English 101 Grit Essay

If â€Å"Grit†, as defined as a measure of perseverance and the way to achieve a long term goal to succeed in college, then who needs family support and resources? Angela Duckworth’s theory of ‘Grit’ is based on an area of psychology research that determines how to be successful in college. Duckworth’s theory argues that having ‘Grit’ or perseverance is the main force that will pull students through to complete college. While I believe Duckworth’s theory to be useful and that having â€Å"Grit† can be key to one’s success in college completion, I do believe that it is the backbone to many other traits and outside influences important to succeed in college. In the case of Donna Beegle’s Story, I think that Duckworth’s theory would be only somewhat useful to understand her success. In the article, â€Å"An Insider’s Perspective: The Donna Beegle Story,† Beegle tells her experience of overcoming extreme poverty and beating all odds and achieving a doctorate. During her road to success, Beegle had many outside influences that were the key to those achievements. She reached out to a Community Action Agency that really opened the doors for her and started a rippling effect towards key resources and influential people. First and foremost, the biggest stepping stone for her was when the agency connected her to the WIT (Women in Transition) program. Beegle states, â€Å"With an enormous amount of support from the WIT program staff and my family, I entered the community college to work on a two-year degree. (246) In addition to the WIT program, Beegle states, â€Å"The one thing that kept me from giving up was the â€Å"Section 8† public housing certificate from the Portland Housing Authority given to me by the WIT program. † (246) Beegle’s statement proves one of my points, that if it was not for that resource, she would have not have been â€Å"gritty† enough to continue her education. For people like Beegle, a GED was just not in the realm of capabilities for her, without those resources, she would not have been able to persevere to that point and beyond with her education. Secondly, let’s consider her family. Her family played a huge role to her success as well. Beegle’s parents watched her children while she attended college, and gave her the motivation and praise she needed to keep going. In addition Beegle’s brother Wayne provided an unusual and unexpected amount of support that led her to complete her two-year degree. Wayne was incarcerated for twelve years; during those years he had an endless amount of time to read and become something Beegle describes as â€Å"middle- class literate. †(248) It was her brother, who through letters back and forth between the two, helped her understand her assignments. Therefore, it’s her family’s support and help from her brother that allowed her to persevere. In addition to all of the resources and family support, Beegle was lucky to have crossed paths with a language specialist by the name of Dr. Bob Fulford. Fulford was the mentor in Beegle’s life that made a huge impact on her educational success. He went beyond his job as a professor of the university she attended, and really took the time to work with her and guide her through academic achievement and personal affairs. He also taught her how to write and corrected her speech. On top of that support from him, he also â€Å"linked her to a network of professionals in the community who continues to widen my range of possibilities. † (249) I believe Fulford’s guidance and encouragement were the key element to Beegle’s success. If it was not for him and other mentors like him believing in her and recognizing she was not â€Å"stupid†, she would not have the chance to better her education. For some people, Duckworth’s theory of ‘Grit’ and perseverance is just not enough to get a college student through to college completion. According to Beegle, â€Å"[m]entors, [m]iddle-[c]lass [l]anguage† (247) and people seeing her for where she was â€Å"[w]ere [k]eys to [m]y [e]ducational [s]uccess†. For me personally, if I did not have my family, financial aid and the Women’s Program at Highline Community College, I really don’t think I would be able to manage. Even if I had ‘Grit’, there are road blocks like child care and having affordable housing that make it possible for me to stay in college. In my experience, ‘grit’ has helped tremendously when combined with the other elements in my life. For example, I recently helped my mother move from her apartment she has been in for over 24 years, to her home she now owns. Between my brother and I and just a few friends, we spent weeks of packing, updating the new house and unpacking. It was ‘grit’ that helped me through doing this huge move while still making it to class every day, turning in all my homework, and acing two quizzes. I was determined to make school a priority over all the other important events that were going on around me. However, some might argue how ‘grit’ played a major role in Beegle’s and my own story, especially when faced with a big disadvantage such as poverty and severe lack of proper education and in my case, a single parent. They may say that the only way to overcome those obstacles is to persevere through it. It’s true that wanting an education and a better life is what will make someone become â€Å"gritty†. It is my ‘Grit’ that has helped me in my classes; there have been assignments that have made my eyes go cross and makes me feel like I just want to give up. But my inner grit comes out and I think of the long term and what I want for my daughter and I. It is those moments when I can say Duckworth’s theory is useful to my situation but not in the grand scheme of things. With grit alongside with these other elements, one can be successful. So in conclusion, I do think having ‘Grit’ plays a big part in one’s success to college completion or at least it is a great supporting factor. Do I think â€Å"All I need is Grit and I can get a degree? † No.  What I think is, grit can help through the hard times, when you feel like giving up, persevere through those obstacle and find another way to get to where you want to go. It is that inner quality of grittiness that will assist someone on their journey. Like Beegle states, â€Å"With subsidized housing, food stamps, mentoring from numerous people, and the support and encouragement of family and agencies, I was able to move forward and become educated. † (248) for me and others alike, ‘Grit’ is only one piece of the 500 piece puzzle.

Ethical Issues in Businesses Today Essay

Ethical issues in businesses today There are a million ethical issues in today’s businesses and unfortunately there is no perfect decision measurement for all these ethical issues in business. The ethical issues in international businesses are much more complicated and much more delicate, along with being tenfold in numbers. According to Wiley (1995), â€Å"ethics is concerned with moral obligation, responsibility, and social Justice. † She goes on to say that â€Å"ethics reflects the character of the individual and more con temporarily per haps, the character of the business firm, which is a collection of individuals. Mauro et all, 1999) It is evident that ethics play such a crucial role in businesses if we consider the instances like the â€Å"Enron company’s ethical break down†. Not only in â€Å"Enron†, but Dilemmas involving discrimination, harassment, fraud, contractual breaches, favouritism and consistent policies regarding pay, rewards and discipline are common occurrences in many organizations. (Hartel, C. E. J, Fujimoto, Y, 2010) â€Å"Industry Wide Ethical Issues in Business Following is a list of industry wide ethical issues in businesses. The problem with these ethical issues in business is that they are not only really routine and frequent ut they are also more wide-spread Bribing powerful officials in order to get bids and tenders accepted and bribing competitor employees to get informational leaks is a serious ethical issue in business. In fact, it is a crime that is legally punishable in most countries today. Labor related issues like gender discrimination at workplace, employee harassment, minority community participation, working conditions and child labor are also some general ethical issues in busines

Descriptions and Examples of Four Research Methods Essay

Descriptions and Examples of Four Research Methods - Essay Example An example of content analysis as a research method is demonstrated in the work of Pfau, et al. (2005), in which they review the effect of the embedding of journalists in the military units involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq on the tone and message displayed in television news reports. Content analysis was conducted of television news reports aired on four major networks (ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC), and the results were compared based on whether the coverage for each report depended upon embedded or non-embedded journalists. Pfau, et al. (2005), indicated that embedded news sources displayed an overall tone that was more favorable toward the military in general and depicted military personnel in a more favorable light. Embedded sources tended to use greater levels of episodic frames, eliciting more positive relational cues. By contrast, unilateral or non-embedded sources tended to minimize the use of episodic framing, and tended to depict the military as a whole, as well as individuals in the military, in a less positive tone. As an aside, the study also found uniform indications that the news stories of the initial invasion and early occupation were more positively reported and employed greater episodic framing than the stories about the Iraq occupation as it drew on. Shawver (2006) defines content analysis as a procedure that studies natural communications, usi... questioning, advising, informing, etc.) and in the tone and structure of the presentation. Multiple systems can be applied to the same data over time, as well, allowing additional analysis and investigation. A striking example of a longitudinal study can be found in the work of D'Angio et al. (2002), in the 15 year follow-up of children born severely premature and treated with surfactant therapy. An initial pool of 213 infants born at ages prior to 29 weeks of gestation across a three year time span (1985-87) had shrunk to a field of 132 of which 127 were evaluated cross a three year span (1992-95), and 126 were re-evaluated in 2000. At each point, the child's physical and mental conditions were evaluated as was the amount of neurodevelopmental compromise. D'Angio, et al., indicated that 21% of the 127 evaluated at primary school age showed symptoms of at least one severe disability, while 32% were placed in special needs classrooms and 19% showed general cognitive indices below 70. By the time of the secondary school-age follow-up evaluation 41% of the children had no physical or educational impairment, whereas 19% showed at least one severe disability. 15% of the children at both evaluation times were diagnosed with cerebral palsy. D'Angio, et al., concluded that even with surfactant therapy, children born prematurely remain at high risk for neurodevelopmental compromise and significant percentages of these children will require special educational services. Of added note is the fact that the strongest predictors of adverse outcomes related not to the gestational age at birth, but rather to socioeconomic status and presence of neonatal intraventricular hemorrhage. Keppel, Saufley and Tokunaga (1992) define a longitudinal study as a form of research

Solutions to the long waiting queues in Starbucks Term Paper

Solutions to the long waiting queues in Starbucks - Term Paper Example Starbucks has in the recent past experienced high demands for its products. However, the operations within the firm continue to deteriorate causing consumers to wait on long queues (Helgesen 835). It is time for the management at Starbucks to come up with an information system that would reduce waiting time on queues. The following is an evaluation of Starbucks and the problem of long waiting queues. A detailed Starbucks’ problem is provided in the paper. In this analysis, a proposed information system of self ordering and self check out kiosk is proposed. The paper also describes the installation of the proposed information system in addition to evaluating expected costs. Other than the time table of the project, the evaluation provides details of the proposed information systems in respect to the structure and requirements. A concluding remark provides a summary of the major points in respect to the problem of long waiting queues in Starbucks. Overview of Starbucks Starbucks, founded in 1971, is a firm that has coffee houses that beacon for coffee lovers throughout a given geographical area (Starbucks.com). Since 1971 Starbucks has been a major player in roasting and retailing of whole bean and ground coffee besides tea and spices. Starbucks has continued to grow and today it boasts of over 18,000 retail stores in approximately 60 countries (Starbucks.com). The mission of Starbucks is to inspire and nurture the human spirit through the principle of one person one cup and the neighborhood at every given time. One of the reasons for the increased growth in demand for Starbucks’ coffee is the fact that the firm serves the best coffee possible with their goal being providing highest standards or quality coffee besides using ethical sourcing practices (Starbucks.com). Amazingly, the coffee buyers have to travel to coffee farms in Latin America, Africa, and Asia with a view of selecting the highest quality beans that result into high quality p roducts. Other than coffee products, Starbucks also stocks and distributes other products including handcrafted beverages, merchandise, fresh foods, and consumer products such as the ready-to-drink products and ice creams amongst others (Starbucks.com). Therefore, the main brand portfolio for Starbucks include coffee, Seattle’s best coffee, Tazo tea, evolution fresh, La Boulange, and Torrefazione Italia coffee. In addition to stocking and distributing high quality products, Starbucks continues to attract and retain consumers through its corporate social responsibilities

One of the Most Rewarding and Captivating Activities Essay

One of the Most Rewarding and Captivating Activities - Essay Example It is pure pleasure to be around children because they cannot be in one mood for a long time: one moment they are sad and the other they are definitely happy. Baking as a hobby is an interesting and useful activity, and it is often regarded as the highest level of culinary skills. When making some sweets, cakes or muffins it interesting to observe how a whole new piece of food appears out of nowhere: one moment you have only ingredients and the other people can taste your pastry. Combining these two joyful things: working with children and baking is a great chance to change the world here and now. Having an opportunity to help the children who live in low-class families and have no possibility to eat enough healthy food is a great chance to influence someone else`s life. At the age of twenty, she got this chance to influence the life of New Mexico community. Growing up really quickly she realized that she does not want to sit at home or play anymore and that she wanted to help other children to have a real childhood. That is how she became a volunteer making food for children who could not afford it. She dedicated one day a week to this work but was really happy to do it. As she was rather young nobody believed that she could do such a work well. On the first day when she got there, the woman who was also working in the kitchen laughed at and said that she had better go join other kids and play. But when she persuaded her to give her a chance and to help the woman soon realized that the young look had nothing to do with experience and expertise. She could only say â€Å"You know everything! What are you going to do at twenty?†. But there was so much to learn ahead that she barely found time for everything. Being a high school student she continued her charity work with children. By this time she has gained a lot of skills that were very useful in work with children especially disabled children. Those kids who have special needs require a lot of attention and care, and communication with them must be exceptionally effective.     

PM Company (International Business Practices) Essay

PM Company (International Business Practices) - Essay Example The balance between two types is an effective method for PM Company, because it is closely related to delegation of authority and is concerned with what should be transferred down, what policies are needed to guide actions and the need to train and select people and control their actions. Decentralization is closely related to delegation, but it includes all areas of management and requires a great deal more than handing authority to subordinates. In contrast to centralization, decentralization will help to avoid duplication of efforts, and overcome lack of sufficient flexibility to permit immediate reactions to local problems. New strategy will require additional spending and staff, a new department of international trade and opening new offices abroad. Organizational activities should be organized into separate product businesses, each having its own market and responsible for its own profit or loss. In general, this strategy will help PM Company to penetrate new markets faster and attract wider target audience delivering a wide range of the company's products. Using this organizational structure, PM Company can extend its international expansion plans, and cover more foreign countries, for instance, European and Asian market.

How do children develop pragmatic and conversation skills and how Essay

How do children develop pragmatic and conversation skills and how might their communication be affected by a disability at this - Essay Example Moreover, it was also observed that children tend to speak differently to their fellow children compared to how they converse with older people. Therefore, pragmatics also became an important aspect in the researches. The above-mentioned studies will be discussed further in this paper including the fact that there are also instances wherein conversation and pragmatic skills are affected by cases of disorders. In the modern world, children with disabilities are increasing. Nevertheless, instead of treating them as invalid, more and more advocates are suggesting that these special people should be treated as normal people who are able to do things just like the others who have no disabilities. Therefore, it is most important to look further into these conditions and consider how their communication skills are affected in order for normal people to adjust to their conditions and understand them, instead of worsening their situations. II. Children Discourse Parents are known to be the fi rst teachers of their children because as expected, they are the very first ones to be dealing with the child at home. They may not often be aware of it, but they are teaching children conversational and pragmatic skills with the way they treat them. ... tion is a dynamic interaction that consists of a source, who has a purpose that is understandable to another person, and an encoder, who is able to understand the meaning of the message† (2003). For instance, when a person asks a child what his father’s name is, he should be able to tell his father’s name and not his own name. In this case, the source is the person asking the question whose purpose is to know the name of the child’s father and the child is known as the encoder. Such skill however, does not automatically occur, but is gained through constant communication with the child, identifying and explaining his relationships with the people and things around him as the child grasps the information. This supports the nature and nurture theories that sought to simplify understanding of how children develop communication skills. Nature theory suggests that â€Å"humans have an inborn mechanism in the brain for mastering language called Language Acquisit ion Device (LAD)† (Santrock, 1988; Santrock, 1995; Schement, 2002; Sigelman & Rider, 2006). This so-called device is the innate factor that enables a child to learn and adjust his language skills as he communicates with the people around him. This is basically what makes a child able to acquire understanding of words, their meanings and uses. Eventually, as the vocabulary of a child increases, he learns how to converse with other people, using the words he acquired in manner that he is understood. Moreover, the conversation skills of a child are improved as he adjusts his understanding of phonology or sound system, semantics or word meanings as well as syntax or form and structure of language through the help of the LAD as his experiences increase (Santrock, 1988; Santrock, 1995; Schement, 2002; Sigelman &

Report on Ryanair and British Airways Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Report on Ryanair and British Airways - Essay Example 334). With the message â€Å"To fly. To Serve.† British Airways has access to almost 169 different destinations in the world. Ryanair When the aviation industry of Europe went into the phase of deregulation in the late 1990s, Christopher Ryan, Liam Lonergan and  Tony Ryan’s infant Ryanair received just the opportunity that it was looking for to make an impact on the global aviation industry (Schein, 2006, p. 41). Following the model of Southwest Airlines, Ryanair has also been able to replicate the success enjoyed by Southwest. The company now flies to more than different destinations and posted revenue of over 4.3 billion Euros for the year 2012. Important here to note is that Ryanair is a low cost budget airlines and follows a Southwest model, whereas, British Airways has refrained from doing the same (Purcell, et al., 2004, p. 214). Organisational Culture and Organisational Structure and Design There is empirical evidence which conclusively suggest that strong orga nisational culture and organisational structure have the potential to provide stability to organisations. In fact, certain organisations, over the years, have been able to outclass their competitors and withstand the pressures of globalisation, competition and macro environmental forces, primarily, because of their strong organisational culture or suitable organisational structure. Organisational culture plays a boundary defining role (Mills, et al., 2006, p. 334; Purcell, et al., 2004, p. 214). In other words, it draws a clear line between the organisation and others, thus, creating an â€Å"us versus them† feeling amongst the employees to motivate them to work for the goals of the organisation (Purcell, et al., 2004, p. 115). Organisational structure, on the other hand, refers to the patterns of relationships and interactions within the company. The greater the individuals within an organisation have to communicate and interact; the greater becomes the need for finding an a ppropriate and suitable organisational structure and design for the organisation (Griffin & Moorhead, 2009, p. 74; Cunliffe, 2008, p. 75). Outline of the Paper This paper is an attempt to explore and analyse the organisational culture and organisational structure of British Airways and Ryanair, the two giants of the aviation industry in Europe. Not only the paper would comparisons between these two organisations but relevant theoretical material would also be used to analyse the suitability and relevancy of the organisational culture and structure of these organisations. Discussion Organisational and Structure and Design at British Airways and Ryanair It was during the year 2008/09 that British Airways made it apparent to the world that it wants to reinvent the organisational structure and restructure the hierarchy to make a much leaner, agile cost effective and responsive organisational structure. British Airways realised that in the times marked with European Sovereign Debt Crisis , global economic meltdown, financial crunch, decreasing consumer confidence and recessionary pressures, it is almost impossible to survive within the highly competitive airline industry in the absence of taking more radical steps (Tosi & Pilati, 2011, p. 574). However, the organisation also realised that in order to make changes at the organisational level, they would have to start at the top and begin this change from the top

Credibility of International Human Rights Organizations Term Paper

Credibility of International Human Rights Organizations - Term Paper Example The organizations play their roles through mobilizing people and confronting any institution or individuals who are acting in an injustice or inhuman manner, thus jeopardizing the dignity of humanity. The International Human Rights Organizations monitors basic human right issues all over the world and promote their views on such issues (Barsh, 113). They undertake their responsibilities through lobbying and advocacy, trying to convince the United Nations as well as other national governments to adopt their established policies on human rights and freedoms (Emilie and Kiyoteru, 407). Such International Human Rights Organizations have observers in many regions of the world where they monitor and give their views on the violation and abuse of human rights in those regions. To protect and promote human rights the world over, such organizations collaborates with other regional and locally based organizations, as well as human rights defenders, to mobilize, lobby and advocate for non-viola tion of basic human rights by governments and other institutions (James and Peter, 276). However, the idea of human rights protection have been overemphasized in the last two decades, with human rights organization taking the center stage in running the affairs of the people. More than ever in the world, human rights organizations have been integrated in each aspect of a countries affair, having the media focus on them and huge budget allocations channeled towards them (Emilie and Ron, 375). The support for human rights organization has been immense from the public, since they perceive such organizations as their protector against the violations of their basic freedoms and rights by the government. Therefore, human rights organizations have become an effective platform through which people advocate for their rights and seek redress whenever their freedoms and rights are violated. Thus, the reputation of International Human Rights Organizations has grown bigger than of many other lea ding corporations (Emilie and Kiyoteru, 407). Though in the 1970s such organizations were excluded in the main global policy circles, these has changed with any policy involving finance, security and power incorporating these organizations at the center stage of such issues. Thus, human rights have been integrated in the global culture, where every aspect of human interaction has to be aligned based on the policies and views promoting human rights and freedoms. Social change in the developing world is greatly imparted by the International Human Rights Organizations, as any aspect of social change in such countries has to be monitored and assessed based on how it suits the established policies by these organizations. For such organizations, two basic issues are fundamental for their success in actively playing their roles. The first of this fundamental task is to persuade the political, social, and economic elites that human rights are universal and desirable for all, and thus they s hould be promoted at whatever cost (Emilie and Ron, 375). This can be achieved through having politicians and other social elites prioritize human right issues in their meetings and forums. Journalists and bureaucrats have an enormous role to play in promoting these issues through articulating them in media. The second tasks are translating the human rights language and policies into a reality and have such

BUS Unit 5 DB SA four Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

BUS Unit 5 DB SA four - Essay Example This may also indicate that the government expenditure is higher than what it can produce. However, it can also be observed that the current account deficit is not very bad to the economy especially if the deficit has been a result of investment initiatives that are designed to generate revenue in the short to long run period. For instance, in the paragraph above, the U. S deficit is viewed as a big problem given that previously stood at 1. 1 trillion dollars but has been halved to 680 billion dollars. This shows a 51 percent decrease in the current account deficit and it can be attributed to different policy changes such budget cuts, tax increments on those with a larger income bracket as well as stimulating economic growth. In this case, it can be seen that the current account deficit for USA is still controllable from within the country so it is not that bad. The deficit only becomes bad when the economy is now sustained on external

Box Plot For Males And Females For The Variable Day Essay Example for Free

Box Plot For Males And Females For The Variable Day Essay Data was analyzed using SPSS. There was an outlier for subject 611, the female whole data was 120. 02 for day 1 of download festival, which was changed appropriately to 2. 02. the results for the box plot were then obtained. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) EDA is the form of data analysis that utilizes different tools to accompany the overall statistical hypothesis testing analytical methods for the sake of ensuring the analysis is more clear and easier to understand. The analysis usually involves exploration of the data to understand its general characteristics on top of those that a research was carried out to test. They hence help one to have a general understanding of the sample from which the data was collected and ultimately understand the population from which the data was collected. EDA utilizes different statistical tools in exploring the data being investigated. Such tools aim at explaining the data by giving such characteristics of the sample as its behavior in terms of its mean, median, mode, presence of outliers, its distribution and normality among other characteristics. The tools mostly constitute of graphical tools such as charts, histograms and different plots. All these tools are important in any study as they improve ones understanding of the sample being investigated and also reveal other characteristics that may be of scientific interest yet were not being considered as part of the study at hand.

The Battle Of Balaclava History Essay

The Battle Of Balaclava History Essay The Allied victory against the Russians at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 was a succession of blunders. Besides the most famous of which is Never get involved in a land war in Asia, there were also major failures in intelligence and communications. Inadequate intelligence preparation resulted in inadequate planning and execution. Poor situational awareness by the Allied commanders on the battlefield contributed to disastrous misunderstandings in communication. The extraordinary bravery exhibited by The Thin Red Line of the Highlanders and the selfless charge of the Light Brigade Into the Valley of Death would not make up for these shortcomings. Failure to Prepare The Crimean War was fought between the Allies of France, Britain and Ottoman Turkey against Russia to remove Russian occupation from the Crimean Peninsula. The war lasted from October 1853 to February 1856. The Battle of Balaclava was the second major Crimean campaign. The purpose of the campaign was to occupy the Russian held port of Sebastopol on the western end of the peninsula. The British army was to march southeast, occupy Balaclava, and lay siege to Sebastopol. The occupation of Balaclava was necessary for resupply and protection of the Allied flank (Kennedy, 1976). The British had failed to consider the climate of the Crimean peninsula in their planning. There was a lack of tents and proper winter clothing which led to reduced combat effectiveness. The British did not have maps and conducted the march by compass alone. The British did not have intelligence of the Russian unit locations. During the march to Balaclava, the leading British elements stumbled across the rearguard elements of a Russian unit at Mackenzies farm. A Russian officer was captured and questioned, but no usable intelligence was gained because the officer was inebriated (Kennedy, 1976). The British lack of intelligence meant they did not know the size of the waiting Russian force they were approaching at Balaclava. The only resistance they met at Balaclava was from a small garrison. The day after the British arrived, French units also arrived. The plan had been for the British and French to both occupy Balaclava prior to the siege of Sebastopol. Their intelligence had failed to show that Balaclava was much too small to support such a force. The French Force was moved to Kameisch Bay leaving the British solely responsible for protecting the Allied flank. Intelligence analysis of the terrain north of Balaclava would have revealed this was not a good choice (Kennedy, 1976). The valley north of Balaclava was blocked to the west by the Sapaune Heights. On the east end of the valley were the Woronzlov Heights. The north side of the valley was bounded by the Fedioukine Heights on top of which ran a road into the interior. Down the middle of the valley, from east to west, ran a ridgeline known as the Causeway Heights (see appended Figures 1-3). The Causeway Heights concealed any actions on the north side of the valley from observers in the south side of the valley (Kennedy, 1976). This blockage of the line-of-sight would contribute to the later blunders. The British constructed four redoubt positions manned by Turks under the command of British Artillery Non-Commissioned Officers along the top of the Causeway Heights approximately a half-mile from each other and a fifth redoubt on top of Canroberts Hill. The cavalry units were encamped at the western end of the South Valley. Infantry (93rd Highlanders), more Turks, and a field battery were positioned around Kadikoi. Twelve-hundred Royal Marines defended Mount Hiblak with twenty-six guns. To the northwest, five British infantry divisions and the French Observation Corps were in the Chersonese Heights (Anthill, 2001). This left the British units extended and unable to support one another while attempting to cover all possible avenues of approach. The British still did not have intelligence on the size or distribution of the Russians (Kennedy, 1976). The British did know, as a result of their skirmish at Mackenzies Farm, that there was an element of Russians somewhere to the east. The British did not know the intentions of the Russians resulting in frequent alerts everytime a Russian scouting patrol was seen. These alerts led to decreased morale and a boy-who-cried-wolf mentality among the British troops. On 24 October a Turkish spy reported the Russians were going to attack on 25 October with 25,000 troops. As a result of the numerous false alerts, this warning was ignored. No attempts were made for reinforcement or to strengthen the British position (Kennedy, 1976). The Russian Attack The Russians, on the other hand, had been conducting intelligence operations and were aware of the weaknesses of the British position. The Russian Commander, Prince Menshikov, planned a three axis attack. In the south, Major General Gribbe, would capture the village of Kamara and move toward redoubt number one. Gribbe had a combined force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. In the center, second axis, Major General Semiakin would command two columns with artillery support to attack towards redoubts one and two after crossing the Tchernaya. In the north, Colonel Skuderi would cross the Tractir Bridge and move towards redoubt three. After these redoubts were taken, General Ryzhov was to attack the positions around Kadikoi with a unit under Major General Zhaboritski to protect their flank (Anthill, 2001). Before dawn on 25 October the Russians started their advance alerting the British troops under command of Lord Lucan. Lucan sent word to the British Commander-in-Chief, Lord Raglan, and moved Brigadier James Scarletts Heavy Brigade with the Earl of Cardigans Light Brigade in reserve to the western end of the Causeway Heights. The battle began at dawn when the Russian infantry attacked and took redoubts one to four with very little resistance from the Turkish defenders (See Figure 1, A). The Russian force then concentrated around redoubts one to three to prepare for a cavalry attack on Kadikoi. Raglan put the 3rd Infantry on alert, ordered the 1st Division into the South Valley, and the 4th Division into the North Valley. Unfortunately, these divisions would not make it to the battlefield before it was all but over. Sensing the threat to the British lines of communication, the French Commander-in-Chief, Canrobert, ordered two infantry brigades and eight cavalry squadrons to the wester n end of the South Valley (Anthill, 2001). The Thin Red Line At about 0830 Liprandi ordered Ryzhov to attack the enemy camp; the first of many vague orders during the battle. Ryzhov moved west along the North Valley. A small force cut off over the Woronzlov Heights towards Kadikoi. The 93rd Highland Foot was positioned behind a ridge in the road to take cover from the artillery turned against them. The commander of the 93rd, Sir Colin Campbell, arranged his men two deep (instead of the doctrinal four deep) standing abreast. On their flanks were Turks who fired one volley before retreating. Sir Colin Campbell rode up and down the line saying: There is no retreat from here men, you must die where you stand. The 93rd fired three volleys into the advancing cavalry. The Russians wheeled and retreated to rejoin Ryzhovs main body (See Figure 1, B). The Crimean War was the first war to see war cor-respondents on the battlefield. London Times correspondent W.H. Russell watched the scene and wrote of seeing the thin red streak tipped with steel. This ph rase would be shortened into the now common phrase The Thin Red Line (93rd Sutherland Highland Regiment of Foot Living History Unit, Inc.). Follow, and up the hill, up the hill, up the hill, Followd the Heavy Brigade. Tennyson, The Charge of the Heavy Brigade The Heavy Brigade was next to be involved against the Russians. The Thin Red Line had succeeded and Ryzhov had halted about one hundred yards uphill from the Heavy Brigade. Brigadier Scarlett, facing the main enemy cavalry force, wheeled his force and although outnumbered, charged uphill toward the Russian cavalry (See Figure 1, C). Even someone completely unfamiliar with military tactics can understand that consideration of the terrain could have placed the Heavy Brigade in a better location instead of positioning them to charge uphill. Despite this terrain dis-advantage, after some heavy fighting, the Russian cavalry broke and retreated back to the Woronzlov Heights (Anthill, 2001). Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred. Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade The greatest blunder of the battle, and one that lives in infamy began at approximately 1015. Raglan ordered to advance and seize any opportunity to retake the Heights, but did not specify which heights. Rather than seek clarification, Lucan took this to mean the Woronzlov Heights and moved the Light Brigade into the North Valley and kept the Heavy Brigade in the South. Raglan saw the Russians were moving to haul away the captured guns from the redoubts. In what resembled a bad example of the childrens game of telephone Raglan gave an order to his Quartermaster, Brigadier Airey, who in turn wrote the order as Lord Raglan wishes the Cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop Horse Artillery may accompany. French Cavalry is on your left. Immediate (The National Archives, United Kingdom) and gave it to his Aide de Camp, Captain Nolan, who in turn relayed the order to Lieutenant General Lucan. What message Nolan p assed to Lucan is unknown, though Lucan claimed that Nolan vaguely waved his arm across the North Valley and stated that they were to charge the guns. From his lack of situational awareness, Lucan only knew of the guns at the end of the North Valley where Ryzhov had moved. The next stage of the blunder came into play. Lord Cardigan, the commander of the Light Brigade, had recently divorced Lucans youngest; not creating the best command climate. Lucan ordered Cardigan to charge the guns. As Cardigan started the Light Brigade up the 2 kilometers of the North Valley, Nolan was waving his sword in the air, possible to try and redirect the charge toward the redoubts when he was killed (see Figure 3). The Light Brigade took artillery fire from one of the captured batteries on their right flank, three batteries on their left flank, and from the battery they were charging toward. They pushed through the line of guns and forced Ryzhovs cavalry to retreat back. The Russians believed the Briti sh must have been drunk. The French Marshal Bousqet stated It is magnificent, but it is not war: it is madness. Twenty minutes after the start of the charge, the survivors returned. Six-hundred thirty-seven started the charge. The brigade lost three-hundred sixty men and five-hundred seventeen horses (Anthill, 2001). The French Cavalry swept in and cleared the Fedioukine Heights (see Figure 2) to protect the Light Brigades flank during the retreat. The British infantry divisions moved into the valley and continued a halfhearted fight against the Russians for the rest of the afternoon. The Russians held the Woronzlov Heights and pulled away the captured guns. Aftermath and Conclusion Blame for the destruction of the Light Brigade began soon after the battle. Raglan blamed Cardigan who blamed Lucan who blamed Nolan. Since Nolan was killed in the battle, he couldnt defend himself. The matter would be debated for decades. The press coverage exalted the bravery of the Light Brigade instead of the failures of the command. Cardigan went home to Britain as a hero and was made Inspector General of the Cavalry. Lucan was made the scapegoat by the British command, but was still awarded with the Order of the Bath. This attitude of bravery over intelligence led operations would prevail in the British military until World War I. Both sides claimed the battle as a victory. The British succeeded in defending Balaclava. The Russians, although failing to break through the Allied lines of communication, had succeeded in taking strategic positions. The Battle of Balaclava and especially the charge of the Light Brigade remains a classic example of military failures in intelligence and communication. Todays Soldiers can identify with the importance of clarifying vague orders. The modern version of the operations order and fragmentary orders used by the United States Army greatly aid in this clarification. Clearly defining the Commanders intent is possibly the most stressed step for the planning cell when preparing an operations order. If the British military had used modern methods of intelligence preparation of the battlefield, they could have better planned for the defense. They could have defined the avenues of approach, established fields of fire, and been aware of how the terrain affected line of sight. If the commanders on the field had been kept aware of the overall battlefield situation, rather than just what was within view, the Light Brigade may have moved according to Raglans intent. The Battle of Balaclava, especially the charge of the Light Brigade, remains a classic example of military failures in intelligence and communication. File:Battle of Balaclava (map 1).png Figure 1. (Public domain) File:Battle of Balaclava (map 2).png Figure 2. (Public domain) File:Charge Timeline.jpg Figure 3. (Public domain)

The Performance Management At Hewlett Packard Commerce Essay

The Performance Management At Hewlett Packard Commerce Essay   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hewlett-Packard is believed to be one of the most popular companies in the universe. It markets all over the world and distinct locations. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard founded HP in the year 1939. The company has its own philosophy to attain success and stand different from its competitors in the market. Management by Objectives (MOB) is one of the successful trends carried out by HP Company to measure its performance management and appraisal system. Therefore many companies were following this method for evaluating their performance management. The objective of this report is to identify the performance management effectiveness and frequency of appraisal and also recognize the strength and limitations at HP Company and to make recommendations regarding their limitations and possible ways to overcome them (Armstrong 2005). Hewlett-Packard   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hewlett-Packard (HP) is a multinational company marketing allover the world. The company offers a wide range of consumer and IT products such as personal computers, Laptops, printing machines and services, Ink, Toner paper, Monitors, Accessories and softwares, Scanners, Smart Phones etc. The HP Way   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The HP way is not entirely different from other companys management philosophy. But the company has got its own principles and management frame implemented by its founders in approaching the top to bottom level management in distinct way. It implies that the company should trust and respect every individual and they believe in their employees intelligence leads to company success and they followed decentralized system (Peter Burrows business week 2004). This leads HP Company to retain the second top most places in the hardware industry globally (Hardware Top 100 2010). System Aim Performance management is a process carried out by organizations in order to attain the organization goals by identifying their employees performance individually and in teams (Armstrong Baron, 2005). The management levels may differ from organizations to organizations thus every management has its own performance appraisal system to identify, support, ascertain problems, develop and appreciation to the employees regard their work performance (Sims 2002a, p. 81). Performance management evaluates the companys performance of the employees, which helps to give effective feedback in order to improve their employees working performance and to succeeded organization targets. The organizations targets are considered to be the long-term goals and to attain that performance appraisal system are to be carried as short-term goals. Controlling process, which is the most important role of any organization to monitor the individual employees performance and this helps to compare the employees per formance and to analyses the overall management performance (Sims, 2002a). The basic need for controlling system is to initiate performance principles, observing performance of the employees and comparing it with the primary principles framed by the organization and finally taking required action to manage the performance. Hewlett-Packard applies the quality management therefore their organizations aim and objective is concerned about the ultimate customers. Therefore, HP employees practice the scheme called Management by Objectives (MOB). This scheme has structured the company objectives into two elements as long-term objectives and short-term objectives. These objectives were discussed between their distinct management levels that are communicating the performance criteria with the individual employees and as department vise were negotiated. The Management by Objective (MOB) scheme finds how the employees complete their task successfully, which indicates the process of mentoring and coaching. This process is made efficient by interconnecting the monitoring process at all levels throughout the HP Company. MOB also involves in the strategic planning of HP Company as a part that describes the aim or goal of the company. The companys top management involves in performance management system and introduces the performance appraisal process to the employees and given chances to fix their goals. Even the workers at bottom management level are encouraged to participate in the process of decision making by suggesting their views for attaining targets successfully this process is carried out for every six months between all levels. The Mobs objectives are to serve as day-to-day to help in making decision for tremendous growth of the company. Dave Packard believe in if HP made every individuals understanding their company objectives and goals and what the company planning for, then they could easily get every employees narrow attention towards attaining the goal. This is known as the HP Way. Frequency of Appraisal:   It is a process of identifying the employees characteristics during the working period that basically indicates quantitative and also qualitative features of management performance. This can be identified by adopting certain appraisal methods in order to find how the employees work efficiently and perfectly. Accordingly performance appraisal has goal setting and performance evaluation as arching targets. These targets are combined because of the performance management criteria used by the managers/supervisor in order to encourage the employees by giving proper command about how to transfer results to compete distinct levels of performance. 1. Goal Setting In HP Company they traditionally practice the HP Way, according to it they give respect and importance to each individual employee, therefore people in top-to-bottom level management have determined their goals. According to Bill Hewlett (co-founder of HP) a organizations performance should be measured by setting up of Goals also that should be measurable in both qualitative and quantitative terms for efficient management performance (mystrategicplan). 2. Performance Evaluation In Hewlett-Packard, the performance evaluation method is implemented as a basic development device. The company conducts frequent meetings by mixed up with all level of management people at one roof to evaluate about the management performance quarterly. According to the HP Way the employees are given full freedom to place their requests and ideas in the meeting and their suggestions are strongly supported. They practice an informal way of approaching to the analysis the performance of its management by giving feedbacks to the employees on an ongoing basis. This reflects and made the company to introduce 360-degree and MOB appraisal method as measuring the companys performance. Method of Appraisal Management of Objectives In HP Company their managements performance is analyzed by carrying out the management of objectives appraisal method. Through this method the company find their employees rating during the work time and those who attain top rating are awarded with promotions and offers on the other hand the employees who got poor performance rating will be taken necessary actions to make them correct accordingly. This appraisal scheme followed by the Hewlett-Packard Company measures both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of their employees performance. The company follows a quality management hence their objectives

Eulogy for Father :: Eulogies Eulogy

Eulogy for Father We are gathered here to give Dr. Jerome, my dad, a last formal farewell. We celebrate his life with the theme of "Choose Life". For throughout his life, dad consistently chose life. He has the God given virtue of seeing the possibility of life. In many circumstances when many are blind, he sees possibilities for more abundant life. His vision is so clear that it drives him to action. And he is a man of action. He always tells me that his actions are calculated risks. Only after his death have I come to understand what he means by calculated risk. I believe he weighs the possibilities for more abundant life against the personal risks that his actions might incur. For him, the possibilities for life always out-weigh the risks of personal loss or rejection. His vision gives him the desire and courage to act. When he saw the possibility of a greater life in relationship with another, he married my mother, Theresa, in 1938. His vision was correct and resulted in a fruitful life-long relationship that brought forth 5 children. When he discovered that I suffered from asthma, he chose a better live for me by becoming a pediatrician. The result was not only a better life for me but also for his many patients. In 1947, he saw the possibilities for life in the West. So he came over to study in St. Louis. His father, my grandfather, was blind to the possibilities and refused to send him here. But his mother, my grandmother, sold some of her jewelry to pay for his stay here. In 1949, when the Communists are moving to take over the country, he saw the risks to our lives and come back to get us out. For him the risk of Communism was greater than the uncertainties of immigration. We left one week after the Communists captured Shanghai, with expired passports, and on the only ship to visit Shanghai that year. If dad was only one day late, our lives would have been radically different. When he saw that teenagers needed a special kind of medical care, he left his practice here in order to study at Harvard's adolescent unit. He was the first doctor in St. Louis to practice adolescent medicine. He also authored a book on the subject. Later in life, with considerable personal sacrifice, he chose to fight for the life of the unborn, for medical ethics that protected the aged and infirm, for an end to capital punishment, and for other related causes.

powmac Free Macbeth Essays: Death as the Price of Power :: GCSE Coursework Macbeth Essays

Death as the Price of Power in Macbeth  Ã‚      Macbeth is a tragedy and a story of the struggle between good and evil. It is about a Thane of Scotland who murders the king in his quest for power. Macbeth commits these crimes partly because of his wife’s ambition and greed, in the end he is destroyed because he feels so guilty and is overtaken by fear and paranoia. The most important part of the play for me was the moment when Macbeth dies. This shows that the play was a complete tragedy and Macbeth's ambitions which were influenced by his wife were a failure. Not one of the main characters benefited by this terrible chain of events. All the pain and unhappiness illustrated in these scenes represent the play as a whole, it is a classic tragedy. This moment was so powerful as it is done off stage but with sound affect this left a lot more to the imagination which has a strong impact. The acting was very believable and made me feel involved. I felt I knew what it’s like to be in such a human tragedy. The king of Scotland played his part well. I thought this because of his body language, in that he stood tall and mighty like an important person, a leader. The servant acted small and insecure. he kept his body in a ball and had his head down low, he never raised his voice but when people did to him he flinched . This illustrated that he was of lower status. When an important action was taken place the actor’s attention focussed on the event taken place and they exaggerated the major actions. For instance when Macbeth saw the images of a bloody knife he looked and reached out at something. Also when someone was talking or making a speech all the other actors looked at the actor who was speaking or showing something. If an actor was the center of attention they would be in the middle of the stage, as when Macbeth saw the ghost of his friend he had murder ed. The table was in the corner while Macbeth was in the center looking at the table this made it very clear of the situation and who you were supposed to be looking at. When lady Macbeth rubbing her hand continuously to get the blood off, this symbolizes her fear and guilt.

A Looking Glass Fogged :: Journalism Journalist Essays

A Looking Glass Fogged In reporting, it is sometimes the case that a story is told from a certain point of view due to political pressures, especially when dispute surrounds the subject matter. One such case is the reporting on the Chinese-Tibetan conflict, in which China's overwhelming political and fiscal power has the potential to seep into the affairs of newspaper owners. In my paper, I will examine a certain event as it was published in a variety of newspapers, and how their coverage differs from the AP Worldstream report. Additionally, I will analyze what appears to be an extremely one-sided report and how it is of benefit to its publisher. China has always sought to culturally integrate Tibet with the Chinese mainland, for reasons as diverse as the parties involved. Recently this has expressed itself in the form of a planned railway reaching from Beijing to Lhasa, the Tibetan Capital. China has justified this action with its usual stance on Tibetan integration, as an effort to modernize Tibet 'for its own good' and provide it with an influx of labor and industry. Groups opposed to the project fear that the railway will cause a new wave of Chinese settlers who will dilute the region's unique culture and exploit the land for its resources. (AP-Worldstream) The Associated Press is a news source for news sources. Their business consists of covering events and reselling the reports to a variety of papers, so it is in their interest to stay as neutral as possible. In their coverage of the Railway project they cover both sides equally, starting with China's moral obligation to "enrich" the Tibetan culture with an inflow of Chinese culture and labor. To quote Shi, an overseer: "Tibet has been without the railway, but now they will have the same great things and great life as us."(2) While the Chinese side makes no mention of this, the AP report covers political motives for this $3.3 billion investment. With the railroad in place, China would be able to immediately deploy troops to stomp any sort of Tibetan uprising as well as saturate the area and culture with Chinese immigrants, furthering China's grip on the Tibetan region. The article does a thorough job of showing both unrelenting sides of the issue - the Chinese developer's zeal for get ting the railroad underway and wants for further development, employment and opportunities, and the Tibetan fear of exploitation and cultural dilution.

10 Cloud Computing Companies To Watch. CA Technologies Essay

CA Technologies formerly known as CA, Inc is one of the largest and leading software enterprises in the world and it is headquartered at New York, USA. It is responsible for the creation of software that gives many companies an upper hand in the current application economy. CA software is designed to help companies and industries acquire productivity and growth through extensive and top notch CA software and solutions. History of the company The company was founded in 1976 by Charles Wang. Charles had been born in Shanghai but moved to the United States at the age of eight years old. He studied math and physics at Queens College. After graduating, he took up a trainee job as a computer programmer for a small computer service agency in New York. The agency was responsible for marketing software for the Swiss firm Computer Associates. The Swiss company wanted to expand its market in the USA and Wang saw an opportunity for a business enterprise with the Swiss company. Wang along with his friend and partner Russ Artzt created their own company. With only two partners, Wang opened up an office that marketed the Swiss products. The company did not do so well until when they developed CA-SORT. The program was designed to help computers sort through data quickly and economically. The program gave a similar IBM program stiff competition and majority of IBM clients later shifted to CA’s program. This was a great leap of success for the CA Company. The company expanded and started to recruit and hire more people. In 1980, Wang and partners bought out the Swiss parent company and then they made the company public in 1981. As from the moment the company went public it began to program and focus on expansion through acquisitions. It bought Capex Corporation, Stewart P. Orr Associates, Information Unlimited Software, Sorcim, Viking Data Systems, Uccel, Cullinet, On-Line Software International, Inc., CSMI (Computer Management Sciences, Inc.), Platinum Technology International, Layer 7 Technologies, Applied Data Research, Cheyenne Software, Johnson Systems, Arkay Computer, and many more. It also bought Top Secret, from CGA Computer, a program designed as a computer security system. It later on purchased Integrated System Software Corp. and Software International, both being application software. The later being responsible for financial application and the former for graphics softw are. Wang resigned as the CEO of the company on 2000 and his position was taken up by Sanjay Kumar. John Swainson was the next CEO in the company but retired at the end of the year 2009. CA technologies announced William E. McCracken as the chairman of the board and the chief executive officer on January 28, 2010. He was replaced by Michael P. Gregoire on January 7, 2013 who is the current chairman of the board and the chief executive officer at CA Technologies and Russell M. Artzt as the current Vice Chairman. Products and services CA Technologies have a number of products and services, mostly software, which is designed to transform businesses and enables customers to seize the opportunities of the application economy. Their main area of expertise lies on three major areas, Cloud, Mainframe, and Mobile. They have four main portfolios, the ca Securecenter. Ca Opscenter, ca Devcenter, and the ca Intellicenter. Its main services include project and portfolio management, application performance management, infrastructure management, security management, cloud services, data center automation and virtualization, and service management. These services are distinctively placed and categorized in the four main portfolios named above. The ca Securecenter portfolio enables and secures the open enterprise by authenticating and securing access for the right users on any device, anywhere while providing a superior customer experience. It has a number of featured products such as the CA Identity Manager SaaS, CA Single Sign-On, CA Sign-On SaaS, CA Advanced Authentication, CA API Gateway, CA API Developer Portal, CA Mobile API Gateway, CA Identity Manager, CA Identity Governance, and the CA Privileged Identity Manager. All these products are optimally designed to offer maximum security conveniently to their customers. CITATION CAI15 l 1033 (CA Securecenter) CA Opscenter portfolio provides tools that manage and monitor performance and availability, giving you the keys to ensuring your customers are up and running. Some of their products include CA Unified Infrastructure Management, CA 1 Tape Management, CA Allocate DASD Space and Placement, CA App Synthetic Monitor, CA Application Delivery Analysis, CA Capacity Managemen t, CA Bind Analyzer for DB2 for z/OS, CA Big Data Infrastructure Management, CA Automation Point, and the CA Application Performance, etc. CITATION CAO15 l 1033 (CA Opscenter) The ca Devcenter portfolio is designed to develop high quality applications faster by leveraging tools that create virtual integrations, enable parallel development and continuous testing. The ca Devcenter portfolio is designed deploy applications from development through production with automated orchestration. Some of the products it features are the CA Service Virtualization, CA 2E, CA Application Lifestyle Conductor, CA Application Test, CA Automation Suite for Clouds, CA Cloud Manager Powered by ServiceMesh, CA Test, CA Configuration Automation, CA Continuous Application Insight, CA Data Finder, and many more. These products are intended to deliver innovation to market faster with higher quality. CITATION CAD15 l 1033 (CA DevCenter) The ca Intellicenter portfolio has the software needed to make the right portfolio decisions and gain a holistic view of IT services and assets, enabling your business to manage the business of IT. Their featured products include; CA Cloud Service Management, CA Executive Playbook, CA Agile Planning, CA PPM, CA Service Desk Manager, CA Service Catalog, CA IT Assets Manager, CA Business Service Insight, CA On Demand Portal, and the Xtraction for CA Service Management. These products seek to drive productivity and provide a superior IT Serve Management experiences in the businesses that invest on them. CITATION CAI151 l 1033 (CA Intellicenter)Competition facing the company’s products A lot of software related companies have invested in cloud computing services including CA technologies. Their cloud computing, CA Cloud manager, faces competition from other platforms, such as Microsoft that offers Azure, Amazon that is offering the Amazon Web Services, AT&T that is offering Synaptic Hosting, Enomaly that is currently offering Enomaly’s Elastic Computing Platform (ECP) and Rackspace that offers Rackspace Cloud also referred to as â€Å"Mosso†. These services are mostly used by Web developers and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers. CITATION Jon09 l 1033 (Brodkin, 2009) There are numerous suppliers of project and portfolio management (PPM) software. Companies like 4c Systems, Antura, Artemis, IBM, Oracle, BMC Software, Cambridge Systematics, Davies Consulting, etc offer different PPM software. The 4c System offers 4c Portfolio Intelligence, Antura offers Antura Projects, IBM offers Rational Focal Point, Oracle offers Crystal Ball, BMC offers IT Servi ce Management, Cambridge Systematics offers Prioritas and Davies Consulting offers AIS. All these companies offer this PPM software designs that are designed to assist companies in efficiently identifying and managing projects. CA technologies offers Clarity PPM which is successfully used by many corporations but also faces too much completion from other PPM providers. Infrastructure Management software (IM) is a system designed to manage essential operation components, such as policies, processes, equipment, data, human resource and external contacts for overall effectiveness. It has a number of vendors such as IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and CA technologies. Some of the competing systems include SAP IT IM, Data Center IM, which offer major competition to CA Infrastructure Management. CITATION Mar07 l 1033 (Rouse, 2007) Application Performance Management (APM) is a system designed to monitor real time customer experience and goes ahead to compare the performance deprivation back to the system measures. CA technologies are responsible for CA PPM. There are various APM systems that offer stiff competition to the CA APM. Some of these APM systems vendors include; INETCO, AppNeta, Riverbed, Oracle, HP, Compuware and also CA. the various CA systems in the market that are currently competing with CA APM system are; New Relic, Foglight, Magic Quadran t, and SpyglassTools that is a Java Application Monitoring APM Competitors in the market Every company experiences competition, in one way or the other. The competition can be from within or from outside. Majority of the competition that most corporations face is from other rival organizations. CA Inc. like any normal corporation has its own competition in the existing market. Some of the top competitors include BMC Software, Inc., Compuware Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and VMware, Inc. Corporations in competition BMC Software, Inc. provides IT management solutions and services. It has a wide array of products and services that it offers on its portfolio. These services include remedy IT service management suite, big data management, Cloud computing software, data center automation services, IT operations services, ITSM consulting services, workload automation, and the process alignment service among others. BMC is headquartered in Houston, Texas, in the US. It caters to a wide range of customers such as banks, institutions of learning, government agencies, system integrators, hospitals, retailers, distributors, manufacturers, financial service providers, telecommunication companies, and resellers. Oracle Corporation is one of the leading corporations that provide enterprise software, computer hardware, products and services. The company offers various services such as Oracle database, middleware software, cloud infrastructure, application software, and hardware systems. The company provides its services to a wide variety of customers such as the healthcare industry, oil and gas professional services, life sciences, financial services industry, aerospace and defense industry, natural resources and chemicals industry. The company is headquartered in Redwood City in the U.S. the company mainly focuses on expanding through acquisition of companies, products, services and technologies. This way it would strengthen and widen its customer base and create and generate more innovations. Compuware Corporation provides services, software and practices for IT corporations globally. It also provides professional technical services in areas such as performance engineering, mobile application development and system modernization. Its headquarters are in Detroit, Michigan in the US. The company provides its services and products through segment. These segments include Application Performance Management, Mainframe, Uniface, Changepoint, Professional Service and Covisint Application Services. VMware, Inc. is a supplier of cloud infrastructure and virtualization. The group operates on three main and major product groups; Software-Defined Data Center, Hybrid Cloud computing and End-User Computing. The Software-Defined Data Center is a virtualization platform designed to enable the aggregation of e devices, multiple servers, storage devices and networks. The Hybrid Cloud enables clients to extend tools, skills, networking and security models across all grounds. The End-User Computing product is designed to fully secure access to applications and data from any given devices at any given locations. Its main headquarters are in Palo Alto, California in the US. The company also focuses on extending its margins through acquisition of other similar technology oriented companies. Case study on CA technologies The CA Technologies has provided its services extensively to different industries and corporations. Its services are used by banks, insurance companies, financial service providers, health care institutions, technology companies, and telecommunication providers. These different sectors use and maximize the CA resources and services to compete against other rival industries. Banks and other financial institutions and service providers are equipped with the security management applications designed by the company. This ensures safety of their clients’ information and valuables. If their data are hacked or accessed without authority and permission they may face the risk of losing their customers and will incur major losses in the long run. So as to avoid such majority of the banks and financial service providers such as insurance companies, utilize these security applications. The more advanced the security systems, the more clients and customers it attracts. For an organization to attract more clients and be able to provide extensive services, it ought to have a clear ad defined strategy. This is achieved through the use of a project portfolio management (PPM) system. This system assists companies in effectively planning and investing in the right projects. If the companies use an excellent and superior PPM system, it would have an upper hand advantage against rival and competing companies. With all the software and applications that CA technologies offer, it is easy to see why it is one of the leading technology industries in the world. References 1033 Brodkin, J. (2009, May 18). 10 Cloud Computing Companies To Watch. Retrieved March 05, 2015, from NETWORKWORLD: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2268033/virtualization/10-cloud-computing-companies-to-watch.html CA DevCenter. (n.d.). Retrieved MArch 05, 2015, from CA Technologies: http://www.ca.com/gb/devcenter.aspx CA Intellicenter. (n.d.). Retrieved March 05, 2015, from CA Technologies: http://www.ca.com/gb/intellicenter.aspx CA Opscenter. (n.d.). Retrieved March 04, 2015, from CA Technologies: http://www.ca.com/gb/opscenter.aspx CA Securecenter. (n.d.). Retrieved March 05, 2015, from CA Technologies: http://www.ca.com/gb/securecenter.aspx Rouse, M. (2007, June). Infrastructure Management (IM). Retrieved March 05, 2015, from TechTarget: http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/infrastructure-management Source document

Indian Premiere League Controversy

Board of control for Cricket is the most powerful and most influential organization in the world of cricket. It is one of the richest sports organizations in the world. Mr. N Srinivasan came a long way starting as a cricket administrator in Tamil Nadu in 2001 to becoming President of Board of Control for Cricket in India in 2011. Indian Premier League is considered as the world’s show case for the T20 cricket. Eight teams will be participating in this tournament. An UK based consulting firm Brand Finance has valued it at 4. 3 billion US dollars in 2010. During N. Srinivasan term as president IPL has faced lot of controversies. Being the most powerful man in world of cricket administrators he refused to quit when his son in law was caught being involved in the purported illegal betting. He gradually worked his way to become the President of the most powerful board in the world of cricket. He has been charged with conflict of interest by owing an IPL franchise the Chennai Super Kings. He refused to resign from the president post after his son in law was caught for alleged illegal betting on the IPL matches. Former BCCI president AC Muthiah has filed a case in Supreme Court challenging the board rules that permits the BCCI officials to own an IPL franchises (Singh, 2013). Three players S Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chnadila from Rajasthan Royals were arrested for alleged spot fixing by Delhi police. Srinivasan clamorously said that the guilty will not be spared and was surprised and disappointed with the spot fixing events. Nobody expected his son in law Gurunath Meiyappan will be involved in the illegal betting allegations. Being in a responsible position, instead of stepping down as President on morality basis and this is one of the worst scandals of Indian Cricket he became argumentative and even criticized the media for going after him (Singh, 2013). The India Cements owner of Chennai Super Kings had issued a statement stating that Meiyappan is not a CEO of the company after he was subpoenaed by Mumbai Police and he is in anyway not related to the franchise. But twitter account status of Meiyappans’s said that he was the Team Principal of CSK, was titled as the owner of the franchise at a particular event , he was sitting in the player’s auction and was present in the dugout of CSK for all the matches where only the team management was allowed to be present in the dugout. So India Cements argument that he is not related to the franchise is absolutely false (Singh, 2013). He was involved in illegal betting of CSK matches too. This raises lot of questions as he may have passed the team combinations and planning to the bookies as he has access to all the players (Singh, 2013). If Srinivasan tries to brush off things and cover up the whole situation then BCCI will jeopardize the faith and entrust of millions of people who follow the game of cricket and where cricket is a religion in India. For the betterment of cricket, cricket lovers and inviolability of cricket in India Srinivasan must resign and ensure that all the guilty are served with the punishment. The other members of the board have resigned as they are not satisfied with the Srivasan’s decision and how he handled the situation (Singh, 2013). Source of Conflict: This conflict can be an example for Substantive conflict. This occurs when two or more organizational members disagree on their task or content issues. Conflict of values: This occurs when two social entities differ in their values or ideologies on certain issues (Druckman, Broome & Korper, 1988). Srinivasan differs with the ideologies and values of the BCCI this can be recognized as conflict of values. Level of Analysis: This can be an example of Interpersonal conflict. It refers to conflict between two or more organizational members of the same or different hierarchical levels. This situation has created differences between the board members and the treasurer and other board members have resigned it can be classified as interpersonal conflict.References:Rahim, M. A. (2001). Managing conflict in organizations. Westport, Conn: Quorum Books. Druckman, D., Broome, B., & Korper, S., (1988).  Value differences and conflict resolution: Facilitation or delinking?  Journal of Conflict Resolution, 32, 489 – 510.  Ã‚   Singh, M. (2013, may 26). IPL spot-fixing: Why N Srinivasan should quit as BCCI president. Retrieved July 7, 2013, from Zeenews.india.com: http://zeenews.india.com/blog/ipl-spot-fixing-why-n-srinivasan-should-quit-as

Ethics: Who Am I

Who am I? Well to answer this question you have to answer these questions first. What are my shortcomings, do I have any vices I’d like to eliminate, why is it hard and what’s stopping me, what are my favorite activities, and a few others. But the one I’m going to focus on is â€Å"What are my qualities and strengths? † because this question helped me figure out what I’m going to do for a living. What are my qualities and strengths? I have many strengths like the ability to work on cars, carpentry, art, and mathematics. But my biggest strength is in mathematics. I’ve always been at the top of my math class throughout my schooling career. Every time m teacher would put a problem on the board, I’d have it done in a split second. I never felt I was challenged until the middle of my junior year of high school. I was taking Algebra 2 and we were starting to go more in-depth into x and y-intercepts. This concept boggled my mind for a lot longer than it had taken to go over and to tell you the truth I still don’t get all of it but I knew enough of it to get by. There was always one thing that I’ve wondered about my strength in mathematics, though. Where did I get this skill from? Nobody in my family is or ever was this good at math like I am. To this day I don’t where it came from but I guess that’s one of my own wonders of the world. Why am I? This question would be difficult for someone to answer if all they thought about was there profession in the future and not what they want to achieve in there life. To answer this question you have to have thought about what you want to achieve in life then you can’t answer this question. A lot of people think about what they want to achieve in life but most of everyone always ponder it in the sense of there career. That’s a good way to think about it but that doesn’t give you purpose in life. I’m not going to lie a lot of the things I ant to achieve in life are career related, but there are a few things that are personal goals I’m going to strive to achieve. One of these achievements is to have a great family and raise children that will have a love of learning, not just in schooling because not all kids like school but in whatever they love to do, a hunger for success, be great citizens of the United States, and know how to be a respectful adult, which is one thing I think a lot of the youth in my generation lack. I think these traits are extremely important for young people to have because these traits are what I think make up a great person and this world definitely needs more people that are respectful, knowledgeable, well-mannered; just an all around good person. Well this is just a little on â€Å"Who I am† in the sense of my strengths and qualities and â€Å"Why I am† in the sense of my purpose in life.

Cyber Bullying, Its Forms, Impact, and Relationship to Juvenile Delinquency Essay

Technology has brought tremendous changes to human lives. It literally changes everything. The start of the new millennium has brought remarkable changes in global perspectives. The idea of unknown possibility and unexplored world landscape vanished. In a sense the huge world, which people can thought was so vast that one cannot travel from one end to the other without spending one’s generation, shrank. According to Mapue, (2006), societies grew from interactional to isolated populace where each spends most of his time sitting in front of a computer. With the advent of such revolution the concept of Cyberspace was born and with it, the lives of the people and how they interact with one another correspondingly and dramatically changed. Cyberspace has brought tremendous changes to human lives since its emergence. Gibson (1982) in his short story ‘Burning Chrome’ coined the term ‘cyberspace’ to a computer generated virtual reality. According to him, cyberspace is the name of a real non-space world, which is characterized by the ability for virtual presence of and interaction between, people through ‘icons, waypoints and artificial realities’. Through the Internet major development paves way in society. The Internet creates new ways for citizens to communicate, come together, and share information of a social nature. It is obvious that the Internet has and will continue to change the way people live. Every day, the Internet expands by the social, political, and economic activities of people all over the world, and its impact can be seen everywhere. In this present time there is no geographical separation or borders that can hinder people to communicate elsewhere. All people now can participate and contribute drawing on their experiences and resources. In cyberspace, actions and reactions are essentially instantaneous, and this is why the Internet is so gratifying and attractive. This is why it has impacted society in almost all areas of human endeavor. As in any other field in life there are the negative aspects that the Internet has brought to humans. The digital era has promised users the potential to access information anywhere at any time. When the state adopted the Bill of Rights guaranteeing that â€Å"Congress shall make no law †¦ abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,† few people have foreseen that any person of modest means could publish something that is accessible to the entire world (via the world wide web) to be read or viewed by potentially hundreds of millions (Edlemm, 2010). The Internet now permeates the lives of all humans. With the help of it, an individual can access any information that he may want in the same way that he can post or upload anything in the cyberspace. Truly internet activity is now part of human’s life. It enables man to become powerful in a way that he can access, control, and manipulate the internet as well as the information. Ironically, while many are enjoying the benefit of the internet it also gives others the chance to abuse it and use gain personal benefits by victimizing others.

Week 1 Discussion HUM 112 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Week 1 Discussion HUM 112 - Assignment Example Consequently, there are several well-known painters when it comes to Baroque style paintings representing not only the era of the period but also the flamboyant and rich culture. Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) created a portrait painting of a young woman. Emphasis of the portrait is placed on the various white accessories such as lace cuffs, gloves, coifs, and the large millstone ruff. In another different painting from the same period, describing the details of the woman costumes, the significance was accorded to the overall portrayal and appearance of a rich heritage. Moreover, another baroque painting by Portrait of Marchese Spinola, the female fashion is seen to have changed so much from 1630s and 1660s (Hill, 2011). The whole silhouette changed, from the elevated wasted gowns of 1630s to that of long and slender wasted in 1660s. Paintings that have been viewed clearly provide more details when observed keenly. They do not just represent the painter, but also the particular message being conveyed by each of the art viewed within that period. The baroque paintings are not just distinguished by the rare presentation of the surrounding, but also the messages that are successfully presented by the painters. Baroque style paintings remind me of Christian film and videos. Nonetheless, the work that distinguishes the baroque style paintings is contradictory and stylistically complex. Moreover, the desire of evoking emotional states through appealing to the senses in dramatic ways underlies its very manifestations (Hill, 2011). The qualities associated with baroque include sensuous, drama, grandeur, emotional, vitality, and tendency to blur the distinctions between various

Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 56

Essay Example The various methods that can be applied in the research include participant’s observation. A sample of participants are selected and keenly scrutinised so as to note the characteristics and record appropriately. The other method may include the cross cultural comparison. This may involve the comparison of varied linguistic users basing on their culture. A survey research can also be applied to the research work so as to find the general trend of linguistic aspects. It may also involve interviewing of participants and use of archival research retrieval. Media analysis of the same can be done in order to carry out an efficient historical analysis. There are various indigenous languages that face the risk of extinction. This call for the need of anthropologists to carry out research on the community. In this article, the above methods have been used to carry out the research on pormpraaw which is an aboriginal community in Australia. Native languages which are faced by extinction may be chosen for such analysis in order to prevent the language from extinction. From this linguistic methods analysed from the research, the main objectives of the research are

Do Personality Changes Occur in Adults Following Traumatic Brain Essay - 1

Do Personality Changes Occur in Adults Following Traumatic Brain Injury - Essay Example The studies are reviewed according to their objectives, particular analytical design, nature of participants, the measured outcomes, the variables, if predictable or not, taken into account and, finally, the results. In essence, the scope of the review is to determine how TBI injuries affect survivors and, thus, by considering how exactly they are affected, how they can be better enabled to rehabilitate back to their personal and workplace settings. The assessment criteria for interviewing an adult TBI survivor may be broken down into three elements. These are 1) the population on which the personality model is based; 2) the source of information for generating the model; and 3) the procedure used for generating the model (Obonwasin et al, 2007). Other research groups may have used more complex criteria standards but, for the purpose at hand, the paper finds that this is sufficient. using scales with underlying personality models that have been specifically developed for populations groups other than those with TBI. Such scales, such as the NPRS[2] and the NBAP[3}, may not be effective in the sense that when they are deployed on TBI populations they are standardised for this purpose though they had been initially developed for other population groups (Obonwasin et al, 2007). Scales like the NEO-PI,[4] have been developed for the general population and when it is standardised for use on TBI populations the net effect is probably that of imposing a framework developed on personality relevant to the general population on personality changes usually deemed to be associated with TBI (Obonwasin et al, 2007). In contrast to these non-TBI specific scales NRS[5], the CPP[6] and the HIBS[7] were all developed based on information gathered from TBI survivors (Obonwasin et al, 2007). It is noted that though the CPP scale is very useful it has not led to

In the movie The Hurricane what was Ruben Hurricane Carter's Identity, Essay

In the movie The Hurricane what was Ruben Hurricane Carter's Identity, meaning and relationships with other chartecters - Essay Example Carter has personally authored the screenplay which is the reason why it fundamentally portrays the opinion of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. The film portrays Carter as a passerby who is innocent and is not involved in the act of murder. According to the story’s plot, Carter was driving with a friend of his named John Artis towards home. They were on their way back from a club in Paterson when the police made them stop and inquired them about the murder of three people in a bar. The police’s suspicion was flared up by the claim of Alfred Bello that Artis and Carter were the witnesses of the act of murder. The police arrested Artis and Carter due to the allegations imposed by Bello upon the two and later, Carter was sentenced for life thrice. Carter maintained his position saying that he was being humiliated because of his African American race and his active participation in the civil rights movement. Despite the fact that Arthur Bradley and Bello recanted their allegation in 1974, Artis and Carter faced reconviction. Carter’s case was reinvestigated in 1980s by the state of New Jersey upon the insistence of Lesra Martin, a Brooklyn teenager who was working with activists from Canada. The Federal District Court decided in 1985 that the conviction of Carter happened solely because of racism.

Career Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 2

Career Plan - Essay Example In this respect, graduates possessing degree in FCS are facilitated with the opportunity of building an effective career in different professional areas relating to dietetics, hospitality, education, communication and interior design among others. Additionally, individuals after the completion of their FCS course are recognized to have high career demand in the present job market. (Iowa State University, â€Å"Family and Consumer Sciences Education and Studies (FCEdS)†). In this context, I have planned to pursue course in FCS with the aim of possessing better career opportunities. Professionals with FCS graduates have developed their career path successfully with a better competitive position. The FCS professionals are also facilitated with the opportunity of having better career options in their career life owing to diversified specialization options. Presently, graduates on completion of FCS course are able to build successful career path with better job security as well as sustainability. I am an undergraduate student at present and I have planned to pursue graduate degree course in the field of FCS with the intention of having better career opportunities after completion of graduate degree. I have planned to develop a career in FCS, as the course program will aid me in developing skill sets in different areas that include communication, creativity, critical thinking and collaboration. Subsequently, the skill sets acquired from FCS course are mostly demanded in job market. The coursework and skill sets will also facilitate me in enhancing life quality of different individuals. Additionally, the course will also aid in building interrelationship amid people within communities in different economic, physical as well as social environment. The report published by the ‘U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) signified that graduates in FCS pursuing profession as nutritionists as well as dietitians are

Treasury, Foreign Exchange and Financilization Essay

Treasury, Foreign Exchange and Financilization - Essay Example & O’Connell 2001) Therefore the PPP of country C with respect to the US dollar is as follows: Year PPP of country C with respect to US dollar 2003 1.02 2004 1.01 2005 1.01 2006 1.02 2007 1.01 The inflation rates for country D from 2003-2007 are as follows: (Mathis, Keat & O’Connell 2001) Therefore the PPP for country D with respect to the US dollar is: Year PPP of country D with respect to the US dollar 2003 0.99 2004 1.01 2005 0.98 2006 0.98 2007 0.99 Thus, these were the respective inflation rates of the countries A, B, C, D and their purchasing power parities calculated with respect to the US dollar. (b) The Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) Theory states that the exchange rate between the currencies of two countries is in equilibrium when their purchasing power is equivalent in both the countries. Let there be a fixed basket of goods and services and then let us determine the price of this common basket in both the countries. Then the exchange rate between the currencie s of the two countries should be equal to the ratio of the price levels of the two nations. PPP theory also states that when a country is subject to inflation i.e. there is a continuous increase in the level of domestic prices of the country, there should be depreciation in the country’s exchange rate in order to restore PPP. (The University of British Columbia 2011) We can see from the data in the case study, that while country A has experienced inflation from 2003-2007, the exchange rate of its currency with respect to the US dollar has depreciated during the same period (except for 2007). Thus, the PPP theory held true for country A. In country B also, as it was experiencing inflation during 2003-2007, the exchange rates of its currency with respect to the US dollar has devalued over the period (except for 2005). Thus the PPP theory held true in the case of country B also. As country C was going through a period of inflation from 2003-2007, the exchange rate between its cu rrency and the US dollar also underwent devaluation during the same period (except for 2005). Thus, for country C also, the PPP theory held good. In the case of country D, as it experienced inflation during 2003-2007, the exchange rate between its own currency and the US dollar remained the same in 2004 but devalued after that during the successive years. Thus the PPP theory also held good for country D. Therefore, the PPP theory held good for all the countries A, B, C, D. (c) The US dollar prime lending rate during 2002-2007 was as follows: Year US dollar lending prime rate 2002 4.67 2003 4.12 2004 4.34 2005 6.19 2006 7.96 2007 8.05 (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 2011) The

Why were Jewish refuges on the SS St. Louis denied entry to Cuba and Essay

Why were Jewish refuges on the SS St. Louis denied entry to Cuba and what decided their fate - Essay Example The Nazi ideology and policies targeted first of all Jews, who were considered as the most â€Å"inferior races† of all, on a hierarchy which included the â€Å"Herrenvolk† (Master race) of the â€Å"Volksgemeinschaft† (German national community) at the top and Jews at the bottom. In November 1938, the violent anti-Semitic campaign, called Kristallnacht, or â€Å"night of the broken glass† or also known as â€Å"Pogromnacht† started, in which Jewish homes and business were destroyed and up to 200 Jews were killed in Germany. After this incident, Germany’s 600,000 decided that it was time to leave and many European Jews fled for their lives. Hundreds of ships set their voyage crossed the Atlantic carrying thousands of immigrants to new lives, primarily in the United States. The S.S. St. Louis, owned by the Hamburg-American Line (Hapag) was one such ship (Stahl, 1999, para.1-12) On May 13, 1939, the German transatlantic liner St. Louis started its voyage from Hamburg, Germany, to Havana, Cuba. On the voyage, there were 937 passengers, almost all passenger were German Jews citizens, fleeing from the Third Reich and, some were from eastern Europe, and a few were officially â€Å"stateless†. Although the majority of the Jewish passengers had already applied for U.S. visas, and they had planned to have a temporary stay in Cuba until they could get their visa approval from the United State State Department, yet there were signals that political conditions in Cuba might keep the passengers from landing there.

European Court of Justice Turner v Grovit and Harada Essay

European Court of Justice Turner v Grovit and Harada - Essay Example Anti-suit injunction is defined as â€Å"an order of the court requiring the injunction defendant not to commence or to cease to pursue, or not to advance particular claims within, or to take steps to terminate or suspend court or arbitration proceedings in a foreign country†1. The definition of anti-suit injunction claims that under this legal framework, none of the defendants or plaintiffs can take the assistance to obtain undue advantages of a foreign legislation apart from the country wherein the dispute took place. It is usually observed in case of cross-border disputes that the litigants perceive that they can take the advantage by shifting the proceedings in their home country, with the expectation to obtain a favourable judgement to the case ruling2. In order to disregard this belief of the litigants, anti-suit injunction has been introduced3.Arguably, anti-suit injunctions are often regarded as interference to the disputes in foreign courts. Addressing this particular issue, the discussion henceforth will evaluate whether the considerable of anti-suit injunction as an act of interference by a foreign court is justifiable. Illustrative examples will also be sought from various cases, including the landmark case of Turner v Grovit (C-159/02) [2005] 1 AC 101 in order to strengthen the rationalization of the arguments in this essay. The case of Turner v Grovit, decided in April 2004, is considered one of the landmark cases in the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which apparent denotes the legislative implications of anti-suit injunctions to the principle of lis alibi pendens. This case became the basis for the explanation of anti-suit injunction as Turner, the plaintiff, was granted with anti-suit injunction, as a measure to restrict the application of the rule given in correspondence to the re-appeal of the defendant (i.e. Harald Ltd.) in the Spanish court4.  

Types of assessment Essay Example for Free

Types of assessment Essay What is meant by assessment? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the assessment types and methods you use? How would you involve your learner into the assessment process? Why do we need to keep records of assessment? Assessments are a critical part of the education system; highlighted by Black and Wiliams’(1998) who define assessments as activities providing â€Å"information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged†. There are two forms of assessment; formative and summative. Formative assessments are carried  out as the course progresses. These are an informal and simple way of gauging how and what your students are learning. This then allows teachers to amend their teaching to accommodate the results as evaluation and reflection takes place. Furthermore students can identify the areas of development and ‘ensure that objectives are being met’ (Minton,1991, p183). Feedback is therefore considered to be significant for the continued development and progression of learners (Petty, 2010). Summative assessment, however, refers to a more traditional approach for testing learners. see more:describe how to find out the history preferences wishes and needs of an individual It  involves assessing learners at the end of the course/year providing a final grade. Summative assessment can be very effective, however, it could be very demanding for an adult with learning disabilities as they may find it difficult to recollect information from the beginning of the course. Initial assessment should take place before a learner begins the course; these are ‘an evaluation of a learner’s skills, knowledge, strengths and areas for development. ’ (Gravells, 2012). This is effective when working with adults with learning disabilities as it will help establish the appropriate  pitch, pace and content/resources to be used. Furthermore, it will be a way of recognising prior learning and such experience/qualifications can be validated. Rules of assessment should be adhered to ensure equality and fair testing: they should be valid, reliable, authentic, current and sufficient. Teachers/Assessors should not discriminate against learners in their choice of assessment method and planning and should advance anti-discriminatory practice. There are many forms of assessment strategies in English; these include speaking and listening assessments, controlled assessments, quizzes/worksheets, essays etc. Speaking and listening assessments are means of measuring a learners’ communication skills. Individuals are assessed on their ability to project their ideas, viewpoints and their listening skills. This allows learners to work in a group, supporting each other by sharing ideas and improve their functional skills. Furthermore, it can be videoed as evidence. However, it is difficult to assess the level of understanding of the learners through this method alone. Furthermore, this is a subjective strategy and feedback can be limited. Worksheets and quizzes both can be set as individual or group work. They provide an objective mark at the end which can lead to informative feedback based on the learner’s strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement. The tasks can be fun, engaging and interesting for learners. This strategy has reliability because worksheets/quizzes are consistent as similar results can be gained. Furthermore, they are valid because they measure understanding as the learners attempt to answer questions and the marks obtained shows the stage, progress and understanding of each learner. The benefits are highly valuable as the learners enjoy completing the activities. Mitchells (1997) recognised that games and quizzes can be motivating for those learners who struggle with formal teaching styles. Other assessments include observation, watching and evaluating the learners’ progress. Observations should reflect a learner’s daily performance and should be recorded fully on paper; audiotape or video, with an awareness of confidentiality issues, signed and dated by the teacher/assessor and learner. The more detailed and factual the record, the stronger the evidence may be in terms of validity and reliability. Such observations should be planned in advance with the 1 / 3  agreement of the learner’s manager and colleagues. However, teachers can take opportunities to record observations of unplanned events, if useful as evidence. Through observations, teacher/assessor can gather sufficient evidence and can then relate the observation back to many different units/elements of the qualification. Also, it allows teachers to see natural competence first hand in an authentic and reliable manner. Nevertheless, there are disadvantages of observations: A learner’s normal duties may not cover all assessment criteria; observations may be unnerving for learners and observations can take a lot of  an assessor’s time and expense. Brookfield’s (1998) model of reflection states that it is critical that one views themselves and their teaching through the perspective of their learners. In this lens there is a strong focus on the learner’s ‘voice’ and so value is placed on their viewpoints and also their articulation of work. Therefore, it is important to gain the learners’ thoughts on the assessment strategy. Learners should be informed of how they will be assessed from the onset, involved in feedback and evaluation at every level. Furthermore, prior to assessment, learners could be shown a model  answer and given success criterion to ensure they understand how to achieve the desired level/grade. Involving learners in the assessment process is a key way of helping them to manage and ‘take ownership’ of their learning, by reflecting on achievement and progress. Involving them in recording their own and each others’ progress and planning the next steps in learning can deepen their understanding and reinforce their sense of achievement. Therefore they should be briefed about expectations, purpose and benefits of becoming involved in assessment. Self-assessment will allow learners to reflect upon their own progress and assesses their own development and achievements. However, self-assessment is not always easy and teachers should guide learners in a step-by-step process so they learn how to evaluate their own work and learning style, perhaps by modelling. Reid (2011) suggests that you can use other learners if, for example, they observed your learner. This refers to peer assessment, where peers assess the learner’s developments and achievements through observation of their practice during an activity. Peer assessment and feedback activities give students opportunities to internalise the criteria, learn from examples, enables evaluation and reflection and allows development of responsibility for own learning. However there might be some drawbacks from this as some students may express concerns about showing their work to others that are not qualified to assess their work. Also, it needs to be reliable and accurate; therefore strategies need to be put into place to ensure objectivity. Records are an integral part of the teaching and learning process. Gravells (2012) argues that  records must be maintained, to support the teaching and learning process and to satisfy auditors, inspectors, regulators, verifiers, internal and external quality assurers and your own organisation’s requirements. Teachers should retain documents such as the syllabus, scheme of work, session plans, action plans, hand-outs/activities for the learner, and assessment records such as tracking sheets, marked assignments, portfolios etc. Holding records of the course and content would allow inspections on the manner in which the course is being taught and to ensure it is being delivered in accordance to  specifications. Teacher must also keep records of learners’ progression. This will identify whether the student is on task to complete course or having difficulty. Clear, concise information and evidence will lead to a greater understanding of learner needs and enable teachers to amend their teaching styles to accommodate the learner needs. Records must be kept for a length of time stipulated by your organisation in case of an auditing process. However under the Data Protection Act 1998, this information should be â€Å"kept secure with appropriate technical and organisational measures taken to  protect the information’ and confidentiality should be maintained. A very good explanation of why records must be kept in an institute. 2 / 3 Word count: 1102 (excluding references) References Benjamin S Bloom. (1980), All Our Children Learning, New York: McGraw-Hill. Black, P. , amp; Wiliam, D. (1998), Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. King’s College London School of Education, pg 2 Brookfield, S. (1998) Critically reflective teacher. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions Data Protection Act (2008), Information Commissioners Office, lt; www.ico. gov. ukgt; Date accessed 21/02/14 Gravells, A. (2012) Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (5th Edition) Learning Matters Ltd Exeter Minton, D. , (1991), Teaching Skills in Further and Adult Education, Macmillan Press Ltd. Mitchell, C. (1997), Transforming Teaching; Selecting and evaluating teaching strategies. Further Education Matters. Petty, G. (2010) Teaching Today Home page, http://www. geoffpetty. com/, 201O Read, H, (2011) The Best Assessor’s Guide. Bideford: Read On Publications POWERED BY TCPDF (WWW. TCPDF. ORG).