Thursday, October 31, 2019

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT 8-11 problems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT 8-11 problems - Essay Example High inflation is usually because there is too much money floating around in the economy. If the inflation gets out of hand, the FED will need to enforce a monetary policy that will slow down money being spent in the economy. The slowing of the economy will increase unemployment. 9. What is the exchange rate between the Euro and the US Dollar? What is the exchange rate between the US Dollar and the currency of your country? ( If there is an overlap in the currencies, choose any two of interest.) Discuss the trends in these exchange rates. The exchange rate between the U.S. Dollar and the Euro is .72 for each U.S. Dollar. This means that the U.S. Dollar is worth more than the Euro. The exchange rate between the U.S. Dollar and Canada is 1.022. This means that the U.S. Dollar is worth .022 more than the Canadian Dollar. The exchange rate for the U.S. Dollar and the Polish Zloty is 2.957. This means that it requires 2.957 Zloty to equal one U.S. Dollar (Exchange-Rates 2011). The trends for these exchange rates are steady for the U.S. Dollar and the three given countries. Over the past year, the rates compared to the U.S. Dollar have slowly risen. The U.S. Dollar has obtained more value in recent years compared to other money. The U.S. Dollar is most equal with the Canadian Loony. 10. Forecast the price of a barrel of oil at June 30, 2010.

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

A management meeting Essay Example for Free

A management meeting Essay Locate and book room/s with suitability for the meeting (teleconference facilities, IT equipment etc). Ideally, 1 large room with 3 smaller meeting rooms for the group activities later in the day. Seating would need to be arranged as there will be people on teleconference, they will need to hear anything being said in the meeting. 2. Send out meeting invites to all attendees. This would list the venue, date and time, speaker, contact details. An agenda of the meeting would be the best way to send out these details as it lists all that information and lets attendees knows how the meeting will be run. 3. Any travel/accommodation for interstate attendees would need to be arranged. Also the same for the guest speaker (if needed). Transfers to and from the airport would be advisable. 4. They would need to ensure if there are any special requirements for the attendees (dietary, mobility, language etc.) and make special arrangements if anything is required – Vegetarian food, wheel chair access, interpreter etc. 5. Arrange IT equipment to be made available for presentation. This could be either through your company if they have the available resources. If not, they may be available already in the meeting rooms you have booked or you could us a 3rd party. 6. Lunch will need to be ordered. Again this may be able to be arranged with the meeting rooms you have booked or you can organize a local caterer. At the same time you could organize refreshments for afternoon tea (and morning tea if required). 7. Ensure all stationary available and if not it will need to be ordered. This could also be for group training later in the day. Butcher paper, whiteboards etc. could all be used if it’s a brainstorming session. 8. Name tags could be organized if managers do not know each other and also may help the presenter for the group meetings. 9. On the day of meeting, all IT equipment should be tested prior to the meeting taking place. Room should be set up according to needs and re-arranged if it’s not correct. 10. A chairperson would need to be selected to run the meeting. The CEO will be the chairperson for this meeting. As the chairperson, they would need to ensure the meeting runs on time, stays on topic and stick to the agenda. 11. The chairperson (the CEO in this case) would need to select a minute taker – this could be a PA or  someone else from the company. It would be helpful if they have taken minutes before or at least are capable of recording a high level of detail at a high pace. They could either take 12. minutes in short form at the meeting and expand on it after or type directly to a PC in the meeting and print out directly after the meeting to be review. 12. Prior to the meeting, the CEO and selected minute taker would need to sit down and discuss what will be spoken about in the meeting, the order of events and just a brief overview of all the key points that will need to be recorded. This way the minute taker knows what they should be focusing on when making notes. 13. Once the meeting is finalized the minutes of the meeting will need to be read through and expanded into a format that can be distributed to all attendees and anyone who may benefit from them. It would be best for the CEO and the minute taker to go through these soon after the meeting to ensure the notes are correct and no key points or discussion points are left off. Once they have had a chance to go through the notes – the minute taker can put into a format which the company uses and can then look at distributing via email, fax or mail. This is also best to be done as soon as they can so it is fresh in everyone’s mind. The minutes from this meeting (and others) should be stored electronically so they can be referenced to in future meetings if needed. 14. All the bookings/arrangements need to be checked off to ensure they are still booked/on time and that no problems are going to arise. This could be done by either the CEO’s PA or generally it would be organized and checked by the Marketing department for the company as they deal with these things on a day to day basis. They would need to call the caterers, travel agents, taxi companies, audio visual people and meeting facility to ensure everything is ok – this needs to be done around 2 days before. Any earlier and there could be problems between when you call and the actual function – any later and if any problems arise it could be too late to make alternative arrangements. 15. From the minutes of the meeting, reports may need to be created to be handed out to relevant employees of the firm. These may have the same details as what is in the minutes but in a more condensed format. It may also include graphs if figures/dates were mentioned and tables to make it easier to understand. They could also include any tasks that have  been assigned so people know who needs to be followed up.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Healthcare for the Elderly in New Zealand

Healthcare for the Elderly in New Zealand Task 1 In life health is being well, free from disease and illness. A disease is caused due to bacteria, microbes, and viruses, genetic problem and some are unknown cause. There are many different health problems and injuries. Some common health issues are mild like colds, cough, headache, malaise. There critical health problems too such as cancer, human immunodeficiency virus and kidney or liver failure. There are health issues that can be prevented or mitigated, cure and treated. Usually age matters because as we grow old evolution and development and progress of certain disease may come because of overdeveloped or overused of our different parts and system of the body like our skeletal, muscular, nervous, respiratory, cardiovascular, lymphatic, endocrine, digestive, urinary, and reproductive. Some are gain due to hereditary factor or through genes due to low immunity system. Geriatric means an old person that needs special care and attention. These are elderly person chronological age of 60 plus years old according to United Nation but over age 65 years in most developed countries. Despite the age range, older adults or sometimes called to be senior people have peculiar healthcare necessity due to health issues and problems. We all know that as we grow older our body system tend to weaken or deteriorates. Thereby, it is vital to know these kinds of diseases to have treatment and be able to prolong life and health. Many of these conditions are preventable with lifestyle changes and treatable. However, there are also health issues that are irreversible, unpreventable and no cure. According to some study and survey, the following are the top ten health problems that cause mortality among adults over age of 65. First, the Heart disease, Cancer – can be breast, lung and colon, Cerebrovascular disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Diabetes (Type II Diabetes), Accident ( High risk fall), Septicemia, Nephritis and Alzheimer disease. Dementia denotes memory loss and brain damage caused by disease called Alzheimer disease or known to be â€Å"series of strokes†. There are different types of dementia such as Lewy body dementia, Fronto Temporal dementia, vascular disease and the most common is Alzheimer. Alzheimer Disease pertains to a protein tangles and plaques develop in the structure of the brain that leads to death of brain cell and this blocks transmission of message to brain. People with these diseases may experience lapse of memory and problem finding correct term of words. The early stage symptoms are forgetfulness of things and names of people, mood swings, loss of confidence or social withdrawal, difficulty in doing daily routine like going to supermarket, cooking and driving. If the disease progresses, they conduce to loss their independence and will obtain some support to continue daily life living. There are test given for early diagnosis like blood test, full physical examination, memory and thinking assessment done by psychologist and Computerised Tomography (CI) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) performed by neurologist. Based on researchers, no single factor was caused by Alzheimer disease. It is a combination of age, genetic inheritance, environmental factor over all general health and lifestyle are responsible. Now, awareness and maintenance of brain health that pertains to diet and physical fitness. There is no cure for this disease however there are drug medicine that can alleviate pain and prolong its progression. An Alzheimer patient must have a particular and practical level of care ensuring them to live as independently as possible for as long as possible. A family support particularly emotional support which is very significant that involves better understanding and respecting them. It also points out health of the one who care or carer, the financial capability, getting support from family and friends and from local services and organisation. There are various types of health concerns involve for elderly people that needs to be assisted. In addition there are different kinds of organisations and or foundation in New Zealand that deals in boosting one’s life. The following are Alzheimer New Zealand, The Stroke Foundation, The Cancer Society of New Zealand, Diabetes New Zealand and Osteoporosis New Zealand. The Alzheimer’s New Zealand is a non- profit organisation. They have 21 local organisations located throughout the country which give information, educational programmes, support and services to the local community. Their aim is to provide information about the sign and symptoms of the disease to both family and the patient. They offer services by supporting and helping spouses, families and partners to cope with caring, educate them by understanding the assessment of diagnosis and medications. These medications lessen the sudden progress of the disease. They also boost in financial support, legal services and have a day and home care. Alzheimer patient will slowly lose their memories. The Stroke Foundation is also a not- for- profit organisation that provides support and awareness to the families and the one affected. It has stroke advisors different clubs throughout New Zealand and provides nationwide network divided in three regions like northern, midland and southern. Their vision is to save lives, to improve outcomes and to enhance life after stroke. We all know that stroke is serious issue often lead to loss of motion and sensation even awareness. Majority of their funds or budgets comes from donation and grants. Saving lives means spreading public awareness on the onset, and immediate action of stroke. Campaigns like blood pressure awareness and F.A.S.T means calling 111 at once and stroke prevention programme. Improving outcomes focuses on health service delivery in rehabilitation, hospital services and treatment outcomes. They published clinical guidelines- National stroke gu idelines and clinical networks in reaching out and meeting the procedures of stroke information. Lastly, Enhancing life after stroke represents the passion of stroke survivors to enhance the quality of life of those affected one. They have trained Community Stroke Advisors that advise on accessing carer-relief services, funding and other stroke related issues. Spouse support group and Stroke clubs for the people who had stroke encouraging them to join social events. The Cancer Society of New Zealand is an independent charity and not funded by the government. They rely on personal support, fund raising and donations. These organisations ensure reduction or decreases of cancer incidence and best care. They provide support services for cancer patient and their family and caregivers; research for saving life; information about cancer and its effects through booklets, leaflets, tapes, CDs, pamphlets and books; health promotion encourages New Zealanders to live a healthier lifestyle. We a ll know that cancer is the abnormal growth of cell or known to be tumor. There are different kinds of cancer like bone, brain, breast, cervical, colon/rectal, endometrial, esophagus, eye, gastrointestinal, kidney, laryngeal, leukemia, liver, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, prostate, skin and others. The Diabetes New Zealand was established in 1962, Diabetes. It is a non-government, non-profit organisation thatrepresents people with diabetes. Their vision and mission is to control, contained and cured that every person with diabetes in New Zealand has the provided support to live fully and actively. We all know that diabetes is having excessive amount of sugar. There are two types of diabetes- Type 1 diabetes mellitus, called as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes and Type 2 diabetes used to be known as non-insulin dependent diabetes or adult-onset diabetes. To acquire it, they give information awareness about types, symptoms and effects of diabetes disease. They help prevent risk and development for type 2 diabetes and encourage diabetic people to live well through lifestyle change. They give gift cards and freebies or funded Optium meter for testing ketone examination if certain individual who have diabetes taking on an insulin pump you are eligible. Osteoporosis New Zealand was launched on October20 1999. It was formed to bring awareness andknowledge of osteoporosis and to raise a national‘voice’ for those with osteoporosis and at riskof developing this bone disease. Their dedications are to improve healthy bone for New Zealanders at all ages and stages of life, to provide advice and patient support and give materials or resources advocating quality access to diagnosis and of medication. They have health professional for fracture assessment. Aside from the organisational support for geriatric there are several service provisions as well namely: hospitals, hospices, residential care, nursing homes, day care, domiciliary care, General Practitioner, pharmacists, social services, psychiatric services, memory services, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, other health and social-care workers, counsellors, dementia advisers, and the like. The following stated provision has peculiar roles in maintaining and assisting the needs of the elderly people lives. Usually certain disease or illness begins on what people eat. This is what a dietician perform help prevent and treat health problems by promoting healthy eating habits. They plan and prepare nutritious food to improve one’s diet and be able to attain the proper nourishment that their body recommended in accordance to their age, gender and health issues. An example a diabetic must control the amount of sugar intake and for hypertensive patients must have low salt and low fat diet. There are different types of dietician based on workplace. In hospital and nursing homes they have clinical dietician that look for the residents or patient’s nutritional requirement consulting the doctor and other health care practitioner to make sure of medical care and nutritional meal plan correlates. With regards to community dietician they counsel people in the clinic and agencies that evaluate dietary needs by talking about one’s lifestyle and giving them some tips and advice on food preparation. For consultant dietician they have their private work for a health care facility on which they provide a nutritional screening for their patient to know their eating habits then counsel them about the amount of food they will partake. An example if the result will be overweight or obese with high blood pressure then consultant dietician can provide the food that needs to reduce cholesterol level and more on high fiber and low salt diet. While management dietician are exp ert in preparing the needs for a large group of individual in a corporation, schools and prison. Mostly older people are tend to be in having multiple medications to handle various problems in health like hypertension or high in blood pressure, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, dementia-Alzheimers disease, severe pain-back pain and migraine, and other typical diseases like colds and infection and health issues associated with age. Geriatric pharmacists, known to be consultant pharmacists, specialize in dispensing drugs and counselling older patients about their medications. They distribute medicines as prescribed or authorized by a doctor or other health professional specialist. Some pharmacists for older people do not allocate drugs at all, but exert effort vividly in consultation position as branch of the health care group taking care of older adults. Their main role is to guarantee the excellent governance of medications for a better patient health in numerous care sites and facility. They also explain to their patient when and how to take the drug, the possible side effect and adverse reaction of the drug, ensure that they don’t interact with another medication, make recommendation in adjustments in dosage regimen and perform monitoring of blood sugar and blood pressure. Beside dispensing and consulting the patient, conferring with the physician and review of patients charts as well. Elderly patients usually bear from health problems like swollen joints (arthritis), inflamed shoulder or elbow (bursitis), and weak bones (osteoporosis). These are frequent huge vale of a lifetime of wear and tear, but can be a bit painful and limiting in concord of individual’s choice and locomotion. Patients who had dementia, Parkinson’s disease and suffers stokes are prone to high risk falls as a consequence which is a vital cover, specifically in old people living by themselves. Therefore, physiotherapist is important in assessing the home of patient and to remove unwanted stress from joints that are very prone to injure. A rehabilitation plan will vary depending on its situation considering the patient and their set of mind or intellectual, their home environment and family/ relative matters, as well as previous family background. Physiotherapist will observe the movement, posture, and gait, as well as daily living, common habits, and their family and social life a ctivity ahead doing suggestion as to how one’s home or environment may be resolve to make livelihood as good and easy as exist. Their goal is to do acclimation that you are relax and blissful with to permit you as much freedom and harm free as possible. A frequent undervalue facet of what a physiotherapist for elder does is an essential of community care. A physiotherapist function is usually in correlation with intellectual health professionals to impel the patient and keep them going in life. A General practitioner also called GP or generalist, one who specialize a certain area of medicine. GPs provide health care routine (examples- vaccination/immunizations and physical examinations or assessment,) and evaluate and handle different diversity of conditions, including illnesses and injuries.They often have usual, long-term patients and deliver ongoing medical attention to both genders- male and female patients and for all types of age groups. An individual who are searching medical care communicate to a general practitioner at once however if a serious matters develops, the generalist will regard them to a certain specialist. A specialist is a physician who has expertise or specializes in a specific field of medicine and has additional training and certificate. Such specialists are urologist, oncologist, nephrologists, cardiologist and neurologist). A general practitioner usual workplace is in a private clinics or entity and can be part of a health maintenance organisation. They are assisted by staff of nurses. Domiciliary CareorDom Care or known as home care is based on home living environment and arrangement for adults or older one who are not capable to live by alone. They need assistance withactivities of daily living because of age-related impairments of physical, mental or visual disabilities. Such activities are bathing and grooming; taking medication, preparing meals and feeding, housekeeping and laundry are delivered through the co-ordinated services of Care Workers, Nurses, and other health care practitioner. Hospice is a philosophy of care. A patient living in this facility has a life limit condition, under treatment or critically ill- example heart failure, motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis and cancer. Their aim is to help people to live the most out of it. They have whole person approach in all aspect of life- physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social needs are significant. Moreover, they provide additional advice and support to their family and carers. In a nutshell, there are varieties of health conditions that occur in elderly people. Support comes from the family and carers. There are different kinds of support organisation and service provision whose vision is to give information about patient’s condition, reduce progression, give empathy and sympathy and provide help to maintain their daily routine. Not only have they given care to the patient but also give advice and counsel to patient’s family, friends and their carer. Task 2 All residential care governed by guidelines that provide well information, compliance and support to boost one’s client life and their love ones. Here are three impacts in analyzing management identified in stigma impacts for elders with common health problems: Social isolation of the individual and their family, assumption of automatic loss of independence and unable to make decisions about own care. Social isolation is the deficient of interest in social, communication dealings or in touch with other people. Those who isolate themselves have lack affinity to their love ones. It can distinct through physical disunion, social hindrance and mental thinking. Conditions: Physical Mental Emotional Personality/Character Disorders: Multiple Sclerosis Handicapped Schizophrenia Autism Phobias Post traumatic disorder Impacts: Shame Embarrassment Depression Anxiety Possible suicide Addiction Grief Loneliness Decrease low self- esteem Nutrition problem ( common to elders) Interventions: Join social clubs: sports/ hobby Therapies: Aromatherapy, Massage Community group activities Educational class for fears/ hopes Church Meditation Loss of Independence in the elderly can be mentally damage why because often people have their own choice, decision in their life and they can perform their own task, job or activity on how they want. Now, someone will assist or help them to do something for them. Their daily routine will be handled by others. They loss the important aspect of like: freedom. Effects: Feeling useless Depression Safety: home Community resources: Grocery shopping Paying bills Transportation: inability to drive Interventions: Family assistance and comfort: monetary Helper/Carer in a facility/home In safety home: alarm, monitoring system Unable to make medical decision Consent is called if an elderly patient agrees or makes own decision to have medication. However, if the patient can no longer decide due to mental disorder or unaware then someone else, a substituted consent will decide for them. Factors to consider that a patient can decide to treatment: Origin and intention of the sickness Origin and intention of the treatment Benefits and disadvantage of the treatment Effects of not having the treatment Substituted Consent: Married, civil-union spouse, common-law partner If no spouse/partner: close relative, close friend Substituted consent people can ac only for the best of the patient and must grant the wish especially if the patient has a living will or instruction to the relatives. On the other hand, incapable patient can refuse medical care and it is court’s decision. In a nutshell, these impact are the barriers that affects an elder to live on their own, they loss independence, decision and capabilities. Therefore, sympathy and empathy will provide by the family, friends and carer that is best for them with respect.

Friday, October 25, 2019

The Warning of Fahrenheit 451 :: Fahrenheit 451 Essays

The Warning of Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a novel about a materialistic society that has forgotten social interaction with each other. This materialistic society is where Bradbury believed society today is headed<THE TENSES HERE ARE A LITTLE CONFUSING.>. The materialistic society in Fahrenheit 451 created through Bradbury's cynic views of society<THIS IS A FRAGMENT SENTANCE.> His views of society are over-exaggerated in contrast with today's events, especially in the areas of censorship and media mediocrity. The purpose of media is quite SIMPLY, "a warning signal--information--that alerts the citizens that something is wrong which needs attention and resolution. An aware and informed populace could then influence its leaders to act upon that information in an effort to solve that problem" (Jensen, Project Censored). But Media has often been criticized for promoting a mass mediocrity, because it only tells the public what it wants to hear. The idea of Media promoting mass mediocrity is a reoccurring image in Fahrenheit 451. Such is not the case in today's society. One of the most successful freedom fighting campaign has been the Tibetan Freedom Concert, a rock concert where artists and citizens converge, sharing their views for Tibetan freedom from Chinese oppression. Over the three years of its existence, the concert has generated so much publicity that it has forced President Bill Clinton to step in and try to hasten the negotiation between the Chinese government and the Dal ai Lama. In a Sonicnet Music News article, the Dalai Lama said, "'Through this live show, many, many Chinese will have gained a better awareness of President Clinton's feelings about Tibet, and also President Jiang's feelings, and I think that can be enormously helpful in the long run.'" (Media Inclusion 1) The Dalai Lama expresses the importance of publicity that has first been generated by the Tibetan Freedom Concert. Not only did it create awareness for the Chinese as the Dalai Lama suggested; it also created awareness around the world, especially in North America. Ask any North American teenager,"What they feel towards the idea of Tibetan oppression from the Chinese?", just ask him "Where Tibet is?" three years ago and he would probably look confused and answer by asking "Would you like fries with that?".<THIS MADE VERY LITTLE SENSE.> Ask that same teenager now, and he would likely give an educated response. The Tibetan Freedom Concert is just an example of how powerful modern media is if it can be used properly.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Characters’ Transformation Essay

Pride and Prejudice is one of the most popular novels written by Jane Austen which was foremost published in 1813. It is more than a narrative of love which revolves around the lives of the Bennett household and the affluent male visitants of Hertfordshire. The broad assortment of personalities in the narrative contributed to the novel’s attractive and compelling characteristics to day of the month. However. the novel seemingly portrayed several transmutations in relation to the chief characters. Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy were clearly different sorts of people who subsequently proved themselves to be the ideal lucifer for each other. Clearly. the transmutation of Elizabeth and Darcy’s characters were made possible by their ain pride and biass against each other. This fact. hence. illustrates the thought that the character transmutation would most probably non happen without the defects and headlong judgements of the two chief characters of the Jane Austen’s celebrated novel. Character Transformation Thoroughly reexamining the whole context of the narrative. the diverse personalities of the characters are what made it possible to get in a certain character transmutation. Each character is provided a characteristic that is distinguishable to other characters. Elizabeth Bennett. an interesting character so. possesses traits which are really much different from her sisters. Here is one of her statements to Darcy included in Chapter 19 where she rejects him the first clip he proposed to get married her and considered to be one of the polar bends in the narrative which caused the alteration in both Elizabeth and Darcy’s character: I do assure you. Sir. that I have no pretense whatever to that sort of elegance which consists in torturing a respectable adult male. I would instead be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you once more and once more for the award you have done me in your proposals. but to accept them is perfectly impossible. My feelings in every regard forbid it. Can I talk plainer? Do non see me now as an elegant female. meaning to blight you. but as a rational animal. talking the truth from her bosom ( Austen 97 ) . Elizabeth Bennett’s character speaks much of a strong personality which is highly opinionative and bold. Unlike her younger sisters. she does non let societal position and wealth to interfere with her criterions for love. However. in her statement. biass toward Darcy are apparent for she has already judged him without cognizing him good foremost. However. at the terminal of the narrative. she regrets holding misjudged the adult male upon cognizing the existent Fitzwilliam Darcy. On the other manus. Darcy’s character besides reveals pride and bias on his first feeling towards Elizabeth. His statement where she declared Elizabeth as tolerable but non beautiful plenty to involvement him because of her hapless societal position discloses how proud he was to avoid being acquainted with such a adult female ( Austen 9 ) . Similarly. he took back his word when he found out how interesting and intelligent Elizabeth was which led him to squeal his feelings and offer a matrimony proposal. Unfortunately. his first proposal was rejected. Upon the terminal of the novel. it is sensible to reason that Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy really have similar features which can be considered dry. Both are intelligent. witty. opinionated. and proud. There are besides cases when they have exposed Acts of the Apostless of biass towards some characters in the narrative. chiefly themselves. Elizabeth deemed Darcy to be an highly chesty and proud adult male when she by chance heard him state that he was non interested in her due to her hapless position in the society. She thought him to be a spoilt affluent adult male who is unsociable and selfish. In return. Darcy besides showed his biass towards her by thought that she was non right for him because she belonged to the lower category portion of the society. Hence. the state of affairs indicates how their unprompted and superficial judgements of each other led them to take back their words and eliminate their pride and biass towards each other. They bit by bit transformed into low existences who were capable of acknowledging and accepting their defects. Harmonizing to Christopher Booker. writer of The Seven Basic Plots: What we see here is a narrative wholly shaped by the implicit in signifier of Comedy. but in a new sort of intervention where the conventions about misinterpretations. camouflages. failure to acknowledge individuality and ‘dark’ figures acquiring caught out are no longer presented in the footings of the old phase devices. but instead more subtly. in footings of the gradual disclosure of people’s true character from behind first misguided feelings. and the find of true feelings. in a manner which corresponds more to our experience of life ( Booker 134 ) . Therefore. two people. even with similar features may non hold similar end products and can still be regarded contradictory in footings of beliefs. Like the characters in the narrative. all have distinct personalities which enabled them to make up one's mind the manner they did. If Elizabeth did non hurriedly judged Darcy in the first topographic point which led her into rejecting his first matrimony proposal. Darcy would non hold humbled himself into farther prosecuting Elizabeth despite her initial rejection. He would non hold rescued her household from societal shame and uncover his true nature. Simply put. Elizabeth would non hold alteration her sentiment about Darcy and most likely reject him still. She would non hold fallen in love with him and alter her ways of being filled with biass. The undermentioned scenarios created a immense impact in the adulthood and development of the characters in the narrative which proves that the transmutation is so dependent on the characters’ actions and determinations. Harmonizing to Nhu Le’s on-line article entitled. The Individualization of Elizabeth Bennet. she points out that: Although Elizabeth comes to hold that Darcy’s old actions were so justified. . . this transmutation â€Å"disables† Elizabeth’s capacity to get at. and act upon. her ain judgements. On the contrary. Darcy’s missive strengthens Elizabeth’s independency of head. By accepting the fact that she has misjudged Darcy. Wickham. Jane. and Bingley. Elizabeth sharpens her ability to spot character. In bend. she develops a solidly based assurance ( Le ) . As one critic puts it. â€Å"Both Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy develop an consciousness of their topographic point in the community and a acknowledgment of the effects of their ain speech† ( Colebrook 158 ) . Conclusion Clearly. the statements stated above place the construct that Elizabeth and Darcy’s character transmutation would non hold been possible without their errors and initial false feelings of each other. This validates the fact that their development as persons is extremely rooted from their determinations and headlong judgments—or instead their ain pride and biass. Works Cited Austen. Jane. Pride and Prejudice: A Novel. London: R. Bentley. 1853. Booker. Christopher. The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. 2005. Colebrook. Claire. Irony. London: Routledge. 2004. Le. Nhu. The Individualization of Elizabeth Bennet. 16 December 2008. & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. Colorado. edu/pwr/occasions/articles/lizbennet. hypertext markup language & gt ;

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Mothers Who Abuse essays

Mothers Who Abuse essays Mothers can abuse children in many ways. The main form of abuse most people think of is physical. Some other important forms are related to alcohol, tobacco, and cocaine use. There are many effects resulting from the use of alcohol, tobacco, and cocaine during pregnancy. One form of abuse a fetus can experience is the use of alcohol by the mother. A direct result from alcohol use by some mothers is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome is a serious health problem that tragically affects its victims and their families, but that is completely preventable. Causing a child to suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome is really nothing short of child abuse and it lasts for life. Babies born with fetal alcohol syndrome tend to weigh less and be shorter than normal. They usually suffer from smaller heads, deformed facial features, abnormal joints and limbs, poor coordination, problems with learning, and short memories. Victims of fetal alcohol syndrome often experience mental health problems, a disrupted school experience, inappropriate sexual behavior, trouble with the law, alcohol and drug problems, difficulty caring for themselves and their children, and homelessness. Another form of abuse a fetus can experience is the use of tobacco by the mother. Smoking during pregnancy can cause different problems than alcohol. The main problem with tobacco use during pregnancy is the dirtiness of tobacco. It contains about four thousand different chemicals, including heavy metals, tars, gases, and even radioactive materials. Two of the best known chemicals in cigarette smoke are nicotine and carbon monoxide. Both reduce oxygen flow to the fetus, while nicotine speeds up heartbeat and increases blood pressure in the fetus. There are many risks of smoking during pregnancy. One risk is delayed growth. The more a woman smokes, the less her baby grows. Twice as many babies weighing less than five pounds are born to smokers...

Monday, October 21, 2019

Demolitian Man essays

Demolitian Man essays Demolition Man, a movie set in the year 2032, has several characters that have different beliefs on life. The movie takes place in San Angelos, California. San Angelos is a city that was built after an earthquake destroyed the city of Los Angeles in 2010. The city now appears to be governed by strict rules in order for peace, love, and harmony. There are two different groups in the movie representing powers of uniformity and freedom of choice. One of the groups is the people living in the Utopian society who represent uniformity. The other group is people who live in the sewers of the city, known as the scraps, who believe in freedom of choice. Some of the differences between these two groups are their particular character actions, language, and appearance. In the city of San Angelos, the leader, Mr. Cockto exhibits fascist tendencies. He wants control of everyone in this city. Therefore, he programs people to live their lives around peace, love, and harmony. It is no longer possible to be hateful to anyone in this society. He is a very selfish man who wants people to be dependent on him or the fiborotic system of the city. For example, the police officers are so dependent on this system, they do not know how to handle a criminal from the past. The officers have to ask their computers to help them approach an angry citizen. The computer tells the officer to speak in a loud, firm voice and say, Lie down with your hands behind your back! This does not work, and the officers do not look very intelligent, because they cannot think for themselves. Mr. Cockto bans many things that could affect the societys brain chemistry. Some of these things are caffeine, salt, meat, cigarettes, and chocolate. He also does not want people to have freedom of expression, so he bans c ...

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Free Essays on Drugs And Their Abuses

Drugs have become a very serious problem in the United States. They have become a component of one’s every day lives. This Nation’s reliance on drugs for pleasure, depression, and medical relief dominates the political and economic scene. Much debate over the drug issue occurs daily. Pleasure is one of the main reasons for drug use in America. Drugs are used daily by all different age groups. Some of the more common drugs used are marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes, and heroin. Among the younger users, marijuana, alcohol, and cigarettes are most prevalent in our society. Alcohol is widely used by both adults and teens. More often than ever we are seeing younger kids get in alcohol related accidents. It is becoming heavily abused as each minute passes by. More and more people are getting addicted to alcohol and are running their lives. Sure, it does give them a buzz and a good feeling for a while, but once one gets addicted it can totally ruin their life. Marijuana is also a very harmful drug. When one uses it for pleasure, they are looking for a high that last for four or five hours. A person might just start to smoke once in a while, but before no time, they are addicted to it and there’s no turning back. Marijuana is known to be a stepping stone. That is true, 90% of those using hard drugs, such as heroin, started with marijuana. People do get a high and do feel good but overall marijuana is bad for you. If used as a teen it can cause retarding of the normal brain cells. Cigarettes on the other hand are not thought of as being a drug. Well they are. Cigarettes are probably the easiest drug to get a hold of. When a person smokes, they not only put themselves in danger but they put other in danger also. When a person lights up a cigarette they get short buzz. At the same time they are also harming their body’s. Nicotine, which is what gets people addicted, can cause many illnesses. It is known to cause lu... Free Essays on Drugs And Their Abuses Free Essays on Drugs And Their Abuses Drugs have become a very serious problem in the United States. They have become a component of one’s every day lives. This Nation’s reliance on drugs for pleasure, depression, and medical relief dominates the political and economic scene. Much debate over the drug issue occurs daily. Pleasure is one of the main reasons for drug use in America. Drugs are used daily by all different age groups. Some of the more common drugs used are marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes, and heroin. Among the younger users, marijuana, alcohol, and cigarettes are most prevalent in our society. Alcohol is widely used by both adults and teens. More often than ever we are seeing younger kids get in alcohol related accidents. It is becoming heavily abused as each minute passes by. More and more people are getting addicted to alcohol and are running their lives. Sure, it does give them a buzz and a good feeling for a while, but once one gets addicted it can totally ruin their life. Marijuana is also a very harmful drug. When one uses it for pleasure, they are looking for a high that last for four or five hours. A person might just start to smoke once in a while, but before no time, they are addicted to it and there’s no turning back. Marijuana is known to be a stepping stone. That is true, 90% of those using hard drugs, such as heroin, started with marijuana. People do get a high and do feel good but overall marijuana is bad for you. If used as a teen it can cause retarding of the normal brain cells. Cigarettes on the other hand are not thought of as being a drug. Well they are. Cigarettes are probably the easiest drug to get a hold of. When a person smokes, they not only put themselves in danger but they put other in danger also. When a person lights up a cigarette they get short buzz. At the same time they are also harming their body’s. Nicotine, which is what gets people addicted, can cause many illnesses. It is known to cause lu...

Saturday, October 19, 2019

The Human Rights dimensions of International Petroleum Transactions Article

The Human Rights dimensions of International Petroleum Transactions - Article Example t importantly, the other day companies operating in countries with unpleasant governments had to face tough time because of non-governmental organizations that endanger their most inestimable assets, their good reputation1. The ignorance of human rights’ responsibilities by the multinational companies around the globe in general and the multinational companies specifically operating in unattractive areas are vulnerable to the print and electronic media and nongovernmental organizations. If we study the latest Human Rights Report, it is clear that it indicates the positive role of MNCs in reducing the human rights violations to some extent. However, it was felt that more effort needs to be made to satisfy the cited Medias (print and electronic media) and the NGOs2. Now the international companies realized that business and protection of human beings is necessary to create conducive environment to carry on their businesses. The following publications may provide the readers an insight of corporate responsibilities of International Companies towards protection of human rights in their area of operations: a) Corporations and Human Rights, b) Crackdown in the Niger Delta, c) Human Rights Violations In Nigerias Oil Producing Region, d) The Price Of Oil: Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights Violations in Nigerias Oil Producing Communities and e) The Enron Corporation: Corporate Complicity in Human Rights Violations3. The year 1994 is remembered for a longer period in the history of oil and gas in view of the execution of KEN Saro Wiwa and other human rights’ activists by the Nigerian regime. Soon after the said incident, Shell came under immense pressure and scrutiny of international human rights’ groups and the press. Initially the top notch of Shell denied their hands in executing mentioned human rights activists. Later on, it compelled Shell responsible officials to sit with the Human Rights Groups of United Kingdom to revisit their inhuman rights

Friday, October 18, 2019

Strategic Partnering within the UK Construction Industry Dissertation

Strategic Partnering within the UK Construction Industry - Dissertation Example i Acknowledgements Firstly I would like to thank my mother, Madonna Barr, who through everything has always provided me with encouragement, love and support. Secondly I would like to thank my family. Firstly my partner Michael Mc Grotty, whose continuous support has made me realize my potential and with that the person I am. Secondly my two darling kids, Dylan and Caitlin, for putting up with me being tired after many late nights working on this. Thirdly I would like to thank, Chris Ajala and Simon Weir for taking the time to answer my questionnaires and meet up with me, on many occasions, to discuss partnering. Last but certainly not least, i would like to thank The School Of The Built Environmant, at Leeds Metropolitan University for their never ending encouragement and support, namely Dr Dave Roberts, Ellen Glover, Chris Gorse and Dave Pearse. ii Declaration I, Aisling Barr, declare that this work is my own and has been adequately referenced in accordance with the Harvard Referencing System. Signed. .......................................................... iii Contents Page Abstract i Acknowledgement ii Declaration iii List of Figures iv SECTION 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 9-13 Chapter II Executive summary 14-15 SECTION II INSIGHT INTO THE CONTRUCTION INDUSTRY PARNERSHIPS Chapter I The Partnerships The partnerships: the concept 18 Disadvantages 20 High performance production systems 20 Partnering and the production in the construction industry 21 The concept of partnering 22 Defining partnerships in construction 22 Management 22 Behavioral patterns 23 Factors for the... The concept of partnering, according to Broome (2002) was first generalized as being developed in the construction industry in Japan in the 1980's, and with that the application of total quality management and lean manufacturing concepts, where taken from manufacturing industries there. Furthermore Broome (2002) states, â€Å"The motivation for partnering and its popularization came from the USA†. Winch (2002) says that partnering in the UK came about due to the failure of traditional procurement methods ability to meet with client demands and with that the achievement of project objectives. Sir Michael Latham's report, (Constructing the Team, 1994) commissioned by the government and industry, recognized the need for a solution to the on-going problems within the construction industry. It explained the aspects of partnering and suggested that it would bring significant benefits to all parties. As partnering is not specific to the construction industry, there are many definitions. According to Telford (2002), partnering has been explained as: â€Å"A relationship between purchasers and providers of goods and services throughout the supply chain. The relationship is designed to achieve specific business objectives by maximizing the effectiveness of each participant’s resource. The relationship is based on mutual objectives, an agreed method of problem resolution and an active search for continuous measurable improvements.† A Partnering definition from the Construction Industry Institute, 1989 states:

Jenny Holzer Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Jenny Holzer - Research Paper Example Modern viewer wants to come, to see and to grasp the idea at once. Perhaps, due to these features of our contemporary life art responds with new techniques more suitable for perceiving by contemporary people. One of these techniques is test-as-image. Long before, Jasper Johns placed familiar images and stenciled words on equal footing thus giving birth to a new direction in art. To introduce art and text I have chosen Jenny Holzer, who, among modern artists, perhaps more than anyone, has restricted contemporary art to text. For more than 30 years this conceptual artist has been creating the relationship between didactic text and image. In her works she manages to reflect the bitter realities of our everyday life so strongly and vividly that her messages are clear for everyone despite of education, level of cultural development and view of life. In the late 70s she filled the streets of Lower Manhattan with her posters contained Nietzsche-like Truisms. First this look strange and was not accepted as works of art but later it turned out that in her works Jenny Holzer acted as art world’s soothsayer. She foresees and expresses important aspects of our life, for example, her best known truism reads: â€Å"Abuse of power comes as no surprise.† Isn’t this what we can see in politics? For Jenny Holzer text means much if not everything. At first she wrote her own texts but later started using the texts written by other famous, well-known people, such as the Polish Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska, Henri Cole (USA), Elfriede Jelinek (Austria), Fadhil Al-Azawi (Iraq), Yehuda Amichai (Israel) and Mahmoud Darwish (Palestine). Why are her works getting more and more popular today? I think the reason is that they are burning. They are not aimed at satisfying out aesthetic needs, they do not please our eyes with bright colors, beautiful sceneries, and interesting faces. Holzer’s works are aimed at uncovering the realities. This is why they are ful l of violence, sexuality, oppression, power, war and death. At the same time they seem to have mercy upon our feelings as all these things are depicted not through the images but mostly through the text. With her works Jenny Holzer makes us think and understand the life, which surrounds us. She brings to light and shows us something that was in shade and in silence, something that was intended to be hidden. Most of jenny Holzer works impress me greatly – I adore her ability to perfectly combine text and image. She does it so precisely that you can add nothing to this – everything is already expressed by only a few words. She applies texts from different contexts governmental documents or passages from de-classified US Army documents from the war in Iraq. For instance one of her LED works presents passages â€Å"from the minutes of interrogations of American soldiers who had committed human rights violations and war crimes in Abu Ghraib† (Walleston). Thus she wan ts to make public what was once hidden. Depicting dark dirty aspects of her country and citizens’ life Janny seems to repent American sins before the whole world and warn Americans of possibility to fall into the fire of war, violence and hatred. In my work I would like to draw attention to the hardest political edge of Holzer’s works – â€Å"Redaction Paintings†. They are huge black-and-white silkscreens presenting the passages from de-classified governmental documents blacked out by censors. They vividly expose the secret deeds

Modern pricing models Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Modern pricing models - Essay Example Some of the shortcomings experienced with the Black-Scholes model were strike-price bias and return skewness. Consequently, the development of the Heston model came in as the best alternative tool for the purposes of advanced investments (Gilli, Maringer & Schumann 2011, p.257). As any other stochastic volatility model, the Heston model utilizes statistical methods when making calculations or forecasts of the various pricing options in consideration. As such, it also bases on the assumption that the underlying security or trading option has an arbitrary volatility. Therefore, the Heston model falls among the various different models of stochastic volatility such as the GARCH model, the Chen model, as well as the SABR model. Consequently, the Heston Model also falls under the standard smile model category, with â€Å"smile† in this concept referring to the volatility smile. A volatility smile is a graphical representation of various options that have identical expiration date expressing an increasing volatility. This increase in volatility arises often arises when the options become more out of the money or in the money. The concave shape generated by the graph is what gives rise to the name, the smiles model, as it appears like a smile (Wang 2007, p. 3). The Heston Model applies mathematical calculations in describing the process of evolution in volatility that an underlying asset undergoes under the stochastic volatility options. As such, just as other statistical models mentioned above, the Heston Model equally has a number of assumptions, such as the volatility of an asset not being constant, or deterministic, but rather following a random process. Some the of the basic assumptions of the Heston Model is that the stochastic process determines the asset price, St In addition, forms part of the Wiener Process as experienced under the GBM (Geometric Brownian Motion) also considered

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Productivity and Cost Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Productivity and Cost - Case Study Example Given this basic economics law, companies must manage their resources effectively to create a more productive environment given their resources. In this regard, I examined the strategic decision of Company ABC - one of the largest personal computers and laptop manufacturers in the world and how this strategic decision incorporate the law of diminishing marginal productivity and the relationship of productivity and cost. Recently, Company ABC revamped its compensation and benefits program for its operations people. The new compensation and benefits program affects the salaries, wages and benefits of all production people - those employees who are directly involved in the manufacture and production of the company's products. The most prominent revision in the company's compensation package is the awarding of incentive to a production team's productivity rather than on the individual team member's performance. At the end of each month, the team's actual productivity is measured and compared to the team's target productivity for the month, then the team is given a bonus based on how well they exceeded performance and then the team divides the bonus to its members. The division is equal. Say, the team bonus is for $1000 and there are 5 members in the team, then each one will get $200 as incentive bonus. By directly linking the individual employee's incentive with that individual's team's productivity performance, Company ABC virtually acknowledge that the individual has a little impact on productivity and that the team's effort has a much more significant impact. Moreover, by putting the responsibility on productivity at the team level, the company is, in a sense, giving the responsibility to the team on how to fill up slacks in the team so its productivity does not suffer. This means that whenever a team member is absent, whether on sick or vacation leave, the team is responsible in ensuring that the team's productivity does not suffer in spite of the absence. I think that the decision to link incentive and team productivity is a very clever decision. The new incentive program allows the company a chance to increase its productivity without significantly increasing the company's payroll expenses. Moreover, by putting the responsibility to monitor productivity at the team level, slackers or below average employees will be pressured by the rest of the team to contribute more into the team's productivity efforts. However, according to the law of diminishing marginal productivity, the increase in the company's productivity as a result of the revision of the company's incentive program for its production employees will eventually diminishes. Hence, a new incentive program alone is not enough to sustain the increase in productivity for a long time. Another strategic decision should accompany the revised incentive program. According to the neoclassical growth theory, the "real GDP [or gross domestic product] per person grows because technological change induces a level of saving ad investment that make capital per hour of labor grow" (CFA, 2008, p. 440). Hence, a revised incentive program and an introduction of a technological change in the company's production floor will go a long way in terms of Company ABC's productivity. Interview with several production managers and employees of Company ABC reveals that this is actually what the company did and planned from the beginning. The company introduced its new incentive pro

Legal Research Pathfinder Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Legal Pathfinder - Research Paper Example C. 2008). That is child sexual harassment. As per Dziech, sexual harassment in education remains an overlooked problem in the society, with the senior management of these educational institutions refusing its existence and refraining from taking any strict, efficacious action against it (Lewis, J. F., & Hastings, S. C. 1994; Layman, N. S. 1994; Machay, J.). Needless to say, this problem exists even outside educational institutions and does warrant some immediate action against it. This is my personal opinion that when we adults are more or less aware of what is going on, when someone whistles in the street or leers at us in the elevator, a child does not have the necessary level of social understanding and power to know what is going on and how to stand up against it, not to mention of the subsequent mental trauma and depression (W. L. Felstiner, R. L. Abel & A. Sarat, 1980-1981). Being responsible citizens of the country, it is our duty to take care of the future of our country, and these children are the future of our country. Needless to say, every state has its own set of child sexual abuse laws and a person who has been impeached with child sexual abuse at the federal level, may still face serious consequences at the state level. Statutory rape, in the simplest of definitions, is basically sexual exploitation of the minor (USC Title 18 - Crimes and Criminal Procedure). As noted in the IPT Journal - "Child Sexual Abuse: Is the Routine Provision of Psychotherapy Warranted?† The notion that child sexual abuse is a "destroyer" of mental health  has been based largely on studies involving clinical samples (Berliner & Elliott, 1996). And this is proved by a numerous real-life examples as well. For example, the study done by the social working group ‘Mkombozi’ on the Tanzanian schools showed a shocking incident of a young boy being sexually abused by the members of the neighborhood school (CRIN - Violence Study -

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Modern pricing models Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Modern pricing models - Essay Example Some of the shortcomings experienced with the Black-Scholes model were strike-price bias and return skewness. Consequently, the development of the Heston model came in as the best alternative tool for the purposes of advanced investments (Gilli, Maringer & Schumann 2011, p.257). As any other stochastic volatility model, the Heston model utilizes statistical methods when making calculations or forecasts of the various pricing options in consideration. As such, it also bases on the assumption that the underlying security or trading option has an arbitrary volatility. Therefore, the Heston model falls among the various different models of stochastic volatility such as the GARCH model, the Chen model, as well as the SABR model. Consequently, the Heston Model also falls under the standard smile model category, with â€Å"smile† in this concept referring to the volatility smile. A volatility smile is a graphical representation of various options that have identical expiration date expressing an increasing volatility. This increase in volatility arises often arises when the options become more out of the money or in the money. The concave shape generated by the graph is what gives rise to the name, the smiles model, as it appears like a smile (Wang 2007, p. 3). The Heston Model applies mathematical calculations in describing the process of evolution in volatility that an underlying asset undergoes under the stochastic volatility options. As such, just as other statistical models mentioned above, the Heston Model equally has a number of assumptions, such as the volatility of an asset not being constant, or deterministic, but rather following a random process. Some the of the basic assumptions of the Heston Model is that the stochastic process determines the asset price, St In addition, forms part of the Wiener Process as experienced under the GBM (Geometric Brownian Motion) also considered

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Legal Research Pathfinder Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Legal Pathfinder - Research Paper Example C. 2008). That is child sexual harassment. As per Dziech, sexual harassment in education remains an overlooked problem in the society, with the senior management of these educational institutions refusing its existence and refraining from taking any strict, efficacious action against it (Lewis, J. F., & Hastings, S. C. 1994; Layman, N. S. 1994; Machay, J.). Needless to say, this problem exists even outside educational institutions and does warrant some immediate action against it. This is my personal opinion that when we adults are more or less aware of what is going on, when someone whistles in the street or leers at us in the elevator, a child does not have the necessary level of social understanding and power to know what is going on and how to stand up against it, not to mention of the subsequent mental trauma and depression (W. L. Felstiner, R. L. Abel & A. Sarat, 1980-1981). Being responsible citizens of the country, it is our duty to take care of the future of our country, and these children are the future of our country. Needless to say, every state has its own set of child sexual abuse laws and a person who has been impeached with child sexual abuse at the federal level, may still face serious consequences at the state level. Statutory rape, in the simplest of definitions, is basically sexual exploitation of the minor (USC Title 18 - Crimes and Criminal Procedure). As noted in the IPT Journal - "Child Sexual Abuse: Is the Routine Provision of Psychotherapy Warranted?† The notion that child sexual abuse is a "destroyer" of mental health  has been based largely on studies involving clinical samples (Berliner & Elliott, 1996). And this is proved by a numerous real-life examples as well. For example, the study done by the social working group ‘Mkombozi’ on the Tanzanian schools showed a shocking incident of a young boy being sexually abused by the members of the neighborhood school (CRIN - Violence Study -

Activity Intended for Enhancing a Skill Essay Example for Free

Activity Intended for Enhancing a Skill Essay This paper examines the effectiveness of the activity that is carried out in order to enhance a particular skill. The activity of turning letters into words is selected and carried out as a game between the members of an identified group with the main objective being attainment of improved group performance and development. The paper examines the degree of response achieved in the skill with the help of the intended activity. The game of Turning Letters into Words is an activity that is chosen to improve the development and performance of a group and is a great tool to develop knowledge abilities and skills through participation. Dividing the whole group into smaller teams helps in building a structured approach towards shared group objective. This activity creates a stimulating learning environment for each member and hones their behavioral skills to maximize the team’s performance and development. All the members participate fully in terms giving individual contribution as well as working together with others. Being an integral part of the team and having the responsibility of making the maximum words possible with the provided letters, gives a boost to the team spirit. Each member is then supposed to question oneself about whether the letters contributed by him/her helped or restricted the team members in making the most of the needed long words. This brings out the feeling of cohesiveness and suppresses the individualistic approach, which helps in rapid increase in performance levels. The collective act of choosing the letters and making maximum words not just brings the members together, but also promotes the feeling of trust, cooperation and the winning streak. The feeling of competing at the group level helps he members to cope with the distinct behaviors and perspectives, without getting into the blame game. Each member strives to achieve the maximum number of words by unknowingly working towards the strengths and weaknesses of their own teams and articulating the team’s vision. The activity of forming words as a team helps in establishing clear team guidelines, objectives and a well thought out team orientation process. The process of mapping the individual performance with the team’s overall performance while working at a high capacity in the present role augments the group development to accomplish the maximum performance. However, a close scrutiny of the team members’ reaction reveals that the age group is a significant factor in defining the individual’s response to such skill enhancing activities. The different set of values and attitude characterize the way the older generation is not so rapid with coming up with new words. The newer generation however responds more quickly to such skill grinding activities. Therefore, it can be concluded that strategically designed activities can surely be used to facilitate requisite skills such as yielding performance metrics, provided the management is well knowledgeable about the degree of responsiveness. References http://www. teambuildingportal. com/games/turning-letters-words. php

Monday, October 14, 2019

Study On The Objectives Of The Bse Sensex Finance Essay

Study On The Objectives Of The Bse Sensex Finance Essay BSE SENSEX is the short form of the BSE Sensitive Index. The index is widely used to measure the performance of the Indian Stock Market. It is a Market Capitalization Weighted index of 30 stocks representing a sample of large, liquid, well established and financially sound companies. The index is widely reported in both, the domestic and international, print and electronic media and is widely used to measure the performance of the Indian stock markets. The BSE Sensex is the benchmark index of the Indian capital market and one which has the longest social memory. In fact the Sensex is considered to be the pulse of the Indian stock markets. It is the oldest index in India and has acquired a unique place in the collective consciousness of investors. Further, as the oldest index of the Indian Stock Market, it provides time series data over a fairly long period of time. One of the most important attributes of Sensex is to maintain continuity with the past i.e. to update the base year av erage. The base year value adjustment ensures that the rights issue and new capital of the index scrips do not destroy the value of the index. The day-to-day maintenance of the Sensex is done by the Bombay Stock Exchange and special care is taken to include only those scrips, which pass through several filters. The Stock Exchange, Mumbai popularly known as BSE was established in 1875 as The Native Share and Stock Brokers Association. It is the oldest one in Asia, even older than the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which was established in 1878. It is a voluntary non-profit making Association of Persons (AOP) and is the first Stock Exchange in the country to have obtained permanent recognition in 1956 from the Government of India under the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956. The Exchange, while providing an efficient and transparent market for trading in securities, debt and derivatives upholds the interests of the investors and ensures redressal of their grievances whether against the companies or its own member brokers. A Governing Board having 20 directors is the apex body, which decides the policies and regulates the affairs of the Exchange. The Governing Board consists of 9 elected directors, who are from the broking community (one-third of them retire every year by rotation), three SEBI nominees (Securities Exchange Board of India), six public representatives an Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer and a Chief Operating Officer. The Executive Director and the Chief Executive Officer are responsible for the day-to-day administration of the Exchange and he is assisted by the Chief Operating Officer and other Heads of Departments. OBJECTIVES The BSE Sensex is the benchmark Index of the Indian Stock Market with wide acceptance among individual investors, institutional investors and fund managers. The objectives of the index are: Æ’ËÅ" TO MEASURE MARKET MOVEMENTS Given its long history and wide acceptance, no other index matches the BSE Sensex in reflecting market movements and sentiments. Sensex is widely used to describe the mood in the Indian Stock Market. Æ’ËÅ" BENCHMARK FOR FUNDS PERFORMANCE The inclusion of the Blue chip companies and the wide and balanced industry representation in the Sensex makes it the ideal benchmark for fund managers to compare the performance of their funds. Æ’ËÅ" FOR INDEX BASED DERIVATIVE PRODUCTS Since Sensex comprises of leading companies in all the significant sectors in the economy, we believe that it will be the most liquid contract in the Indian market and will garner a pre dominant market share LISTING OF SECURITIES Listing means admission of securities to dealings on a recognized stock exchange. The securities may be of any public limited company, Central or State Government, quasi-governmental and other financial institutions/corporations, municipalities etc. The objectives of listing are mainly to: Æ’ËÅ" Provide liquidity to securities Æ’ËÅ" Mobilize savings for economic development Æ’ËÅ" Protect interest of investors by ensuring full disclosures. The Exchange has a separate Listing Department to grant approval for listing of securities of companies in accordance with the provisions of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, Securities Contracts (Regulation) Rules, 1957, Companies Act, 1956, Guidelines issued by SEBI and Rules, Bye-laws and Regulations of the Exchange. SELECTION CRITERIA The criteria for selection and review of scrips for the BSE Sensex can be explained in the following manner: A. QUANTITATIVE CRITERIA 1. MARKET CAPITALIZATION: The Scrip should figure in the top 100 companies listed by market capitalization. Also market capitalization of each of the scrip should be at least. 0.5 % of the total market capitalization of the Index i.e. the minimum weight should be 0.5%. Since the BSE Sensex is a market capitalization weighted index, this is one of the primary criteria for scrip selection. (Market Capitalization would be averaged for last 6 months). 2. LIQUIDITY: a. Trading Frequency: The scrip should have been traded on each and every trading day for the last six months. Exceptions can be made for extreme reasons like scrip suspension etc. b. Number of Trades: The scrip should be among the top 150 companies listed by average number of trades per day for the last one year. c. Value of Shares Traded: The scrip should be among the top 150 companies listed by average value of shares traded per day for the last one year. d. Trading Activity: The average number of shares traded per day as a percentage of the total number of outstanding shares of the company should be greater than 0.05 % for the last year. 3. CONTINUITY: Whenever the composition of the Index is changed, the continuity of historical series of index values is re-established by correlating the value of the revised index to the old index (index before revision). The back calculation over the last one-year period is carried out and correlation of the revised index to the old index should not be less than 0.98. This ensures that the historical continuity of the index is maintained. 4. INDUSTRY REPRESENTATION: Scrip selection would take into account a balanced representation of the listed companies in the universe of BSE. The index companies should be leaders in their industry group. 5. LISTED HISTORY: The scrip should have a listing history of at least 6 months on BSE. However, the Committee may relax the criteria under exceptional circumstances. B. QUALITATIVE CRITERIA 1. SCRIP GROUP: The Scrip should preferably be from à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾Aà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸ group. 2. TRACK RECORD: The company should preferably have continuous dividend paying record or / and promoted by management having proven record. S P CNX NIFTY The NSE -50 Index was launched by the National Stock Exchange of India Limited, taking as base the closing prices of November 3, 1995 when one year of its Capital Market segment was completed. It was subsequently renamed S P CNX Nifty- with S P indicating endorsement of the Index by Standard and Poorà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸s and CNX standing for CRISIL NSE Index. The S P CNX NIFTY, also popularly known as the Nifty 50, is one of the most scientific indices in India that reflects the price movement of 50 blue- chips, large cap, liquid and highly traded stocks of 23 sectors. The Nifty is managed by India Index Services Products Ltd. (IISL). The total value of all Nifty stocks is approximately 70% of the traded value of all stocks on the NSE. Nifty stocks represent about 59% of the total market capitalization. OBJECTIVES The basic idea of this index is to ascertain the movements of the stock market as a whole by tapping the news which can affect the stock. The index also averages out the good stock specific news for a few companies and bad stock specific news for others and left with the news that is common to all stocks. The news that is common to all stocks is news about India, which is the sole purpose of NSE Nifty. According to NSE, the Index was introduced with the objectives of: 1. Reflecting market movement more accurately, 2. Providing Fund Managers with a tool for measuring portfolio returns vis-a-vis market returns, and 3. Providing a basis for introducing Index based derivatives. This paper discusses Efficient Market Hypothesis (thereby referred to as EMH), seasonalities and its implications in both advanced and emerging securities markets. EMH suggests that investors cannot expect to out perform the market consistently on a risk adjusted basis (Mayo, 2003). According to Fama (1965) who developed the Efficient Market Hypothesis, an efficient market is a market where there are a large number of rational profit-maximizers actively competing, with each trying to predict future market values of individual securities, and where important current information is almost freely available to all participants. In an efficient market, competition among the many intelligent participants leads to a situation where at any point in time, actual prices of individual securities already reflect the effects of information both on events that have already occurred and on events which, as of now, the market expects to take place in the future. In other words, in an efficient marke t at any point in time, the actual price of a security will be a good estimate of its intrinsic value. On the other hand, in an inefficient market, EMH would not hold. This suggests that existence of loop holes which could be exploited to make abnormal returns by predicting market price patterns, using past price information and insider information. These market inefficiencies, also called market anomalies have received as much research work as EMH. 2. THREE FORMS OF MARKET EFFICIENT HYPOTHESIS There are three forms of market efficiency in an informationally efficient market, where prices adjust quickly and accurately to new information (Emery et al, 2007). These forms show the degree of efficiency of security markets and attempt to answer the question of how efficient a market is. (Mayo, 2003 and Keane, 1983) 2.1 Weak Form Efficiency The weak form of EMH asserts that the current price fully reflects information contained in the past history of prices only. Stock market price information is available via most means of mass communication. Thus, investors should be unable to make superior profit from use of public information i.e. daily stock market prices or company results available to all. Again, many investment bankers and financial analysts devise investment strategies using technical analysis of past data to outperform the market and their competitors, in satisfying their clients demand for superior returns. Transaction costs of trading, investment advice, analysis and commissions when considered, affects the investors return, especially for investors who continue to use traditional full service brokers (Mayo,2003) 2.2 Semi Strong Form Efficiency The semi strong form of EMH, according to Brealey et al (2006), prices reflect not just past prices but all other published information, such as you might get from reading the financial press. Similarly, Fama (1969) defined it as publicly available information with examples of announcements of annual earnings and stock splits. Semi-strong form of EMH asserts that current prices fully reflects public knowledge about the underlying companies and that efforts to acquire and analyze this knowledge cannot be expected to produce superior investment results (Lorie Hamilton 1973). 2.3 Strong Form Efficiency The strong form of EMH suggests that share prices fully reflect not only published information but all relevant information including data not yet publicly available. It also asserts that not even those with privileged information (insiders) can often make use of it to secure superior investment results (Lorie Hamilton 1973). These three forms of EMH are not independent of one another. For the market to be efficient in the semi-strong form, it must also be efficient in the weak form, because if price movements follow a predictable path which the perceptive observer can exploit profitably, the implication is that the price has reacted slowly or capriciously to published information. Likewise, for the market to be efficient in the strong form it must also be efficient at the other two levels, otherwise, the price would not capture all relevant information (Keane, 1983). He went on to state that for an inefficiency (seasonality) to be operationally significant it must be exploitable. Keane (1983) analyses four criteria an exploitable inefficiency should satisfy, these are: (a) it should be authentic supportable by properly conducted statistical research. (b) It should be identifiable-not just strategies or people that beat the market but concrete and verifiable evidence. (c) It should be material- inefficie ncies are not exploitable unless they are sufficient to compensate for the costs and risks of pursuing them. (d) It should be persistent-the value of inefficiency is not just a record of its existence in the past but that it will continue to exist in future. These criteria are very important in understanding the different types of market seasonality or anomaly, their existence, prevalence and their implications for the EMH. 3. SEASONALITIES AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EMH Seasonalities, as the name suggests are time regularities, patterns or predictable trends. In the financial securities market, seasonalities would suggest predictable time patterns in the behaviour of the stock market-volume of stock trades, stock returns etc. If it does exist, then investors can exploit the market for superior returns in all financial securities markets. Seasonalities as defined by Alagidede (2008) are evidences of market efficiency anomalies. These are also known as seasonal anomalies (calendar effects) which may be loosely referred to as the tendency for financial returns to display systematic patterns at certain times of the day, week, month or year. Calendar effects include: January effect, the month of the year effect, monthly effect, holiday effect, Monday effect / day of the week effect, weekend effect, turn of the year effect etc. (Guo and Wang, 2007). Discussing a few of them will be worthwhile. 3.1 The January Effect The January effect is where returns are much higher during the month of January than any other month, i.e. where investors can earn a disproportionately high amount of the total annual return available from both fixed income assets and equity in January Clare et al (1995). Most research conducted in developed economies confirm the presence of the January effect, although, in more recent times they seem to be disappearing. Keim (1983) and Reinganum (1983) show that the January effect and the size effect are highly interrelated. Blume and Stambaugh (1983) discovered, after controlling for upward biases in small stock returns, the size effect was only significant in January. An extensive amount of studies has gone into the month of the year effect. Mills and Coutts (1995) concluded that stock returns are much higher in the month of January in the UK using FTSE indices between January 1986 and October 1992(FTSE 100,Mid 250 and 350 indices). Gultekin and Gultekin (1983) using 17 countries also found evidence that the January return is much higher than other months returns, Alagidede (2008) tested for month of the year effect in emerging African markets and concluded that the January effect is positive and significant for Nigeria, Egypt and Zimbabwe. However Guo and Wangs (2007) study on the emerging Chinese stock market shows that there is no significant January effect in Chinese stock market. Many researchers have sought the cause of the January effect and arrived at a number of causes which include: tax-loss selling hypothesis, provision of new information at the end of a fiscal year, firm size had the significant higher risk in the beginning of the year than the rest of the year and the systematic tendencies for closing prices to be recorded at the bid in the last traded in December and at the ask in early January (Guo and Wangs, 2007) 3.2 The Holiday Effect The definition of a holiday is relative, subjective and would vary for different countries and their capital markets e.g. Christian, Muslim, public holidays etc. One definition of a holiday looks at days, other than Saturday or Sunday, upon which the market is closed (Alagidede, 2008). Ariel (1990) used US data reports to show that the trading day prior to holidays on average displays high positive returns, this result was supported by Kim and Park (1994) for US, Japan and UK .However, Cadsby and Ratner (1992) using UK data concluded that the holiday effect was insignificant This conclusion was challenged by Mills and Coutts (1995) in their study of calendar effects using London stock FTSE indices. Coutts et al (2000) showed that the holiday effect is present in their study of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE), although, no similar study has been undertaken on the ASE which would have been used as a basis of comparison. Their results were consistent with international evidences. 3.3 The Weekend Effect One of the most prevalent anomalies appears to be a weekend effect where stocks display significantly lower returns over the period between Fridays close and Mondays close (Arsad and Coutts, 1995). Jaffe and Westerfield (1985) examined the daily stock market returns in 4 international stock markets including, the London stock Exchanges FT30 over the period 1950 1982 and found a significant weekend effect. Consistent with Jaffe and Westerfield (1985) findings, Condoyanni et al (1987) also found the existence of the weekend effect in the UK when examining the FT30 over the period 1979 1994. Arsad and Coutts (1996, 1997) also found the weekend effect in the FT30 from the period 1935 1994, although according to their research the effect was found not to be persistent. Board and Sutcliffe (1988) examined the weekend effect in the Financial Times all share index over the period 1962 1986 and found clear evidence of a weekend effect over the sample period, with the significance of the e ffect diminishing over time. This is consistent with later research done by Dubois and Louvet (1996) on the same index for the period 1969 1992, in which negative returns was found on Monday, which are compensated by abnormal positive returns on Wednesday. Agrawal and Tandon (1994) examined the weekend effect in 18 countries including the UK and found a negative Monday return when the market rises in the previous week. Furthermore, they found the effect disappearing in 1980. Mills and Coutts (1995) found evidence of the existence of the weekend effect in the UK when the FTSE 100, Mid 250, 350 and certain of the accompanying industry baskets was examined for the period from 1986 to 1992. Ajayi et al (2004) investigated day of the week stock return anomaly, using major market stock indices in eleven eastern European emerging markets for the period 1994 2002. The results show negative and positive Monday returns in six and five emerging markets respectively, of which only two of the six show negative Monday returns and one of the five show positive Monday returns and were statistically significant. Choudhry (2000) investigated the day of the week effect in seven emerging Asian stock markets from 1990 1995 and found significant weekend effect in some of the markets considered. 3.4 The Day of the Week Effect: The day of the week effect refers to existence of a pattern on the part of stock returns, whereby these returns are linked to the particular day of the week (Poshakwale 1996). The last trading days of the week, particularly Friday, are characterised by substantially positive returns while Monday, the first trading day of the week, differs from other days, even producing negative returns (Cross 1973, Lakonishok Levi (1982), Rogalski (1984), Keim Stambaugh( 1984) and Harris (1986). In other words, this effect relates to the difference in returns across different days of the week with the variance in stock returns found to be largest on Mondays and lowest on Fridays (Raj Kumari 2006). It should be noted that the day of the week effect in emerging capital markets has not been extensively researched and the presence of such an effect would mean that equity returns are not independent of the day of the week effect against random walk theory (Poshakwale 1996). On the other hand, the inte rnational evidence of the report has been somewhat mixed. Dubois and Louvert (1996) find returns to be lower for the beginning of the week (but not necessarily Monday) for European countries, Hong Kong and Canada. However, it was observed that the anomaly disappeared in the USA for the most recent periods. Agrawal and Tandon (1994), find negative Monday returns in nine countries and negative Tuesday returns in eight countries (out of a total of nineteen countries). Several theories have been put forward regarding specific time periods anomalies in the capital market. The day of the week effect has been explained by examining various kinds of measurement errors such as: settlement period hypothesis; which attributes the day of the week effect to the settlement dates with prices higher on the pay-in days as compared to the pay-out days. Calendar time(trading time) hypothesis; implies that since Monday returns are spread across three days (Saturday, Sunday Monday), the returns should be three times as high as other days. The negative Monday returns go against this reasoning, which lead to the proposed theory that returns should be proportional to trading time as opposed to calendar time (Raj Kumari 2006). Information flow hypothesis postulates that the difference in information flow over the weekend compared to other days of the week causes the Monday effect (Dyl Maberly 1988). Often companies hold back negative information till the weekend, g iving the investors two non-trading days to absorb the information before reacting with trading activity. Consequently, all sell orders get pushed to Monday, thereby giving negative returns (Raj Kumari 2006). Retail investor trading hypothesis, suggests that negative Monday returns could be the result of individual investor trading activity (Brooks Kim 1997). It was found that trading activity is significantly lower on Monday for large size trades, while small size trades have a higher percentage of sell orders on Monday as compared to other days of the week. 3.5 Trading Month Effect The trading month effect also called the turn-of -the-month effect which was first documented by Ariel(1987) using US data shows that returns are only positive around the beginning and during the first half of trading months, whereas during the second half they are on average zero. This study was replicated by Jaffe and Westerfield (1989), for the UK, Japan, Canada and Australia, in their study. However, only Australia shows a significant monthly effect. A conflicting evidence for the UK in a report from Cadsby and Ratner (1992) shows a significant trading month effect in the FT 500. Ariel (1988) offered three explanations for the trading month effect which include: new information concerning corporate cash flows, changes in risk free rate and changes in the preferences of market participants leading to variation in demand for securities which cannot be offset by supply. Mills and Coutts (1996) investigated the this effect using a large sample of daily returns from the Financial Time s Industrial Ordinary Share Index and found that a trading month effect is present but exists for a much shorter period than has been documented by previous studies for both the US and the UK. The information release hypothesis of French(1980) was accepted as an explanation of the trading month effect, only if the unexpected release of good and bad news has a tendency to fall in the final and first days of trading months, securities would be riskier during these periods , thus justifying the higher first half returns. Context of India: Published studies that have examined calendar effects in the Indian stock market appear to be limited. Kaur (2004) reports that few studies have examined the day-of-the-week effect in the Indian stock market, and further notes the absence of studies that examine monthly seasonality in the Indian stock market. Kaur utilized two Indian stock indexes, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 30 index and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) SP CNX Nifty stock index, to examine the day-of-the-week effect and the monthly effect. Kaur did not find a January effect in the Indian stock market, but did find that March and September generated substantially lower returns, whereas February and December generated substantial positive returns. Sarma (2004) adds that very few studies have examined calendar effects during the post reform era in the Indian stock market. Sarma investigated the BSE 30, the BSE 100, and the BSE 200 stock indexes to detect the day-of-the-week effect. Utilizing Kruskal-Wallis test statistics, Sarma concluded that the Indian stock market exhibited some seasonality in daily returns over the period January 1, 1996 to August 10, 2002. Bodla and Jindal (2006) examined several seasonal anomalies in the Indian stock market utilizing the SP CNX Nifty Index for the period January 1998 to August 2005. For the monthly effect, they did find some significant differences for their sub-period, January 2002 to August 2005. However, they were unable to find any significant differences among individual months. In an earlier study, Ignatius (1998) examined seasonality in a BSE index and in the Standard and Poors 500 stock index for the period 1979-1990. Ignatius found that December generated the highest mean returns , and that April and June generated high returns in the Indian stock index. Some studies examine seasonality in the Indian stock market as part of a broader analysis of seasonality in several major emerging stock markets. For example, Fountas and Segredakis (2002) investigated monthly seasonal anomalies in eighteen major emerging equity markets, including the Indian stock market. They examined the monthly effect for the period January 1987 to December 1995. For the Indian stock market, they found August returns were significantly greater than April, May, October and November returns. However, they did not find evidence consistent with hypothesized tax-loss selling in the Indian stock market, as the tax-year in India commences in April. Yakob, Beal and Delpachitra (2005) examined seasonal effects in ten Asian Pacific stock markets, including the Indian stock market, for the period January 2000 to March 2005. They state that this is a period of stability and is therefore ideal for examining seasonality as it was not influenced by the Asian financial crisis of the late nineties. Yakob, et al., concluded that the Indian stock market exhibited a month-of-the-year effect in that statistically significant negative returns were found in March and April whereas statistically significant positive returns were found in May, November and December. Of these five statistically significant monthly returns, November generated the highest positive returns whereas April generated the lowest negative returns. Evidence of monthly seasonality in the Indian stock market is somewhat mixed. This may be, in part, a consequence of the fact that the Indian economy is in transition and is therefore constantly evolving, supporting the notion that further research into these calendar effects in the Indian stock market is warranted.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Psychological Effect Of Technology (Technophobia) :: Internet Technology Cyberspace

Psychological Effect Of Technology (Technophobia) Technology is taking over all aspects of life. Education, work and leisure are all becoming increasingly dependent on being able to interact with technology. But what of the academic or career prospects of those who do not want to interact with this technology? Before taking this class, I tried to avoid computers as much as possible. I didnt have any interest in cyberspace such as chatting, email, and gender swapping. Through this class, I had a chance to contact others through cyberspace. However, I still have a fear of computers. I decided that I want to know more about computers and cyberspace. I will first discuss cyberspace, then I will discuss about technophobia. Its well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldnt ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. The virtual world is quite different from the real world. People cant see a person in cyberspace. People cant see a persons facial expressions and body language. The sensory experience of encountering others in cyberspace-seeing, hearing, and combining seeing and hearing is limited. For the most part, people communicate through typed language. In cyberspace, people will probably never be able to physically interact with each other. There are no handshakes, pats on the back, hugs, or kisses. The limited sensory experiences of cyberspace have some significant disadvantages- as well as some unique advantages - as compared to in-person encounters. Since communicating only with typed text, people have the option of being themselves, expressing only parts of their identity, assuming imaginative identities, or remaining completely anonymous. Anonymity has a disinhibiting effect that cuts two ways. Sometimes people use it to act out some unpleasant need or emotion, often by abusing other people. Anonymity also allows them to be honest and open about some personal issue that they could not discuss in a face-to-face encounter. Sitting quiet and staring at the computer monitor can bring a person to an altered state of consciousness. Some people experience a blending of their mind with that of the other person. Some people experience a state of consciousness that resembles dreams. These altered and dream-like states of consciousness in cyberspace may account for why the Internet is so attractive for some people. It might also help explain some forms of computer and cyberspace addiction. In cyberspace, birds of a feather easily can flock together.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Ancient Sculpture And Architecture :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ziggurats were used in ancient times for purposes of worship and to fulfill spiritual needs. One example, The Pyramid of the Magician, has a legend attached to it depicting the god Itzamna who had single-handedly built it in one night. The Pyramid of the Magician is, by 100 feet, the tallest architectural structure in the city of Uxmal on the Yucatan peninsula. Interestingly enough, the pyramid has a stairwell that faces the setting sun on summer solstice. Also of note, the whole city is perfectly aligned to mimic how the planets were thought to lie in the solar system at the time.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  At the top of most Ziggurats, there were sanctuaries that were dedicated to the protective gods and/or goddesses of that particular city. The buildings were normally magnificent in size and the stairways leading up to the sanctuaries normally consisted of a very long series of steps. Experts feel that this symbolism represents how various peoples wished to unite the heavens and the earth.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As ancient as Ziggurats may seem, they can easily be compared to modern day churches and place of worship. Modern day churches are used presently as places where people can worship their god, who is felt to protect and watch over them; highly comparable to the purpose of the ancient Ziggurats. Not only are their purposes analogous, but their appearances can also be similar. For instance, most modern day places of worship have some sort of symbolic representation of their god near or at the very top of the building. This may seem commonplace to most, but perhaps the origin of the influence comes from the ancient architects. The long and high stairways of most Ziggurats can be compared to the symbolism that we, today, use near the top of churches.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Along the same lines of thought, modern day churches also normally possess some sort of symmetry, whether it is to the surroundings or within the structure itself. This can be paralleled to the Pyramid of the Magician in that that structure was symmetrical to the solar system. Most modern day facilities, however, have symmetrical attributes to their outer appearance.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Church architecture could be researched in depth, but the purpose here is to express some similarities between the ancient centers of worship and modern day facilities. One such example could be the prevalent grand expanse. Perhaps this attribute is to accommodate for the large amount of worshippers, which does not seem to fluctuate in accordance with history.