created through their broad offers, by linking their advertisements services with the shopping sites they own. This second measure, leads to the creation  of new potential profit zones.Thirdly, Tencent should not only focus on expanding existing offers but also develop new products, as for instance in the sector of cloud computing. By doing so, they can fully exhausting governmental support. Taking into consideration, that the market will be opened up in the long-term, Tencent should emphasis their innovation process on new products and services for the national and also international market. This should not be very difficult to accomplish, since Tencent disposes of a highly experienced workforce in Research and Development. This in consequence will enable the company to expand international and compete with other global players. If Tencent wants to keep their position as the third largest Internet company in the world they have to continue growing their business. Considering the slower growing Internet population in China, Tencent needs to go international to keep their growing position.Tencent did this by investing in foreign companies as for instance in the case of FAB.3233 This expansion should be continued in order to gain international market share and increase their portfolio in other Internet based services, as well as to improve their overall operational capability. Another possibility to do so is by expanding through strategic alliances†¦ By building strat egic business partnerships within China and gaining market share in several sectors Tencent is also able to fend the threat of market entry by international Internet companies in turn. Tencent furthermore has got a highly influence on the communication world in China as one of the oldest Internet company and built already a lot of barriers for international companies.Taking the messenger service QQ as an example for the mostly used messenger in China it enjoys a very high customer liability. Consequently Tencent could prevent loosing their position in China because although of the feared abolishment of several governmental restrictions concerning the entry of international companies. Additionally Tencent should try to avoid that QQ gets more and more the look of WeChat. As already explained, this could tempt users to change to competitors because of confusion. In this case, Tencent should favor cannibalization by offering differentiated products of the same purpose, to avoid losing costumers to competitors. The image below shows a summery of the named points and what the SWOT-Analysis and recommendations for the Tencent Holdings Limited contain.Image 2: SWOTs of Tencent Holdings Limited344 ConclusionInternet business in China is still one of the fastest growing industries in the world and Tencent used and uses this opportunity a lot in expanding existing products, launching new services and developing better solutions for the internet population in general. These actions are supported by the try of going more and more international. Even though the external environment analysis showed that the Internet market is influenced by many factors, which co-determines the performance of Tencent an all the other Internet companies. To reach the best performance they could get, Tencent has to use its strengths and to improve its weaknesses to make the best out of every trend, meaning using opportunities and fending threats.To summarize what the work pointed out in the pr evious chapter, Tencent shouldTencent should expand their e-commerce and their online advertisement services. Moreover there is a big opportunity to create national and international strategic businesses trough the investments or the development of own innovations, which should be easily possible due to he strong research and development activity of Tencent. Additionally to that, Tencent already is the third largest Internet company worldwide, which makes it easier for them to enter international markets and gaining new customers all around the world.Regarding the governmental aspects, Tencent needs to use the supports given by the government and stress the development of new systems. Furthermore Tencent should definitely try to further build their market entry barriers. As a conclusion, the SWOT-Analysis of Tencent Holdings Limited showed, that the company is rightly positioned at the top in the world ´s largest Internet market, due their numerous strengths. But in times of liber alization, globalization and an almost satisfied domestic market, Tencent has to fight against the identified threats in the upcoming years.

Immigration in the US Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Immigration in the US - Essay Example Women choose to be immigrants, being taking the role autonomous workers who support their families in their native countries. Immigrant women work as housekeepers, baby sitters and nurses. Manufacturing sector also employs migrant women. Lack of an effective legal immigration framework, lack of policies, poor international protection mechanism and various other factors make women immigrants struggle in the processes. Global restructuring is not the only factor that influenced female immigrants and the related affairs. Women’s autonomy, their decision making power, gender roles, influence of family members and society are few factors that influence women immigration. Patriarchal control over household labor and various other traditions have undergone changes that influence women immigration. Cultural and material experiences of immigrants have enabled a transition from patriarchal to egalitarian relations in domestic and other activities. Women have been elevated their roles as they become the co-partners in heading the household. A change in division of labor that assigned some domestic responsibilities to men have brought a solace to some immigrants like Dominican immigrants. Immigrant experience has improved the gender relations for Dominican immigrants, females being the ultimate beneficiaries. However certain other groups like Cuban immigrants however put their females to labor market just to upgrade their socioeconomic status. The struggle over domestic authority has triggered disunion and divorce. Single women, loosing their husbands’ financial contributions, fail to retain the middle class standard of living and get degraded in their life. Marital disruption and female-headedness introduce innumerable disadvantages that add to the grievances of immigrant women. Women become deprived of the advantages brought by migration and employment. Dominican women are found to be reluctant to Dominican Republic as they hate the sexual division of labor and gender and class ideologies in the society. The conflict over return disturbs the glow of migration as a collective and unifying household project. Dominican immigrant men are found to be perplexed as they attempt to be first among the immigrant household and at the same time trying to keep the gender roles of the Dominican Republic. They struggle while promoting the patriarchy practiced in the home country and attempting to keep up the standards of their new land. Men choose to return to Dominican Republic while women preferring to continue in the United States. Women enjoy the freedom, financial independence and the new status being in the United States. Women being the earning member also attempt to dominate in the decision-making processes of domestic affairs and other matters. Women refuse to give up the new found power. The friction triggers divorce, and women dare to remain in the new land trusting the job they possess. Immigrant women are forced to accept low-paying job s also for they have to survive on their income alone. This leads to further degrading of their jobs. Though women gain a lot through their migrant status, in the due course they stumble as they fail to balance their family lives. Immigrants would be benefited by a formal access to the citizenship. They should be given equal chances of participation in various sectors of the society. They must be permitted to participate in politics,

Staffing Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Staffing - Assignment Example inion of the employees towards work and the work place enhanced to increase the productivity due to the determination of the company to attain its goals (David, Steve, and Ron, 78). The programs are implementable and yield more economical returns in contrast to the required input. The plan also focuses on all the required sectors of the organization to achieve motivation across all sectors of the company. The leaders in each area of the company provided with plans to facilitate their operations. The company occasionally provides training to its leaders to improve the management and leadership function within the company. Whenever a change of leadership methods employed occurs the company embraces he change and implements it within an appropriate timeline. The companys human resource operates on guidelines to ensure productivity and relevance of human resource practices. The company works at enhancing its public image through the production of goods that are customer oriented and providing value added services to its consumers. Enhancing the public image targets at improving the image of the company by the provision of satisfactory services. The main facilitator for improving the image of the company is through the social media. The plan puts into consideration the reservations of the customer as in order to avoid resistance to change. The company provides continuous training to its employees to ensure that the employees are conversant with the ever-changing methods employed in the production process. Although the training occurs occasionally, the company ensures that the relevant knowledge required in the production is available to employees. The workers have the liberty to join unions, and they voice their concerns through the unions. The unions facilitate the collective bargaining by employees. The strategy is to have all the employees under a similar trade union to reduce conflicts. Although the desired plan to improve the association with the unions, this

Response to the age of reform Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Response to the age of reform - Essay Example The reform brought a revolution in the ever expanding American community which was going to lead the world in the next centuries. Here, we will discuss how the age of Reform contributed to the United States’ sense of morality and what are the effects of the ideas and viewpoints of the early reformers on the American nation, today. Henry David Thoreau is considered to be the first reformer of this era with his substantial struggle to revolutionize the American society, buried deep into piles of illiteracy due to their conservative thinking. Men and women led by such great reformers strived to develop a community where laws of liberty and equality were equally applicable to everyone. The religious influence, war against alcohol, education for some and many other such strategies were developed to reshape the American society to enable it to live up to the noble goals stated in declaration of Independence and the Constitution. With the growth in America’s population, the community was facing a threat. According to Alan Brinkley, â€Å"most people were excited by the possibilities these changes produced. But they were also painfully aware of the dislocations that accompanied them.† (Brinkley). The rapid increase in American population, compelled American thinkers to try new ideas. One of such ideas was the formation of utopian society. An utopian society is a perfect society. â€Å"George Ripley endeavored to create one of the first utopian societies in West Roxberry, Massachusetts. The community was called Brook Farm, and was established in 1841.† (â€Å"Utopian Society†) Although the society soon dispersed, yet we see its remaining strains present in the modern American society. It has been tried; to build today’s American society on the basis of natural laws, one of which is the liberation of one’s spirit. It was an important idea developed by the philosophers o f that time to reveal

Style over Substance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Style over Substance - Essay Example However, for this to work effectively without swaying the viewing, specific regulations and understandings need to be considered. The effectiveness of televising the Presidential Debates is based on the capacity of giving viewers information about the persona, characteristics and ideologies of a given candidate. From a recent study, (Drew, 32), it was found that the Presidential Debates and the televised effects is what determined how citizens would vote. This pattern is one which was noted over a series of years, beginning in 1998. Each year, the vote became predictable by the debates and the responses which individuals had to these from the TV (Drew, 32). When looking at this information, it can be seen that voters rely on the information which they see on television based on the presidents, all which changes their outlook and decisions, specifically because of the knowledge received from the TV. The ability to receive knowledge about issues from the Presidential Debates is one whi ch should be considered not only with basic information, but also with the framework which is used. If citizens had the capacity of recognizing the models which were used with the debates, it would eliminate some of the abilities to change the mind of citizens in society.

Quantitative and Qualitative Research Assignment

Quantitative and Qualitative Research - Assignment Example It examines the experience of individuals delivering and receiving nursing care. The methods used to carry out qualitative research are case studies, interviews, ethnography and focus groups. On the other hand, quantitative study mainly focuses on measurable client outcomes and mainly uses statistics. However, bias is encountered when carrying out nursing research. When conducting a quantitative research, there are two main types of bias that may be encountered: random and systematic bias. Random bias takes place when a researcher assumes particular data. This happens wherebys the assumption made is not a precise representation of what is in the research. An example of a random bias is food diaries. Food diaries are inaccurate because people tend to over represent or under represent food consumption. However, this bias can be avoided by taking photographs of every study (Campbell & Campbell, 2006). On the other hand, systematic bias is a bit different. According to a study conducted by Dr. Colin Campbell, he stated that there were defects in the consumption of animal protein. However, Minger (2011) carried out a research on the same topic as Campbell and stated that the consumption of proteins and other foods was positively correlated. Systematic bias can be prevented by multiple null-hypothesis, re-utilization and utilization based on ongoing collection of data. All data should also be represented irrespective of the nature. There are various types of bias, which are associated with qualitative research. This bias’ can be experienced during the pre-trial, the clinical trial and after a trial. Examples of bias encountered during pre-trial stage may be as a result of study design, selection and channeling. There are other subtypes of bias which occur during the clinical trial. They include interviewer bias, transfer bias, recall bias and chronology bias. Bias after a trial may involve confounding and citation bias. When conducting a nursing research, bias

Personal Organizational Development Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Personal Organizational Development - Assignment Example As the report declares after graduating from the Business with International Management program at the Newcastle Business School in Northumbria University, the plan is to return to Kuwait and apply the theoretical frameworks of the course to business and management operating functions at KPC. It is affirmed that the course has enabled the development of the most appropriate skills set which would prepare me for job positions at KPC where core competence and competitive advantages would be exuded, as compared to other graduates from similar fields of endeavor. This paper stresses that the earnings potentials for graduates with a degree in Business with International Management range from  £72,105 for international finance management graduates to  £76,054 for international marketing management graduates. In a more conservative site, the median salary for graduates from the program and who work as management analysts receive  £52,479, while administrative service managers receive  £54,082. In Kuwait, the earning potentials for graduates from the program are actually greater due to the absence of personal income taxes. Thus, the range perceivable earnings for graduates of the program would be KWD 13,918 to KWD 42,539. As such, the earning potentials are relatively high and lucrative which makes the field of study attractive to be pursued. Graduates from the program would most likely meet increasing competition from students who graduate in similar fields of discipline.

Relationships In A Time That This Novel Is Set Essay Example for Free

Relationships In A Time That This Novel Is Set Essay How does Steinbeck present ideas of relationships in a time that this novel is set? Steinbeck portrays a world dominated by authoritative white males. It is the attitude of this social structure that permeate ranch society and those who come from outside these expectations are inferior. Of Mice and Men describes the plight of which women, disabled people, black people and people with mental difficulties endure and suffer simply because they do not fit into the ideal category which we see whilst they interact with each other. Lennie’s brief interaction with Crooks reveals the complexity of racial prejudice during the ranch life. Like many of the men on the characters in the story, Crooks admits to being very lonely. â€Å"This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me.† When Lennie visits him in his room, Crooks turns him away, in hope that he will prove a point that if a black man cannot enter a white man’s room then it is unacceptable for the reverse to occur. However, his desire for company ultimately wins out and he invites Lennie to sit with him. In addition, he seems very suspicious of any kindness he receives. The fact that he doubts Lennie being kind to him refers to the strong racism on the ranch. Crooks is not sure how to react to Lennie and his instant reaction is for Lennie to leave. This outsider status causes him to lament his loneliness, but we can see the corrosive effects it has on him as he seems delighted in seeing loneliness in others. For example, he suggests that George is gone for good and it is not until Lennie threatens Crooks with physical violence does he relent. We cannot blame Crooks. On the other hand, this evokes sympathy as the origins of his cruel behaviour are made evident. We can infer that he is jealous and lonely that he wants to see someone else hurt just like he is. Curley and his wife have an unstable marriage, lacking in respect, compassion and communication. Curley believes that his wife is his posse ssion and shows her off to the other men. Throughout the novel we see Curley asking the other men where his wife is and likewise we see Curley’s wife looking for him. This could be a metaphor that although they are together they are still lonely. Their relationship is unhealthy as he manipulates and intimidates his wife. However, Curley seems very selfish and he did not seem to care for his wife. He used her for sex. Furthermore, the fact that she is referred to as â€Å"Curley’s wife† suggests that women did not have an identity. Curley is too protective over his wife as he knew she flirted with the other men and  Curley felt threatened, especially as she was the only woman on the ranch. There is not trust between them which is very unhealthy and not good. I think she enjoyed flirting because she felt isolated and lonely. Most of the ranch hands looked down upon her and thought she was a â€Å"slut.† This was the typical attitude towards women during this time period. They were seen as possessions of their husband. At the end of the novel, Steinbeck said that when she died, she was released and â€Å"discontent and the ache for attentions were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet.† When she was alive, she was wearing a mask and no one knew her true identify, as there was no one there to understand or get to know the real her but now she is dead, and the mask is off she looks better: â€Å"Her reddened lips made her seem alive.† Finally, in death, she could find the peace and calm that evaded her when she was alive in the harsh society. Ironically, her corpise is praised more in death than she was life. We begin to question Steinbeck’s intentions in giving us an unsympathetic view of this women and in women in general. Whenever she expresses her loneliness they are followed by acts of manipulation or violence. He seems to characterise women as trouble and they are â€Å"the downfall of man.† She is the catalyst of the drama which links to that point also. I don’t necessarily think that Steinbeck was sexist and is instead making a point about society’s sexism. She is the only character without a name, and even Crooks- who at that time was a member of a even more hated social group and if she talks to anyone â€Å"he gets mad.†

Single Stage Selective Tendering

Single Stage Selective Tendering The method of single stage selective tendering involves finding contractors, possibly from previous experience, and asking them to submit tenders for the project at hand. Because you choose your contractors yourself you can properly dig to find the best one. Past experience is always a help in making your decision, not only this but you can take into account the resources of the company youre using, their health and safety record and their references. Not only this but when choosing a contractor it is also sensible to take into consideration the type of work your doing, some companies will specialise in different areas. There are a few benefits to using single stage selective tendering, firstly you can choose your own contractor and remove bad performing contractors, secondly companies are competitive over it and lastly you can rotate your contractors ensuring you always have a fresh pair of hands. Two Stage Selection Sometimes, potential contractors may be invited to initial discussions about the project to provide input. This is usually only when a project has a short time scale or the client doesnt have much time to work with. After this initial discussion the client can invite his favourite contractors back for a second, which again is a good way to gather more ideas and different inputs on the project. After the second interview the client should definitely know who he wants on board and it the discussions should make it easier to select his contractor. This is a good way of selecting a contractor as you can gather a wide range of input from the first two discussions; it also allows the client to meet all potential candidates allowing him to make a sensible decision. In the second meeting it is likely the contractors will bring bills of quantities to submit as part of the final tender. Open Tendering Open tendering almost explains itself. A client will put some form of advertisement out for a contractor and all contractors are welcome to reply. The client can then make this decision based on portfolios, references or CVs of potential contractors. Open tenders usually occur when a service such a road cleaning is needed. The major disadvantage in open tendering is that many contractors who you have know nothing about, considering their costs and reputation too, can apply, meaning you could end up making a bad decision due to minimal knowledge. References are important in open tendering. Serial Tendering Serial tendering has a number of benefits to it. This is because when you choose a contractor for serial tendering he will be involved on a number of projects. The contractor provides a price for the first project and then uses this to estimate prices for the following tasks. This method of tendering is usually used when there are a number of similar projects taking place, for example a series of schools being built. The advantages to serials tendering are that firstly, the contractor gains valuable knowledge from initial projects to be used in the other projects and secondly the client is guaranteed a long term commitment from the contractor. OBJECTIVES IN TENDERING There are a number of different objectives you will set for yourself in the tendering stage of a project. These objects can have an affect on the tender costs, and if they are not met, it means your overall price will rise. Profit Margin The profit margin of a project is basically how much profit there is to be made, it is a figure taking into consideration all of the costs, once all these costs deductions are done we are left with a rough figure or how much money is to be made. Cost Costs are always a key thing to keep in mind; it will definitely be an objective for the contractors and client to ensure that they keep within their cost restraints. The lower the overall costs of your project, the lower the asking price will be. Some contractors will loose money from their own pocket if they do not keep to their initial set costs. Time It is important to ensure you keep within your timescale on a project, lengthy projects will cost more money than short ones and going over your time scale will have a roll on effect on the overall price. FACTORS AFFECTING THE LEVEL OF TENDERS Main Contractors The main influence in the levels of tenders is the value of a project. Small projects tend to have large lump sum overheads resulting in small profit margins whereas larger projects rely on massive financial commitments. There are numerous other factors that affect the levels of tendering: The number and reputation of other companies trying to secure a tender. The economic climate of a country. Bank of England Base rate higher base rate=higher loan repayment Specialism Location The location of a project can have a massive effect on the tender price. For Example, if a client chose a contractor based in the UK to carry out works in northern Scotland the tender price will be significantly higher. Not only will prices rise due to the fact that the contractor will have to get himself and his men and machinery to northern Scotland and back but sometimes, on long-term projects, the contractor will have to pay for temporary accommodation, including food and drink. Temporary accommodation will cost a lot and can have a great affect on the contractors tender price. Not only this but also, if the project is based somewhere like London, where living costs are substantially larger than the rest of the UK, this can have an effect on the tender price. Site Access The accessibility of a site can also have a significant affect on the tender price. If the site is in the middle of a busy city centre, this will make it hard for large plant to access; city centres also bring a lot of traffic which results in delays. If your site is small with not many access routes or roads it can deem difficult for larger plant to get in, some projects require new access points and routes to be made for larger plant to do their jobs. This obviously costs money, which results on a larger tender price. Site Conditions If the chosen site is unlevelled or bad it means that before works can even proceed, the site will have to be sorted out. This can cost a lot of time and money depending on the state of the site. Some sites are contaminated which will result in a massive operation to decontaminate the site and a massive increase in tender pricing. Sub Contractors Subcontractors are usually appointed in one of two ways. The first way is as a domestic subcontractor to the main contractor and the second is a nominated subcontractor by the client. When there is specialist work that needs to be done that a contractor cannot, he will send for a subcontractor who can do the work. Some subcontractors get recommend by the client. There are once again, factors that influence the prices: The location of the work The schedule of the subcontractor How specialist the work is The client/contractor relationship with the sub contractor. M4 Single Stage Selective Single stage tendering requires the potential contractors to attend one interview with the client before one is chosen. This method is usually used when the client is looking for a partnership agreement with a guaranteed price and profit share. Single rate is also good for projects that need specialist attention. It is a good method for the projects such as hospitals where the client can guarantee a max price. Two Stage Selection This kind of tendering is often used for the design and build aspect of a project as it is good for gathering a wide range of ideas from a number of potential contractors. A sensible contractor will bring ideas to save money to the client and whoever usually manages to save the most money will be hired. This is a good method for specialised needs as the information you gather from the contractors can inform you on whether of not they themselves can carry out the work, which will be cheaper, or whether they have good links with sub contractors that specialise in that area. Two stage selection is good for any building that needs specialist care and also for school and colleges as the client gets significant input from all the potential contractors in the first two stages. Serial Tendering Serial tendering is used when there are a number of similar projects being undertook. It is good because the contractor can use his knowledge from pricing the first building to then price the following projects too. Not all the projects have the same layout but are similar in material and plant need. This enables the contractor to get a quicker idea of price ranges for the other projects as he already knows what he is expecting. Serial tendering is used when a series of school are being built, it can also work for a series of police stations or hospitals. Serial tendering is also good for housing projects, shop chains and restaurant chains. Open Tendering Open tendering is the most traditional tendering method. It is when anyone is open to submit a tender and the client will go through the applicants and choose, who he believes, to be the most suitable candidate. Open tendering can work for any kind of building and also is used for general services like road cleaning. It is good because you get a wide range of applicants to choose from. Even buildings that need specialist work done can be open tendered as the contractors themselves can appoint subcontractors for that kind of work. There are a number of different factors that will have an effect on tender method to be chosen, the following factors can all have an effect on what kind of tender method you use; The location of the project, European construction works are usually dealt with differently to non-EU construction projects. Project size, massive multi-million projects sometimes need the combined help of a number of contractors, e.g. Channel Tunnel. Financial stability of construction company tendering for the work. Company reputation Company resources, including plant, labour and materials. Company competency, including health and safety aspects. The size of projects does have a big effect on the contractor you can use. For many small projects, worth around  £10,000 or less, the majority of clients would find a local contractor to do the job, however for the larger scale projects contractors can be brought in from all corners of the country. Not only size but also the type of work being carried out affects this too, as mentioned before, sometimes a number of contractors will have to join together, in what we call a consortium, in order to meet the high demand of resources needed. And lastly, the massive, high-value projects must be kept an eye on. To ensure they have the capacity to take on such a large financial debt and the associated cash flow requirements, the financial accounts of a prospective tender must be checked over a number of years.