A Visit of Charity

Hope Biggs Character Analysis Paper Dr. Brookter January 22, 2013 No Charity, No Change Charity is defined as a voluntary giving of help and generosity especially towards the needy or suffering. This small simple word conveys a much bigger meaning, one of compassion and selflessness. In the story, â€Å"A Visit of Charity† the true act of charity seems to be missing. It is as if the main pieces of the puzzle are missing. The story has framework but lacks the compassion and selflessness needed to bring it to life. The reality is, charity never came to visit.The story is about a young teenage girl, Marion, who in order to gain points for her Campfire Girl Club must visit the Old Ladies Home. By simply buying a potted plant and taking it to one of the residents, she gained three points but she can earn extra points for bringing her bible and reading it to the residents. Marion brings only a plant. (Welty 111) â€Å"A Visit of Charity† begins by describing the cold winter d ay and a description of the nursing home, â€Å"a whitewashed brick and reflected the winter sunlight like a block of ice† (Welty 111).This description alone not only describes the buildings appearance but also is descriptive of the coldness and the lack of feeling for the elderly. Marion is no different. No thought was put into what might be helpful and useful for the residents, like toiletries, socks, or even food. Instead her only preparation for the visit was buying the potted plant. It is a clear indication of her selfishness and a reflection of a society that does not value its elderly. Her main concern is in getting points because she brings a potted plant.No real thought is put into who to give it to or who might actually enjoy it. She receives more than she gives and this reveals a true character flaw in Marion. Repeatedly in this story she reveals a selfishness and lack of connectivity to anything or anyone that does not benefit her. This is evident when Marion tell s the nurse, â€Å"I have to pay a visit to some old ladies† (Welty 111). And when she is asked if she knows any of them, Marion states, â€Å"no but that is, any of them will do† (Welty 111). The use of â€Å"some† and â€Å"any† are evidenced that she has no interest in where she is or whom she will meet.There has been no preparation or thought of who could benefit from her visit other herself. In addition, either out of fear or self-preservation, Marion’s views the two old women not as people but as animals and birds. She refers as to one as having a â€Å"bleating† sound of a sheep and the other as having a â€Å"birds claw†. Her descriptions of the women are reflective of disrespect for older people. In a sense she dehumanizes them as to not see their real needs or pains. Sensory deprivation is often seen in older adults that lack stimulation and human contact.Older adults who are confined to a nursing home often lose track of ti me, place, and person. Joseph Casciani, a geropsychologist, stated in an article about sensory loss, â€Å"Added restrictions, such as confinement to bed or Geri-chair, increases the risk (of sensory deprivation). † But the old ladies are not the only ones experiencing sensory deprivation. Marion has difficulty answering the old women’s questions and to her surprise â€Å"Marion cannot remember her name† (Welty 111). It would be nice to believe that Marion’s lack of response was evidence of a tiny bit of empathy towards these old ladies but it is doubtful.Marion is oblivious to the older lady’s needs; her thoughts are only of herself and her desire to escape. Time stands still and the tiny room closes in on her. She realizes that the doors are closed and at one point she contemplates if she were to get sick, would they let her leave? Her only sign of compassion comes when she is told of Addie’s birthday and she asks her how old she is. Addie ’s response is to cry, possibly from the realization that she is spending her birthday alone with her roommate, a stranger, and isolated from anyone else. Or maybe she cried because she actually thought Marion cared.Regardless, Marion’s compassion was short lived. It is a mirror image of our present day society and our seemingly short attention span to the needs and hurts of our elderly. Brief encounters, brief awareness, but little intervention, and no real change. Clearly, all that Marion has encountered is a bit too much for her. Her lack of forethought and preparation of what to bring is also carried over in lack of planning on what she would do or say while she was there. Her thoughts quickly move to how she can escape without physical contact from either of the two old women.The harsh realities of life close in and she quickly escapes into the hallway with one of the old women following her begging for a penny, â€Å"Oh, little girl, have you a penny to spare fo r a poor old women that’s not got anything of her own? We don’t have a thing in the world-not a penny for candy-not a thing! Little girl, just a nickel-a penny? †(Welty 111). Her mind was only on escape, her ears may have heard what the old woman was saying but her heart did not respond to the need. Marion was out of her comfort zone and her one desire was to get back in it as quickly as possible.The same can be said for our generation that ignores the cry of our elderly. To truly see and respond to their needs, readers must get out of their comfort zones. We have become a generation that has found value in the selfishness of our own desires instead of the needs of the greatest generation that gave sacrificially for the freedoms we now enjoy. Marion may have escaped the discomfort of the Old Ladies Home but the could not escape the knowledge of the harsh realities that she witnessed there. At the end of the story a red apple appears.It is uncertain what the apple symbolizes and how it pertains to the story. One can merely speculate to its importance. In biblical times the apple was symbolic of the knowledge of good and evil. This shows the evidence, â€Å"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable  for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband,  who was with her, and he ate it. † (New International Version, Genesis 3:6). An apple was given to Adam to eat and when he did his whole life changed.It is quite possible the apple represents that once we have the knowledge of another’s needs but we fail to act on it, then we are no different than any other evil generation. With knowledge comes responsibility. â€Å"A Visit of Charity† is a story that sends a message to our society. What will we do with the knowledge once we discover it? We are clearly a generation that has unlimited access to all kinds of information and knowl edge. But with knowledge must come responsibility and that requires that we get out of our comfort zones and meet the needs of the less fortunate and the hurting.Otherwise we are a generation of Marion’s who think only of themselves and lack the character to change not only their own destiny, but anyone else, as well. Work Cited Welty, Eudora. â€Å"A Visit of Charity. † Making Literature Matter. Ed. John Schilb, John Clifford. New York: 2012. 55-56. Print. Casciani, Joseph. â€Å"Sensory Touch in Older Adults- Taste, Smell & Touch – Behavioral Approaches for Caregivers†. Ezine Articles. com. April 9, 2008. Web. January 16, 2013. Zondervan NIV Study Bible. Ed. Kenneth L. Barker. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002. Print.

Nothing Impossible

Management Introduction Review of Management Articles Article assigned ANALYSING the thinking of F. W. Taylor using cognitive mapping Introduction Scientific management is one of the three major branches within the classical approach to management. Although the concept was suggested approximately a century ago, it still makes a significantly important role in 21st century management with new conditions and a considerable number of challenges. Frederick Winslow Taylor who was regarded as the father of scientific management suggested his concepts in 1911.Scientific management is defined as a theory that emphasises careful selection and training of workers, and supervisory support (Taylor, 1911). Taylor (1911) believed that precise procedures that were developed after careful study of an individual at work should replace the tradition on decision-making. The purpose of this essay is to review three articles that analyses the Taylorism and present how Taylorism is applied in current mana gement sphere. Analysis of Assigned Article Cossette, P. 2002. Analysing the thinking of F.W. Taylor using cognitive mapping. Management Decision, 40 (2): 168-182 The author of this article used the cognitive map and the Decision Explorer to present and analyse the thinking of F. W. Taylor to produce a more in-depth and detailed knowledge and understanding of his ideas. Cossette (2002) demonstrated that the two key variables in Taylor’s scientific management were â€Å"Maintenance of a rapid pace†¦Loafing or soldiering† and â€Å"Harmonious relations between employers and men aware of their mutual interests†.As Taylor’s scientific management related to efficiency, the first concept that the author highlighted had completely reflected the Taylorism. Cossette (2002) concluded that â€Å"the maintenance of a rapid pace† was the most important concept for Taylor, since it was also by far the most important â€Å"consequence† of the cognitiv e map. Taylor’s scientific management was always considered as the division of labour pushed to its logical extreme, with a consequent de-skilling of the worker and dehumanisation of the workplace (Kanigel, 1999).However, the author showed another aspect of Taylor’s idea which was related to harmony. In cognitive map, the concept of â€Å"Harmonious relations between employers and men aware of their mutual interests† had the second largest number of direct links and the third centrality score compared to other concepts (Cossette, 2002). In addition, Cossette (2002) stated that â€Å"the prior conditions required to improve production and the results of this improvement for both employees and employers, are the two main dimensions that Taylor appears to use as a basis for his conception of the organization of work. Although a small number of concepts from Taylorism were less relevant, they suggested that Taylor’s thinking was not significantly complicated . This article helped us have a better understanding of the ideas of F. W. Taylor, demonstrated the relative importance of the concepts suggested by Taylor and revealed another side of Taylorism. Analysis of Article 1 Wrege, C. D. & Hodgetts, R. M. 2000. Frederick W. Taylor’s 1899 pig iron observations: Examining fact, fiction and lessons for the new millennium.Academy of Management Journal, 43 (6): 1283-1291 However, the authors of this article were in dispute with Taylor in a particular circumstance. Wrege & Hodgetts (2000) stated that Taylor simplified the observation by presenting only some of the information and, he omitted many significant facts. The insight thinking of the authors was that contemporary organisation should apply new tools and techniques to achieve their objectives, and managers should increasingly concentrate on data collection and analysis and fight the tendency to accept anecdotes and hearsay as accurate (Wrege & Hodgetts, 2000).The authors studied an d analysed the case called pig iron observation, which came from Taylor’s scientific management principle, and concluded that although Taylor had made a great contribution to management history, he did neglect some significant real facts in this case such as failure to take the cost of damaging gondolas into account.In addition, the authors suggested five points that we could learn from this observation, which are â€Å"anecdotal data are often erroneous, primary sources must be consulted, all data have inconsistencies, replication is hallmark of good science and digital archiving is now critical† (Wrege & Hodgetts, 2000). Moreover, the authors had concluded some suggestions that are valuable for the managers in new millennium. Wrege & Hodgetts (2000) demonstrated that researchers’ being more systematic and sophisticated was important in their approach to chieving their goals, and that â€Å"benchmarking† was going to be a critical activity in the 21st ce ntury. This article revealed the limitation of Taylor’s scientific management, and the authors of this article recommended a considerable number of approaches and methods to help today’s managers reach their objectives successfully and efficiently. Analysis of Article 2 Boyns, T. 2001. Hans and Charles Renold: entrepreneurs in the introduction of scientific management techniques in Britain.Management Decision, 39 (9): 719-728 The author of this article used the case study of Hans Renold Ltd to extend Taylor’s scientific management theory, and explained how it was applied in this enterprise during the first and second decades of the twentieth century. The core ideals of the author were to confirm the contribution that Hans and Charles Renold made to introduce and develop scientific management in Britain, and distinguish the different methodology between Hans and Charles. It has been accepted that Hans Renold Ltd has been the first company to introduce Taylor†™s scientific management in Britain (Boyns, 2001).Hans Renold â€Å"probably was the first British industrialist to appreciate the work of F. W. Taylor and adapt it to British management practice† (Urwick, 1956). He started to change the organisational structure and introduced a new functional organisation supported by a system of committees in 1908 (Boyns, 2001). Although there were some problems arising such as little resistance from the bulk of the workforce, scientific management principles were eventual successfully adopted at Hans Renold Ltd eventually (Boyns, 2001).The author of this article introduced the first application of Taylor’s scientific management in Britain and emphasized the fundamental position of scientific management in management history as it has already been applied for a century and it still plays a significantly important role in increasing the efficiency in the organisations in the 21st century. Application to Current Management Practice A round the Twentieth Century, Taylor’s scientific management theory had been widely used in the manufacturing and services industries.In the 21st century, scientific management does play an important role, and it is applied in several modern organizations. McDonalds is the world’s most famous brands, which is leading in the globally branded quick service restaurant applied the scientific management successfully in their business operations. Initially, Taylor (1911) stated that wage systems without incentive result in low productivity if no matter how much is produced the employee will gain the same pay. McDonalds stimulates employees in many effective ways.Regardless of the base pay, McDonalds develops competitive wage and promotion programs, hard work, motivation and results are recorded and rewarded at McDonalds (McDonalds, 2006). In addition, McDonalds also establishes great incentive programs in which employees have an access to gift and free food (McDonalds, 2006). McDonalds also offers an incentive pay system and provide the opportunity to earn competitive total compensation for employees when they successfully achieve the goals (McDonalds, 2006).Moreover, Long-term incentives are ensured to employees who are qualified to both reward and long-term creation at McDonalds (McDonalds 2006). Secondly, one of the most important principles of Scientific Management is scientifical training. Taylor (1911) suggested that each company should train the workers scientifically rather than passively leave them to train themselves. McDonalds has a strong belief in training, and training becomes a tradition at McDonalds, because they know its value to the bottom line of their business.Everyone in the business should attend a significantly important training, whether part, full time, hourly paid staff or salaried managers undergoing their compulsory restaurant training (McDonalds 2006). When a new employee joins McDonalds and starts his first working day, he will accept training at once. McDonalds even set up a Hamburger University, and the purpose of this action is to provide all McDonalds Corporation and Franchisees employees with training exclusively in various aspects of the business (McDonalds 2006). Those training systems make their staff more efficient and professional.Finally, Taylor (1911) taught that the only one method of work that maximized efficiency was to develop a standard method of performing each job efficiently by companies. McDonalds builds up a series of detailed and strict working standards, which guarantee that every product from any chain restaurant has high quality (McDonalds 2006). Moreover, McDonalds staff is specialized in different production procedure (McDonalds 2006). McDonalds has developed a standard method of performing each job and the employees can perform efficiently. ConclusionIn conclusion, the authors of the above three articles explained the Taylorism precisely and explicitly. The core thinking o f Taylor’s scientific management was efficiency particularly was speed, and it is widely applied in most modern organizations such as McDonalds to help increase the productivity. Although Taylor’s scientific management has some limitation as sometimes managers could overlook to collect important data by relying on it excessively, it still made an important contribution to the business world in the 21st century.Taylor laid the foundation of management, and with the application of scientific management, production efficiency has improved. Much of core of Scientific Management remains with us today, only been modified, updated and given a human face (Freeman, 1996). Term Paper on Functions of Management Eritrea Education Sector Development Program – Program Management Unit ESDP-PMU Management Functions 1. Introduction: Management is defined as the process of getting activities completed efficiently and effectively with and through other people . It encompasses an a rray of functions with which it accomplishes different tasks done successfully.These functions include planning, staffing, organizing, directing, and controlling. The Eritrea Education Sector Development Program – Program Management Unit, abbreviated as ESDP-PMU, is an institution destined to accomplish education sector program objectives that have to be viewed in terms of the government policy to boost the education sector in all aspects. Through the educational sector intervention, ESDP-PMU works to ensure increase in access, improve quality, boost capacities in all levels of the sector, and ensure equity in delivery education services.This paper explores the management functions in the ESDP, highlights strengths and weaknesses in view of the theoretical aspect of management function. Finally, it highlights some few salient points that are worth mentioning and by way of recommendations it tries to shed lights on issues that need improvement. 2. Overview of the management fu nctions: Henry Fayol defines management as a science of forecasting, planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. The most commonly cited management functions are planning, staffing, organizing, directing, and controlling.Planning refers to the base of the other management functions. It is the management of the organizations’ future in an uncertain environment . Plans can be strategic, tactical, and operational. They can also be long-term or short-term. Plan should be built on specific, attainable, and challenging objectives. In the materials for the management course of SMAP it is mentioned that planning is important in that it offsets uncertainty and change, focuses attention on objectives, helps in coordination, gains economy of operation, helps in control, and increases organizational effectiveness.In that sense it divides plans to standing and single-use plans. Organizing refers to the organization of resources in an organization. Such organization ca n be charted on an organizational chart . Through this function management tries to determine the inside directorial configuration, establish and maintain relationships, and also assign required resources of the organization. Staffing functions follows the organizing function of management. Staffing refers to the filling and keeping filled positions on positions created by the preceding organizing function .Thus, staffing encompasses tasks such as recruitment, selection, training and retraining of employees. Directing refers to the control and supervision of the actions of the staff, thus, enables them to achieve the company’s goals and also accomplishing their personal or career goals which can be powered motivation, communication, department dynamics, and department leadership . Controlling refers to activities related to setting performance standards based on the objectives of the organization, measuring and reporting actual performance, comparing the two, and taking corre ctive or preventive action as necessary.As management is a creative problem solving , the coordination of the various functions mentioned above contribute to an efficient and effective accomplishment of tasks. The section below review the management functions in the ESDP-PMU. 3. Review of the management functions in the ESDP-PMU: The ESDP-PMU is destined to accomplish education related projects. These projects are financed through the proceeds coming from International organizations such as the World Bank, African Development Bank, European Union, as well as other UN bodies such as UNICEF and UNFPA.Each financier or development partner requires the need to follow ones procedures. The other dimension of the matter that needs attention is that each financier or development partner is set up to achieve each project objectives. Thus, there are kind of awkwardness in reaching a harmonized program objectives. Planning function in the PMU The PMU believes that proper planning is a prerequi site to success. It is concerned with the future impact of today’s decisions. In the PMU there is a section that deals with planning issues.It prepares tactical and operational planning in view of the project objectives. The planning that is made part of the Financing Agreements with the respective development partner can be taken as a strategic one. The Planning Section of the PMU prepares an Annual Work Plan and Budget (AWPB). On the basis of which, the procurement section derives its procurement plan, and the finance section derives its financial and disbursement plan. Therefore, we can see the following relationship in the planning function of the PMU. Graph 1.Planning function relationship From the foregoing planning relations graph, we can observe that all the activities envisaged to be done in a year or a year and half through the plans of the respective sections. Overall, all these plans reflect the scenarios â€Å"where we are now? †, â€Å"where do we want t o be? †, and â€Å"how do we get there? †. It is good also to note that the submission of plans and seeking approvals is mandatory. This procedure is deemed appropriate and practically does positively affect the projects. Organizing function in the PMUTo the PMU organizing function refers to establishing the internal organizational structure of the business. The focus is on division, coordination, and control of tasks and the flow of information within the organization. It is through this function that the manager distributes responsibility and authority to employees. The organizational structure of the PMU is shown below. It takes into consideration the objectives and tactics already identified in the planning stage. The structure decides the division of labor, delegation of authority, departmentation, span of control nd coordination issues. When we come to the division of labor, the PMU is divided into 5 sections, viz. , Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (PM&E), Pr ocurement, Finance, Engineering, and Administration sections. And all the employees are recruited in such a way that they are fully occupied. In regards to the delegation of authority, as reflected in the organizational structure, the authority is exercised as per the stipulated structure. The sections coordinate their work so as to achieve the objectives. This means that no section can stand alone.Staffing function in the PMU Staffing encompasses the tasks of recruiting, hiring, training, lay-off, and compensation of employees. The PMU recruits its staff with due regards to the management and labor needs. In so doing, it prepares job description, builds a pool of applicants, review the applications and select those to be interviewed, do the interview, check references, and select the best suited candidate and hire him. The PMU provides training to its staff in view of the timely job related developments and requirements.For instance, the staffs are made to be actively involved in t he endeavors to upgrade themselves. Similarly, the PMU lays off its staff in view of staff’s reflections of incapacities in doing the tasks or showing other behaviors that are believed against the norms of the organization. It is the right of the employees to receive the needed compensation related with the job they undertook during their stay in the PMU. Directing function in the PMU Directing is influencing people's behavior through motivation, communication, group dynamics, leadership and discipline.The purpose of directing is to channel the behavior of all personnel to accomplish the organization's mission and objectives while simultaneously helping them accomplish their own career objectives. Highly motivated people perform better than unmotivated people. Motivation covers up ability and skill deficiencies in employees. The PMU gives motivation top priority. Employees are motivated through the material, financial, as well as work environment privileges. This is very impo rtant aspect that expedites the realizations of the objectives.Besides, the communication issues are very important as part of the directing function of management in the PMU. The staffs are careful enough in their communicative efforts such as with the financiers, partners, suppliers etc. The staffs are appraised for what they do, and disciplinary measures are taken for incidents of misbehaviors. Controlling function of the PMU Controlling in the PMU is done in view of the performance standards (indicators) set in each financing agreement back before the start of the implementation of projects.The Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation Section of the PMU take care of such tasks as monitoring activities and evaluating against standards. The Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation Section undertake routine or surprise checks of activities. At the mid term and final term of projects, they also conduct evaluations. In so doing, the section seeks preventive and corrective measures such as th e incorporation of new mechanisms of implementations. The controlling function is done in all aspects of the program, such as controlling assets owned by the office, control on the staff in terms of their work hours. . General Observations in the PMU The PMU is known for its staff that is aware of the virtues out of team working, learning by doing, and complementarities. These attributes are very important for the management function to achieve effectiveness and efficiency in the tasks that are destined to accomplish. Most of the staff members are young professionals that they can learn easily from experiences of others, and that they possess the merit to catch up things through continuous reading. The team work in the PMU has assisted the effective accomplishments of activities as scheduled.Synergism is common place, and supporting one another is highly worked upon. 5. Recommendations From the foregoing we can understand that the PMU fully undertaking management functions. In order to cement the positive sides of what is going on in the PMU, I recommend the following points: †¢ that the various projects need to be harmonized †¢ that the staffing function be done in view of the experiences already nurtured. This means the job description in trying to hire staff has to be used in such a way that team work is given greater weight. that more training need to be provided to the staff †¢ that the young professionals be retained as a team in order to pursue the implementation of similar projects in other sectors such as agriculture, etc 6. Conclusion Efficiency and effectiveness are key words related to the realization of plans. The realization of this is the task of management. Management does these through the coordination of its functions. These functions are planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.The PMU is reputed for pursuing a management style that assists in the realizations of set objectives effectively and efficiently. Al l management functions are employed in the PMU, and thus the fruits of these concerted efforts are tangibly realized. 7. Works cited Website http://choo. fis. utoronto. ca/fis/courses/lis1230/lis1230sharma/plan1. htm http://www. ag. ohio-state. edu/~mgtexcel/Function. html http://www. ag. ohio-state. edu/~mgtexcel/Staffing. html http://www. buzzle. com/articles/management-concepts-the-four-functions-of-management. tml http://choo. fis. utoronto. ca/fis/courses/lis1230/lis1230sharma/history4. htm Kiflemariam Abraham, Reading on Principles of Management. March 2007 Management Term Paper * * Help Desk Operations for the Operating Forces Wilfredo Santiago Park University Author Note This is an insider view on how to streamline and improve the services provided by MCTSSA (Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity) Help Desk to the Operating Forces. Abstract MCTSSA Help Desk was established over 10 years ago to provide technical support to the operating forces.Today the Help Desk is referred to as OFTSSC (Operating Forces Tactical Systems Support Center) with a specific mission stated as: to provide continuous, distributed technical support, troubleshooting, and problem resolution for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) systems, in order to optimize those systems as force multipliers in assisting Marines to win battles. While the OFTSSC focuses on the needs of the Marine Corps, it offers technical assistance to all C4I system users across the entire Department of Defense (DoD), U. S. Government and all U.S. Foreign National Allies. The OFTSSC provides its customers with remote technical assistance by facilitating online access to supported system documentation, system software and offering live interaction with system subject matter experts (SMEs), via phone, online chat, and email. If a solution to a customer problem is not immediately available, OFTSSC personnel will actively work to obtain a solution by elevating customer issue s to MCTSSA support engineers, system vendors, Marine Corps Systems Command program managers or other commercial or DoD customer support agencies.Help Desk Operations for the Operating Forces The OFTSSC from the start operated in an ad-hoc manner maintaining its mission capability with a support staff composed of contractors and civilian government analysts and a limited number of uniformed personnel. This odd mix of employees with identical goals as a mission end state has presented a management challenge that has hampered efficiency and responsiveness in providing the services as defined in the stated mission. This paper will address three persistent problems that exist within OFTSSC.First, the lack of a verifiable control measure to gauge analyst productivity and quantified work output. Staffing is also a source of issues that continue to impact OFTSSC’s ability to maintain its credibility as a reliable source of SME (Subject Matter Experts) and it has a continuing difficu lty at retaining well trained employees to stick around. In fulfilling its function as a help-desk/support center for the operating forces, employees routinely receive calls from customers describing problems they encounter when employing tactical systems whether in garrison or on deployment.These calls are inducted into a database repository, Remedy. Here the adequacy of Remedy in providing as an output control comes into question. Although Remedy is widely used in the help desk community it is a system that requires a lot of labor intensive modifications to get take advantage of its capabilities as a help desk database tool. Currently, Remedy is employed as an out of the box software with limited modifications. Remedy can be modified as an output control tool that will enable management to effectively monitor employee productivity and efficiency.By design Remedy not only archives problems customers refer for solutions it also is a repository of all solutions created by analysts wh ich is then made available for future use or reference as a knowledge based article (KBA). As calls are received from customers analysts input all data related to problems being referred for assistance into Remedy. The information will include system type and nature of the problem and complete customer information. All these information is populated onto a standard template. The analyst then proceeds to research the KBA archives by using a key word search related to the problem.If a solution match is found this is provided to the customer and the problem is marked resolved and archived. The utility of the Remedy database is not fully exploited as any type of record created is only available only thru accessed. With all these information available within a central repository it should be made available for for all analysts at a glance providing a snapshot of the problem, the status, whether pending, resolved or in progress. This should be displayed on a large monitor for all to see. With this information on display all analysts will have current status of all problems available at a glance.At a minimum this should display two weeks worth of activity. This display will serve as visible output control measure to gauge analyst activity and productivity. This quantifiable and measurable display of work output can be used as an objective measure of performance and used as a basis for compensation rewards. For the analyst this will also serve as a current constant visible reminder of work that is pending, in progress or completed. Today the mix of employee analysts within OFTSSC has a variety of skill sets whose qualifications for the jobs are based on their past work experience with a particular system.This has been a detriment to OFTSSC’s ability to provide reliable analysts consistently without periodic unavailability due to SME absence. This is a cause for concern because of its impact on the service reputation that is expected by the customers – av ailability among others. To fill this requirement gap it is imperative that the depth of analyst skill sets be enhanced. There are thirty analysts currently employed supporting over forty varying systems which include a variety of tactical radios. The systems are grouped into Command and Control (C2) or Tactical Applications (TacApps) with tactical radios included into TacApps.This grouping is done for purposes of limited management and tasking deconfliction. Personnel tasking however blurs the lines of personnel assignments as analysts are often randomly assigned to provide assistance on systems that he or she is not officially assigned. The practice has in many situations caused unexpected disruptions in service quality. Because too often analysts assigned to tasks do not possess the subject matter expertise to provide support requested. To mitigate this situation a training program that will involved cross training all analysts need to be instituted within OFTSSC.Staffing has to be reviewed and a reorganization of the analyst teams will have to be done in a manner that permits a well defined tasking of all analysts based on skill sets and grouping them based on previous assignments. Within each grouping a program of OJT (On the Job Training) will be initiated by pairing each analyst together and each one go thru a training program designed to increase their depth of skill and familiarity with systems other than those they are qualified on as an expert. During the training period ample opportunity will be dedicated to having the trainer and trainee to conduct business as a team.This process will be akin to a mentoring process that facilitates the transfer of knowledge and skill that will improve the services provided to customers. Reorganization and staffing once completed will result in a reliable and available analyst well trained on the system supported. The improved skill sets will require to be maintained if the quality of service is to be credible, thi s can be achieved with a programmed sustainment training that should include in-service training and follow-on continuing education to keep current with the dynamic nature of technology.Summary The operation of a support center such as OFTSSC is unique in that its main customer is the operating thus the focus of its services are the uniformed personnel who maybe in harm’s way, because of this it is critical that the quality and accuracy of service and information provide require a level of expertise that is above the norm. Analysts are assumed to be the experts on the systems they support therefore it is imperative that their training and quality of service measure up to the standards.If the service provided is to have any value or credibility the provider must have the requisite knowledge and training to be consistent with the required standards. At the onset staffing should focus on critical skill sets that are vital to the operational demands of the customers and they shou ld sustain the currency of those skills. In order to maintain and improve the depth of knowledge and skill sets training is essential and once established sustainment will be required.Hiring standard is another area that will have to be visited to ensure that standards are maintained and qualified personnel are selected. This will preclude the impact of substandard services to the customer. References -3 points for not utilizing MG352 text to support term paper. 1. Operations Chief: OFTSSC Standard Operating Procedures, 2010 2. The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) version 3, 2011 3. http://www. bmc. com/solutions/itsm/it-service-management. tml -3 points for improper citing of reference; below is how article from the Internet should be cited Author (2012, May 15). Name of Article, Date retrieved from the internet & http://www. link. com 4. http://www. marines. mil/unit/marcorsyscom/mctssa/Pages/OFTSSC. aspx -3 points for improper citing of reference; below is how article from the Internet should be cited Author (2012, May 15). Name of Article, Date retrieved from the internet & http://www. link. com

An Overview of the Origin of Swimming

An Overview of the Origin of Swimming Written records of swimming date back to near 2000 BC, however, nowhere are strokes or techniques mentioned, children were simply taught to swim. A record from between 2160 BC and 1780 BC from an Egyptian nobleman says â€Å"his children took swimming lessons with the king’s children† (Colwin 4). In addition, many passages from the Biblical Old Testament mention swimming or the act of swimming; such as in the old testament book of Isaiah: â€Å"as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim† (KJV Isa 25:11). Until around the 1500s, no swimming manuals teaching specific techniques existed. In 1559, Sir Everard Digby wrote, in Latin, A short introduction for to learne to swimme. Later Christofer Middleton translated Sir Digby’s work into the common English â€Å"for the better in|struction of those who vnderstand not the Latine tongue† (Digby 1). Digby wrote instructions on how to swim â€Å"like a dog† and â€Å"like a dolphin† as well as many other forms (Digby table of contents). From there, other manuals were written to further refine strokes. While swimming originates as an old pastime, until the early 1800s competitive swimming’s history did not exist because competitive swimming itself did not exist. Up until then, swimming acted as a pleasurable pastime intended more for relaxation than exercise. That mentality shifted during the 19th century in Britain with the opening of St. George’s Baths in 1828, the first indoor public pool. Following that in 1837, the British National Swimming Society made many more indoor pools and began holding swimming competitions (Sharma 1). While the sport remained on the back burner for several decades it steadily grew in popularity until swimming debuted on a global scale in the Grecian Olympics of 1896. In recent decades, athletes such as Mark Spitz, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Nathan Adrian, Natalie Coughlin, Katie Ladecky, and Missy Franklin have rocketed the swimming world into becoming one of the most televised sports during the summer Olympics. The language the sport of competitive swimming employs many words from non-aquatic sources. For example, the butterfly stroke, though allegedly invented in 1933 by Brooklyn swimmer Henry Myers (Colwin 30). Instead the butterfly stroke derives its name from the butterfly insect since the technique somewhat resembles that of its namesake. Several other words in swimming’s lexicon follow the same mentality. Named not for who invented the technique, but rather for what it looks like. Kicks such as the dolphin and whip kick when categorized in this way provide pristine examples for this method. The dolphin kick looks like that of a dolphin’s tail moving up and down in the water. The whip kick, sometimes called the frog kick, also makes sense because as human legs perform the kick they mimic the action of frog legs. The swim strokes themselves hold other examples of words coming from non-aquatic sources. Butterfly (previously explained), backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle all have nothing to do with water. The back and breast strokes seem to explain themselves, one executed while swimming on your back and the other executed while swimming with your chest or breast side of your body facing downward in the water. While the easiest to swim, freestyle tends to exists as a more complex term to understand. Technically breast, back, and fly exist as alternate strokes for the freestyle though usually traditionally performed as the complete reverse of backstroke. The stroke of free takes on the dictionary definition of â€Å"enjoying personal rights or liberty† (â€Å"free†), which allows swimmers to swim whatever stroke they deem the easiest or the fastest for themselves. Most of the words in the following lexicon find their roots in Germanic languages. Old Norse, Old Dutch, Old English, and even Old Frisian boast the origin of these words. Invented in Britain, competitive swimming has its lexical language background in these and other Proto-Germanic roots. Of the words in the following lexicon only five can have their origins traced back to Latin, French, or Greek. Of the five outliers, three are Latinate in origin. ‘Dolphin’ derived from a term for the animal and the constellation ‘dolphinus’, ‘paddles’ from the Medieval Latin term ‘padela’, and ‘cap’ from the word cappa. The Old French word ‘touch’ from ‘tochier’ joins with a Germanic word ‘pod’ to make the compound ‘tochierpod’ or ‘touchpad’. Finally, swimming gets its word ‘cards’ from the Greek word ‘khartes’. Verbs and nouns entirely comprise the lexicon list, evidence for this observation lies in the reasoning that verbs and nouns describe either an action or a piece of equipment. However, three words defy normal constructs of language. ‘Dolphin’, ‘whip’, and ‘flutter’ are normally used in language as a noun and two verbs respectively. In swimming, these words take on the role of an adjective because they are describing the type of kick used in a stroke (the dolphin kick in butterfly, the whip kick in breaststroke, and the flutter kick in backstroke and freestyle). Swimming, with its complex history of starting as a leisure activity and evolving into a competitive sport, becomes a wonderful example of how a language can adapt its words to fit a new activity. In addition to creating a new lexicon, a competitive swimmer may ignore old definitions as new definitions are created such as the case of ‘dolphin’. The following lexicon presents a collection of twenty swimming terms that demonstrate all of what has been previously written.

Victory Arch of Titus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Victory Arch of Titus - Essay Example The Arco di Tito (Arch of Titus) is situated in a slightly raised position on a branch of the Palatine Hill at the entrance to the Forum. Its religious relevance lies in its portrayal of the conquest of Jerusalem and its revered temple by the Romans in 70 AD.1 Domitian erected the Arch of Titus. In the year AD 70, Domitian was the Emperor of Rome. The Empire then was in a status of excellence. People all over were talking about the triumphs of Domitian’s brother Titus. Titus then was heading his army into Jerusalem to conquer the Jews in the Emperor’s name.2 Sometime around AD 80 word arrived that Jerusalem had been defeated and that Titus would be returning with the wealth of Jewish Temples. To await his return, Domitian ordered the building of the Arch. The Victory Arch of Titus honors Titus triumphant defeat of Jerusalem after the huge Jewish uprising around 70 AD. Although it was most likely built by Titus’ brother and successor, Emperor Domitian, there are some who believe that it was actually built by emperor Trajan because of resemblance to the Arch of Trajan located at Benevento. Titus had actually already died when the arch was constructed, but Titus younger brother Domitian was emperor, and he wanted people to think of his brother Titus. Hence, the writing has Titus name on it. (It says, the Senate and the People of Rome, to the Divine Titus, son of the Divine Vespasian, Vespasian Augustus).3 The letters were originally distinguished in shimmering bronze letters, but the bronze was stolen away. The Arch of Titus is situated on the topmost point of the Via Sacra, a road leading to the Roman Forum. It is positioned at the eastern most side of the forum and was used as an entrance and exit to the forum. This is a solitary arch, 15.4 meter high, 13.5 meter wide and 4.75 meter deep.4 At the interior of the arch are two panels with reliefs or an art figure in which the top exterior of the art work reveals some

Place in Our Secular and Scientific World for Religion Term Paper

Place in Our Secular and Scientific World for Religion - Term Paper Example Religion is the ultimate truth and will be followed until science is able to explain absolutely everything in the universe. Philosophers have also had some religious views when it came to science. In their time, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were highly regarded for their wisdom and philosophies. Neither of them as followers of the prevalent pagan mythologies of the time. All of them felt the existence of a greater being, an absolute being, which is above human eccentricities and the weaknesses of Greek gods and goddesses. Of course, they had heated arguments about the nature of this Supreme Being and his creations. These Greek philosophers have left behind teachings that are similar to those of Jesus Christ. (Lindsey). Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover has been a part of his explanations of many physics and metaphysics phenomena.   Of this Unmoved Mover, he says, â€Å"God  has no matter, which means that there can only be one God since it is a matter that differentiates one fo rm or definition into many manifestations of that one form or definition.  His work in physics led to a worldview bringing his followers back to God, pronouncing him as the designer of our clockwork world. His study of the celestial mechanics convinced of the presence of a God as the ultimate creator of science.   Since God has no matter, then God is one not only formally or by definition but also numerically.   In addition, there can be only one unmoved mover, because there is only one heaven:   continuous motion is one motion since such motion is a system of moving parts.† It was Aristotle’s belief that anything that has an absolute pattern or design has to be created; it cannot happen accidentally and needs a reason or case for creation. The Unmoved Mover is the first cause. ("University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ")

Great Events in History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Great Events in History - Essay Example Unlike of religious beliefs, there is no proper definition of justice in Quran and therefore my understanding is based on Muslim interpretation of justice. My view of justice is also partly open-minded since I strongly believe that no system is perfect to deal with all the complex situations the world is faced with. Men are the most decision makers when it comes to matters of Islamic justice even though we are equally affected by the outcomes of the decisions they make. I strongly believe that morality and ethics are the roots of all evil in the society and the remedy can easily be found in the spiritual traits. Life is sacred according to Islam hence should not just be taken away without proper accusation beyond any reasonable doubt. This therefore implies that life can only be taken away on the context of justice and law and not any other consideration (Abou & Cohen 71). The spirit of the Muslim penal code is to protect lives and promote justice and not the vice versa as many other people and religions have tried to paint it. Quran legislation for the death penalty in the case of murder, forgiveness, and compassion are strongly encouraged and the murder victims are given a choice to either insist on the death penalty or pardon the wrongdoer and accept compensation. The act of spreading mischief across the land on matters that are mostly related to apostasy, terrorism, piracy, rape, adultery, and homosexual behavior can also result to capital punishment according to the Muslim faith (Khadduri 102). The methods of punishment vary from place to place but the common ones in Saudi Arabia include firing squad, hanging and beheading. Executions are held in public places to act as a warning to those who may consider repeating such acts in future that their days are numbered. Vigilantism has no place in Islamic society and one must be properly convicted under the Muslim laws that require strict evidence standards before capital punishment is imposed on anybody. The ac t of homosexuality is highly prohibited according to my religion on the basis that it clashes with the natural order in which God created human beings. In the social scene, it brings destructions to the family set up since no two people of the same sex have the possibility to mate and give rise to a fertile offspring. The believers of Muslim faith should neither participate nor support such acts of gay either materially or psychologically at all time of their lives. We believe that everything has been created in pairs and such, people should benefit and develop a relationship based on the opposite sex and not same sex relationships. Pairing of the males and the females is part of human nature and the natural order that should be promotes in a culturally sensitive society (Khan 11). The Quran supports the relationship between a wife and husband as a relationship that supports love, tenderness and support and I strongly believe that such qualities can hardly be found on same sex relat ionships. There is punishment for acts of gayism according to Islam but there is no legal judgment for those who feel the homosexual impulse but are reluctant to act on them. Acting on homosexual feeling is a bad idea that is condemned and subject to legal punishment that varies from jail term to death penalty. The use of sexist, racist, and homophobic language is prohibited according to my traditions, culture, and religion. We strongly believe

Self Introduction Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Self Introduction - Personal Statement Example I strongly understand that every human being deserves a right to be happy and I consider it my personal initiative to guarantee this to every person. I am a strong believer of social justice and I know for certain that every human being should be considered equal. I do not hesitate to do all that I can to ensure that justice prevails in the society particularly for the weak. The desperate and the destitute members of the society are held close to my heart of hearts and I believe they also have reasons to live. Since I was a child, I have always felt pain when I see others suffer. I have realized that I cannot be happy when others are sad and I have believed that the only way to be happy is making other happy. Humility is the driving force towards my good relationship with people, my teachers, friends and family members. However, I am also very assertive especially when my conscience propels me to doing what I fundamentally believe is right. I have no reservation for the course of jus tice and truth. And am always willing to go an extra mile in ensuring that what my conscience considers right is done. I have no apologies at all for doing the right thing. This has sometimes seen a few friends break up with me. However, I lack ability to hold grudges; there is no hate in my heart. Even as they run away from me, I continue treating them with humility and love. With time, they come to realize that after all, I meant no harm. This has made many close friends cling to me amid many challenges. In the field of business, I am very entrepreneurial, inventive and innovative. I have contributed significantly to the growth of my mother’s small shop in town. With the ideas that I constantly give her, she has been able to expand the shop and today it is her main source of livelihood. I particularly imparted into her the idea of taking risks, however I warned her not to take very huge risks are the consequences might sometimes be too great to contemplate. Modesty and humi lity are some of the key attributes that mother has learnt from me. She uses these virtues to relate well to her customers who are mostly low and medium income earners. She constantly tells me that she did not believe she could learn from her son. After all she was supposed to be my role model and I was to learn from her. I have a wide experience in writing. I write articles and poems. Sometimes when I have nothing else to do, I find myself with a pen and a piece of paper. At one point I wrote what went down as a masterpiece article on justice and truth. Then, I was still very young and everybody wondered where I got the ability and the knowledge to write such an impeccable piece. It also goes without saying that I love reading a lot. I read biographies, novels, articles on the social world, psychology, philosophy, religion – comparative religion, Hindu, Islam, Christianity. I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. I always want to know more. My contributions to the social well being of the society are very immense. Through the articles I have been able to write, people have been enlightened on the importance of justice and truth. I have particularly played a very fundamental role in ensuring that I inform my readers on the value of truth and justice. I have had reservations for dirty, racial and ethnic politics. I believe the most fundamental thing in politics is to judge individuals not on the basis of the depth of their

Spiritual and religious traditions of our ancestors Essay

Spiritual and religious traditions of our ancestors - Essay Example After awhile, he left the tent and went straight to the Confederate picket line where he seriously tried to commit suicide. (Blaise, n.d.) In the end, he was considered to be a hero for successfully diverting the Federal attack away from the civil war. For this reason, he was given the option to choose his own assignment in which he had chosen to see the ‘frontier’ – a remote post in remote South Dakota. As he reaches close to the Sioux village, a Sioux woman cuts her own wrists because her husband past away. (Willis, 2000) However, Dunbar was able to stop her from going through her plan of committing suicide. This woman happens to be a white woman that was raised by the Sioux tribe. For this reason, she became Dunbar’s personal interpreter. In the end, both Dunbar and the interpreter fell in love. The tribe is composed of the whites, the Sioux, and the Pawnee where racism has become the main reason for the civil war. (Willis, 2000) The group of individuals coming from three different races strongly hates people who are different from their own race. The story shows a great violence among the white Americans among other whites, the white on Indians, Indians on white, and Indian among the Indians. The Sioux were directed to show humanity in everyday life which causes the viewers to take side on them when they were at war with the Pawnee. As part of showing the intense war between the three groups of people, the use of profanity was enormous throughout the story. Religiously speaking, there should be no war and everyone should respect each other as brothers and sisters regardless of race, gender and status in life. However, the film focuses more on civil war that strongly violates humanity and the right of men to live. It is a religious tradition that once the husband or the wife past away, the widow or the widower has to mourn for the dead husband or wife for a certain period of time. However, this was

Linguistics structure and meaning in literary discourse Essay

Linguistics structure and meaning in literary discourse - Essay Example Complicating action and resolution, recognized as 'narrative clauses' by the Labov, are simple past main clauses and their order sums up the order of events in the narrative. The temporal sequence of the original semantic interpretation will be the ultimate result of an alteration in the order of complicating action and resolution. In the novel A Tale of Two Cities, the 'narrative clauses' of complicating action and resolution in the form of simple past main clauses whose order sums up the order of events are at work from the very opening of the narrative. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishnessit was the season of Light, it was the season of Darknesswe had everything before us, we had nothing before us" (Dickens, 3) The order of the various events in the narrative is the result of the order of the 'narrative clauses'. To comprehend these narrative strategies closely, complicating action is concerned with the narrative question 'Then what happened' and resolution with 'What finally happened' Similarly, the narrative function of the former has been that it is the main narrative category which provides the 'what happened' element of the story and the latter summarises the final focal episode of a story. More significantly, the linguistic form of complicating action is "temporally ordered narrative clauses with a verb in the simple past or present" where as that of resolution is "expressed as the last of the narrative clauses that began the complicating action." (A Sociolinguistic Model of Narrative) The linguistic forms of complicating action as well as resolution in the novel are evidently reflected in the sentence constructions of the narrative. According to Labov, the narrative embodies several events which are temporarily and rationally previous to the narrative itself. Therefore, Labov realised the significance of sequence which denotes the chronological ordering in narrative discourse. To relate the literary issues with the linguistic aspects, "the structural organisation of the narrative is governed primarily by principles of chronological sequence." (Klapproth, 96) In the narrative strategy of the novel by Dickens, this structural organisation of the narrative assisted by the principles of chronological sequence is apparent. In the novel A Tale of the Two Cities one finds the best illustration of this structural organisation of the narrative through the principles of temporal sequence. The novel, arranged in three books, illustrates the impact of the principles of temporal sequence on the structural organisation of the narrative. The arrangement of the major events in the novel in three main sections indicates the significance of temporal seque

Non word Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Non word - Assignment Example She spent $5,000 to purchase her steno machine, $2,000 on a new computer, and $500 on miscellaneous office supplies. She financed these purchases by withdrawing $7,500 from her personal savings account. When she closed the account, the bank representative mentioned that she would have earned 4% interest next year. If Bev hadn’t opened her own business, she would have earned a salary of $25,000. In her first year, Bev’s revenues were $30,000. Which of the following statements is correct? _B___ 22. Studies indicate that the price elasticity of demand for cigarettes is about 0.4. A government policy aimed at reducing smoking changed the price of a pack of cigarettes from $2 to $6. According to the midpoint method, the government policy should have reduced smoking by 2. A firm hires two workers and rents 15 acres of land for a season. It produces 150,000 bushels of crop. If it had doubled its land and labor, production would have been 325000 bushels. Does it have constant, decreasing, or increasing returns to scale? It has an increasing returns to scale. This is because the marginal returns were 175000 bushels produced when the labor and land were increased. The double production inputs should have at least resulted to a double output which was the case. In fact, the number was more than 300,000 bushels which would have been the expected

Moral Agency Essay Example for Free

Moral Agency Essay Most philosophers suggest only rational beings, who can reason and form self-interested judgments, are capable of being moral agents. Some suggest those with limited rationality (for example, people who are mildly mentally disabled or infants[1]) also have some basic moral capabilities. [3] Determinists argue all of our actions are the product of antecedent causes, and some believe this is incompatible with free will and thus claim that we have no real control over our actions. Immanuel Kant argued that whether or not our real self, the noumenal self, can choose, we have no choice but to believe that we choose freely when we make a choice. This does not mean that we can control the effects of our actions. Some Indeterminists would argue we have no free will either. If, with respect to human behaviour, a so-called cause results in an indeterminate number of possible, so-called effects, that does not mean the person had the free-thinking independent will to choose that effect. More likely, it was the indeterminate consequence of his chance genetics, chance experiences and chance circumstances relevant at the time of the cause. In Kants philosophy, this calls for an act of faith, the faith free agent is based on something a priori, yet to be known, or immaterial. Otherwise, without free agents a priori fundamental source, socially essential concepts created from human mind, such as justice, would be undermined (responsibility implies freedom of choice) and, in short, civilization and human values would crumble. It is useful to compare the idea of moral agency with the legal doctrine of mens rea, which means guilty mind, and states that a person is legally responsible for what he does as long as he should know what he is doing, and his choices are deliberate. Some theorists discard any attempts to evaluate mental states and, instead, adopt the doctrine of strict liability, whereby one is liable under the law without regard to capacity, and that the only thing is to determine the degree of punishment, if any. Moral determinists would most likely adopt a similar point of view. Psychologist Albert Bandura has observed that moral agents engage in selective moral disengagement in regards to their own inhumane conduct. [4].

The context of Church-State Relations Essay Example for Free

The context of Church-State Relations Essay This section sets the context for testing the hypotheses. Historically, church-state relationships have been a recurring and significant source of political controversy in European states. The outcomes of these controversies may be viewed in terms of the following taxonomy: the Erastian model, in which the state has assumed responsibility for the direction of the church; the liberal model, in which the state is secular and neutral in its relationships with the church(es) found in its society; the theocratic model, in which the church has achieved supremacy in religious and secular affairs; the spheres model, in which the church prevails in some spheres and the state in other spheres of society; and the anti-church model, in which the state stands in opposition to the church and seeks to curtail or eliminate religion. The Erastian model. On this model, the state seeks to organize the church as a department of the state. This model is commonly associated with the Protestant German states of the Reformation. The Erastian model confronts the problem of internal religious change, perhaps expressed in controversies over liturgy or doctrinal controversies. From the regulatory perspective, two broad responses to internal change may be taken by the Erastian state. First, the state may simply tolerate a good deal of doctrinal variation within the church viewed as a common religious house. Second, the state may seek to play the role of arbiter or imprimatur in determining the correctness of certain positions in theological disputes. Both positions run the risk of reduced credibility for both the church and the state. The liberal model. The liberal model argues for neutrality of the state in the affairs of churches. It conceives the state as one in which there is no privileged relationship between the state and any particular church. Although the liberal model has its origins in European thought, it may be argued that it has rarely been found in European countries. Few European regimes have adopted neutrality as the basis for church-state regulation. The United States is often judged to be a better example than European nations of the application of the liberal tradition to church-state relations. [14] The United States also is a nation with one of the highest rates of church attendance on either side of the North Atlantic. Does the fact that the American state constructs church-state relations as a wall of separation contribute to the apparently greater American public willingness to attend church and to attach importance to religion? Roger Finke has argued that the deregulation of churches in the United States has promoted religious individualism; that is, for an American church to survive it must attract communicants in the open market by responding to the individuals understanding of religion as one of personal conversion. [15] The theocratic model. Here the church assumes or is given a sphere of influence that embraces both religious and secular spheres. As with the state in the Erastian model, the church is supreme and so the question of the states defining boundaries does not arise. The churchs autonomy in determining public policy is not confined to its membership but embraces the broader community in which the church is located. This model may exist in regions within a state but certainly is not characteristic of nations in Europe today. The best example of a European theocracy in the last century was the Papal states in what is now modern Italy. The spheres model. This model can best be described by saying what it is not. It is not the liberal tradition or the Erastian or the theocratic. Rather, it may be described as the situation in which the society is understood as made up of competing or perhaps complementary spheres. Conflicts between the Holy Roman Emperors and religious hierarchies often reflected this battle over spheres of autonomy. Variations of this model are found in a remarkably wide range of European nations today. These range from nations that profess to be of a certain church, to others that are critical of a specific church. Samuel Krislov argues that the determination of boundaries between church and state is enormously difficult in any system that seeks to recognize separate spheres of responsibility between a church and a state. [16] It is probably useful to conceptualize the spheres model as a continuum. At one end are the Roman Catholic Churches in Ireland and in todays Poland, where the sphere of church influence is quite large and embraces many areas of public policy making. At the other end of the continuum are Scandinavian churches which have narrowly-defined spheres of influence in public policy making. The anti-church model. This final model is one in which the state is deeply critical if not in outright opposition to the church. The former regimes of Eastern Europe reflected an oppositional tradition as historically did the nineteenth and early twentieth century regimes in Mexico and in France which often sought to disestablish or to curtail church life severely. Examples of opposition include expulsion of religious orders, seizure of church resources, and prohibition of many church-sponsored activities.

Socio-economic status and race

Socio-economic status and race Abstract The defendant who was Latino was hypothesized to be sentenced to more years in prison by jurors than the defendant who was white. It was also hypothesized that the defendant would be sentenced to more years in prison if the victim was of higher socio-economic status (Businessman) than low socio-economic status (homeless man). There were 60 college aged participants chosen at random. Participants were given one of four scenarios that varied in race (white or Latino) of the defendant and socio-economic status (Business or Homeless) of the victim. The scenarios asked the participants to recommend jail sentences for the given scenario. As hypothesized the Latino defendants received longer jail sentences than the white defendants and defendants received longer sentences when the victim was a Business man than when the victim was a homeless man. Socio-Economic Status and Race as Influences on Jury Sentencing: Does Socio-Economic Status and Race Influence a Jury Decision on Sentencing? As the world becomes more diverse we need to understand the bias factors that influence jurors decisions. It is hard to asses these factors in real cases as no two cases are truly similar and we can not simulate several scenarios. We used Jury simulations to test these unconscious bias people used when they recommended sentencing for the defendants. The bias factors can be seen in the news when high profile cases come up. There are times when we believed defendants to be guilty but they were found innocent. In most cases the defendants were either from high socio-economic status or race was a factor. We conducted the jury simulation with four different scenarios to try and understand this bias. Based on previous research we made two hypotheses. The first was that the Latino man would be sentenced to more years in prison than the white man. According to demographic studies minorities are more likely to be convicted of a crime and more harshly sentenced than white Caucasian (Gleason, Harris, 1975). The second hypothesis was that defendants would be sentenced to more years in prison when the victim was a Business man and less years when the victim was a homeless man. Based on previous studies cited in this report it was predicted that there would be a main effect for each variable and a significant interaction between these variables. Defendants are sentenced to more years in prison when the victim is considered attractive to the jury than when the victim is considered unattractive (Landy, Aronson, 1969. Race and Socio-economic status do notably bias jurors views toward the defendant and victim in a court case. Those with higher socio-economic status were seen as less guilty than those with lower socio-economic status (Gleason, Harris, 1975). Gleason and Harriss study was a 22 factorial design which varied the defendants race (white and black) and socio-economic status (middle class and lower class).Although in Gleason Harriss study the socio-economic status variable is used for the defendant and in our study socio-economic status is used for the victim, you can still see how socio-economic status plays a rule in peoples judgment regardless of if its the victim or defendant with high or low status. If the defendant is of high socio-economic status they are less likely to be found guilty status (Gleason, Harris, 1975). Also if the victim is of high status the defendant is more likely to be found guilty and subject to a harsher sentence as this study shows. A jury simulation carried out by Gordon, Bindrim, McNicholas, Walden survey 56 University students. Their survey was a jury simulation that studied how perceptions of blue-collar and white-collar crimes were tied to the defendants race. An equal number of black and white participants were given one of four scenarios were the descriptions of the defendants race (black or white) and type of crime (burglary or embezzlement) committed varied. In the study the black defendant was sentenced to a longer jail term than the white defendant in crimes that were considered blue-collar crimes such as the burglary that was present in the study. In the case of the embezzlement the white defendant was sentenced to a longer jail term than the black defendant. This study conclude that people are more likely to be sentenced more harshly for crimes that people can associate them with on the bases of things like demographics and socio-economic status . There are many other studies that have looked the things that influence a jurors opinion of a defendant. One study â€Å"The Influence of the Character of the Criminal and His Victim on the Decisions of Simulated Jurors† carried out by Landy Aronson looked at the character of the criminal and defendant and how it influences jurors decisions. They conducted two version of the experiment and compared results. In both the first and second version of the experiment the victim was report to half the participants as unattractive and to the other half as attractive. For the second version the character of the defendant also varied in character some attractive, unattractive, and neutral. Jurors are more likely to look at a defendant more negatively when they see the victim as attractive and less likely to view the defendant negatively when the victim is unattractive (Landy, Aronson, 1969). Method Participants Participants were 60 University students. Participants were approached randomly and asked to volunteer in this study. The Participants ranged in age approximately 18-24 years old and were University students from around the country. Materials Each Participant was given a short jury simulation scenario (See Figure 1). There were two independent variables that made up four different scenarios. The opening paragraph informed participants that the questionnaires were anonymous and that they may take as much time as they need to come to a decision. It also informed participants to give to give their personal judgment not bias of what others may think and sentence defendant without parole to a certain number of years in prison. The last paragraph restated what the opening paragraph had stated. All four scenarios were similar in location of incident, action leading up to incident, details of how accident occurred, and the fatal outcome resulting in the victims death. The scenarios were all male drivers driving down a street at night distracted that hit and killed a pedestrian crossing the street that was not using a crosswalk. The two variables that were changed were the defendants race (White Caucasian, Latino) and victims sta tus (Business, Homeless) man. Design There were four groups of 15 participants assigned randomly based on their researcher. Each group was given separate scenarios to read and make a decision on. Procedure There were three researchers who approached participants in the field. One researcher administered two scenarios while the other two researchers administered one scenario each. University students were approached at random by the researchers and asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire. For example some participants were asked before the start of a lecture to complete one of the researchers scenarios from the scenarios of anonymous questionnaires. Participants were instructed to read through the scenario and make a personal judgment of the numbers of years in prison the defendant should be sentenced to. Once the participant was done writing down their sentence on the questionnaire they placed it in a large manila envelope to protect their anonymity and privacy. Results A 2-way 22 analysis of variance was run to decide if the sentence length was influenced by socio-economic status or by race. There was a main effect present for the victims socio-economic status. The prison sentence given to the defendant when the victim was a Business man (M= 8.73, SE=.69) was significantly longer than when the victim was a homeless man (M= 6.67, SE=.69) (F (1, 56) = 4.45, p .05) (See Figure 2). In looking at figure 2 we can see the lines are nearly parallel which would be a visually indicator that there not significant interaction. Discussion There were significant main effects for both variables (Race and Status). When the defendants race was Latino their sentence was significantly longer than when the defendants race was White. As for status the defendants sentence was significantly longer when the victim was a business man than when the victim was a homeless man. There was no significant interaction between race and status. Support for the two hypotheses can be explained by the results of previous research on jury simulation presented in this report. In this study it was predicted that there would be a main effect for each of the variables and a significant interaction between these variables. Although there was not a significant interaction in this study unlike some similar studies which resulted in significant interactions, there was a main effect for each variable. No two studies will ever be the same making it hard to undoubtedly predict the results and interactions. The variable of race showed that Latino men were sentenced to more years in prison than a white man. For the variable of status defendants were sentenced to more years in prison when the victim was a business man than when the victim was a homeless man. In this study race was the more significant variable. A black defendant was seen perceived as more likely to repeat a crime than a white defendant (Gordon, Bindrim, McNicholas, Walden, 1988). Thus to say the race of the defendant had a greater influence on the jurors to sentence more harshly than the influence of the victims social-economic status. There were a couple of limitations in this study. The first limitation is the external validity due to the population size and selection. With the sample size (N =60) University students it is hard to generalize the findings to all possible American jurors. This sample size would need to be bigger and cover a wider age group across America. In future research we could collaborate with Universities across the nation to conduct the study on a much lager scale. With this collaboration a much larger sample size that would be spread out across the Nation could create a more generalized picture of the bias that goes into jurors decisions. Also we could use a neutral study with a similar sample size to compare to the study. The neutral study would the same incident but it would be a person driving killed another person and there would be not race, status, or any other demographics. Another suggestion for future studies would be to obtain certain demographics from the participants (age, rac e, religion, political party, etc.). I would ask all participants two question regarding their experience with the US justice system. The first question would be if they have ever been convicted of a crime and if so have they ever served time in prison. Those two questions are important as they might play into the participants decision when evaluating their opinions of the defendant and feelings toward the US justice system. With all this said the more demographics and questions we ask the better we can understand the specific bias that play into jurors decisions when making a judgment on a victim. References Gleason, J., Harris, V. (1975). Race, socio-economic status, and perceived similarity as determinants of judgments by simulated jurors. Social Behavior and Personality, 3(2), 175-180. Gordon, R., Bindrim, T., McNicholas, M., Walden, T. (1988). Perceptions of blue-collar and white-collar crime: The effect of defendant race on simulated juror decisions. The Journal of Social Psychology, 128(2), 191-197. Landy,D., Aronson, E. (1969). The Influence of the Character of the Criminal and His Victim on the Decisions of Simulated Jurors. Journal of Experimental SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 5, 141-152.

From Romantic to Victorian Essay -- essays research papers

From Romantic to Victorian   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Victorian Age came after the Romantic Age and took place between the years of 1832 and 1901. Throughout the Romantic Age many authors/poets concentrated and focused on the rights of the people, as well as the idea of individualism. We are going to see how those beliefs helped spring into the Victorian Age. There are three main things concerning the Victorians during this specific time period: evolution, industrialism, and women. Along with these three comes doubt. These changes were confusing to many and began to make them wonder if what they had believed in all these years wasn’t true after all.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The evolution doubt came into effect when two men began to question nature and disturb the originality of the way things are suppose to be. These two men were Marx and Darwin. Although Marx isn’t mentioned as much as Darwin, we know that he was a very radical person who began to question the economic injustice of things, as well as the class system. Darwin on the other hand, was questioning the Bible and how things got to be the way they are. He brought about the idea of â€Å"natural selection† and that lead to biblical/religious doubts in people. Before Darwin came out with his idea on natural selection and evolution, scientists had exhibited doubt when the Neanderthal skeletons were discovered. This was the beginning of religious doubt. It wasn’t until Darwin came out with his explanation that people really began to take into consideration...

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich :: Selling in Minnesota

The chapter, Selling in Minnesota, had some disturbing information about the low wage life. As I read, I learned that every place the author went to apply, such as a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot type place called Menards, required the applicant to pass a drug test. The author went out and had to buy detox for $30, but can be up to $60. Also, I learn that 81% of employers do drug test their future employees. I don’t like this statistic, in part because I tried getting a job at Marshall Field’s restaurant and they required me to pass a drug test. Luckily, another employer called me before my scheduled drug screening (which I had planned on passing by being really sneaky and using the urine of a friend of mine), so I took that job offer and everything worked out well. The reason I don’t agree with the drug testing required to access most entry-level jobs, is because the only drugs they actually test for is Marijuana. Cocaine and heroine leave the body within three days, and other drugs aren’t even tested for. So that leaves the most commonly used illicit drug, and one that has the least affect on the user, to be tested for.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When the author first moved to Minnesota, she lived in a friend of a friend’s apartment until she could find another apartment. The friend is out of town and required that the author takes care of her canary in order for her to stay there. The bird, which the author comes to call Budgie, is really annoying and has to be let out of its cage a few times or otherwise it will go crazy in the cage. The author looks extremely had to find an apartment to stay at. Apparently, there is only a less than 1% apartment vacancy in Minnesota. Also, the only apartments that are available are defiantly not accessible to entry-level employees, offering hot tubs and over $1000 a month payments.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the places that the author tried to get a job at required that the employee had lived in Minnesota for at least one year.

A Comparison of Two Paintings from the Renaissance Period Essay

A Comparison of Two Paintings from the Renaissance Period Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This paper will compare the themes found in the paintings â€Å"Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and an Angel† by Domenico di Bartolomeo Ubaldini (Puligo) and â€Å"Madonna Enthroned† by Giotto. Both paintings deal with fables from the Christian faith but were executed during different periods in art. The Giotto painting was created around 1310 and the Puglio painting was executed between 1518 – 1520. Here, these two paintings have similar themes both at the extreme beginnings and endings of the Italian Renaissance, and as such they serve to present an exceptional example of the developments in art that occurred within that time. This paper shall compare these two paintings through addressing a series of questions on the subject. Subject Matter or Iconography   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Madonna Enthroned† is the earlier of the two works to be surveyed in this paper, and as such there is a great deal more popularity surrounding this work. The image is simple: The subject matter is religious and concerns a host of holy figures surrounding the Madonna with an infant figure of Christ on her lap. â€Å"Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and Angel† is similar in that other holy figures are gathered to pay their respects to Christ but the scene is more open and less focused on just the two central figures. â€Å"Madonna and Child†¦Ã¢â‚¬  in my opinion is therefore a more complex composition, where instead of having two recogn...

Journal on “Hands” by Sherwood Anderson Essay

The short story, Hands, which was written by Sherwood Anderson, basically revolves around Wing Biddlebaum, who is the main character of the story, and his struggles to cure his seemingly â€Å"uncontrollable hands. † In the story, Wing is portrayed as a middle-aged and nearly bald man who lives alone in his home. His only friend is George Willard, a young reporter for local paper, whom he values a lot. Other than Wing’s ordeal with his â€Å"disease,† the story also highlights his friendship with George. Basically, Wing first discovered his â€Å"disease† when he was still a teacher in Pennsylvania. As a teacher, Wing was very close to his students and often touched their hair and shoulders as a form of affection. However, one of the students, a boy, misinterpreted his actions as sexual in nature, causing his parents to confront him and throw him out of town. This experience basically caused Wing to live in isolation as he believed he was sick and he needed to avoid close contact with people to be cured. However, Wing’s â€Å"uncontrollable hands† again continued to haunt him despite his isolation him and almost jeopardized his friendship with George. In another flashback, while Wing is giving advice to George, he suddenly finds himself caressing the boy’s shoulders with his hands the just like the way he touched his students shoulders. Although George doesn’t notice what he was doing to him, Wing was bewildered upon realizing what his hands were doing to the boy and so he quickly placed them into his pockets. It was here that he realized that he was not yet cured of his â€Å"disease. † Generally, although the story did not specifically say that Wing has a â€Å"disease,† almost every event concerning his hands showed that he had one. However, it would be more accurate to say that his â€Å"uncontrollable hands† were psychological in nature. Basically, when Wing uses his hands to do things such as picking strawberries at an extraordinary speed and caressing the shoulder’s of his students, he does so almost subconsciously, which further supports the fact that he had a mental problem.

Frida Kahlo HSC

Friday Kohl â€Å"Art can be an expression of personal experience† Discuss this statement in reference to the life of Friday Kohl. Friday Kohl was described as â€Å"the first woman in the history of art to address with absolute and uncompromising honesty, general and specific themes which exclusively affect women† by life-long lover, Diego Riviera. As a Mexican female artist in the 20th century, Friday's themes expressed in her artworks were considered highly explicit at the time.She was fine artist who used autobiographical through her extensive output f self-portraits. They are evidence of her need for self-expression and her exploration of identity. She overcame many difficult events including polio, long recovery from a serious car accident, two failed marriages, and several miscarriages some having a direct influence on her art. She used these experiences, combined with Mexican and Native American cultural and stylistic influences, to create highly personal painti ngs.Kohl used personal symbolism mixed with Surrealism to express her suffering and anguish through her work. A viewer might classify her paintings as Surrealism, but she considered her art to be realistic. In reference to the statement â€Å"art can be an expression of personal experience†, Kohl has produced a plethora of artworks which express her personal experience. Kohl's many works from 1926 until her death in 1954 were each a response to an event, personal experience or the result of her own personal exploration into her heritage or identity.On September 17th, 1925 one single event changed Kohl's entire future. She was injured in a collision of a tram and a bus in which she suffered serious injuries in the accident, including a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. An iron handrail pierced her abdomen and her uterus, which seriously dama ged her reproductive ability. After this she was bedridden for months and as she states â€Å"Without giving it any particular thought, I started painting†.This accident also provide many direct influence to her artworks including a small drawing â€Å"Accident† (1925), which portrays a scene with no consideration to the rules of respective and the images of the collision, her broken body lying on the road and her own face looking down upon her can be seen. Also in her later work â€Å"The Broken Column† (1944), this painting is a direct response to her body health slowly deteriorating to the point where she had to wear a metal corset. In the painting Friday is the centre image, with an Ionic column broken in several places as a symbol of her spine.All over her body sharp nails are embedded in her skin which expresses the immense pain which is also highlighted by the desolate, fissured landscape which ads a feel of loneliness. Friday is well known for her unique ness, this developed early in her life with the help of her loving father, Wilhelm Kohl (1872-1941), he provided her with a passion for art as he was a photographer she describes him as an â€Å"immense example to me of tenderness, of work and above all of understanding†.Her affection towards her father is expressed in the painting â€Å"Portrait of my Father† (1951), where she clearly expresses with the bannered across the bottom of the painting his accomplishments ND by positioning him with the tool of his trade a plate-back camera, her respect for him. As a young child Friday suffered from polio, which stunted the growth of her right foot, during her convalescence she spent a lot of time with her father learning how to use a camera and color photographs – experiences which were useful for her later painting.Friday Kohl's self-portraits carried highly personal messages and helped her to shaped her idea of her own self; by creating herself anew in her art, she could find her way to her identity. Such is expressed in â€Å"The Two Friday's† (1939) is a double elf-portrait, which is a complex image, filled with symbolism. This revealing, if enigmatic, work is a direct response to Kohl's divorce from her life-long lover Diego Riviera, and expresses her personal feeling towards the situation. The duality Kohl feels is revealed by contrasting costumes, Mexican and European.The painting is filled with the pain she felt at the separation from Riviera. Kohl has painted two versions of herself – one Friday, wears a Victorian dress, is the one Riviera loved and the other, on the right, dressed in simple Athena dress, is the Friday he no longer eves. The two Friday's hold hands and are also connected by an artery that flows between their two hearts. The Friday on the left-hand side controls the blood flow with surgical clamps and the open artery on her lap may refer to the end of her marriage with Riviera.The Friday on the right-hand s ide holds a small portrait of Riviera as a child. Friday on the right can also symbolism Catholic representations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Friday on the left has her chest ripped open which could be in reference to the Aztec sacrificial practices. A turbulent sky fills the background, and focus is on inner identity and the desiring body. The doubling or split self and the contradictory pairing of an inner and outer reality being played out in the body suggest a surreal vision.Her many self-portraits show an indication of how her style developed over her career, when comparing her earliest self-portrait â€Å"Self-portrait in a velvet dress† (1926) to her later â€Å"Self-portrait time flies† (1929) there is a clear indication of development in style and attention to symbolism. Details like her simple looting, colonial earring, pre-colonial necklace, indicating pre-Columbian and colonial cultural influences, are an obvious progression from her earlier work.A nother example is in the two portraits â€Å"Portrait of Alicia Gallant† (1927) and â€Å"Portrait of my sister Christina† (1928), in these early portraits her style still orientated towards European-influenced Mexican portrait painting of the 19th-century, differ from the later portraits, which reveal a clear trend towards Mexicans, Mexican national consciousness. Her many personal influences are also expressed within many of her arks, she had a love of Chinese poetry which is represented in the subject for the painting â€Å"Portrait of Miguel N.Lira† (1927), her interest in Aztec rituals is represented in the composition of the painting â€Å"My birth† (1932) where the position of the woman giving birth is a direct reference to the goddess Tolerated and her passion for nature and life is represented as a motif in several paintings, including â€Å"portrait of Luther Burbank† (1931) a famed horticulturalist for his unusual passion for vegetable a nd fruit hybrid. In this paint he is depicted as half tree, half human.Her work for he first time turning away from straightforward reality into external reality. Skeleton at bottom relates to her favorite subject – birth of life through death which reflects on her personal experience in the car crash she suffered. The Mexican Revolution which began in 1910 had an effective influence upon the young Friday (only 3 at the time), who would later claim to be born in 1910 as to state she and the new Mexico were born at the same time.Though there are no artworks dedicated solely to the revolution and its effect upon her, it is clear in some of her works the effect the evolution and its figures had upon her like â€Å"Nucleus of Creation† (1945) and â€Å"Self- Portrait dedicated to Leon Trotsky' (1937), the prominent figure and Kohl shared a brief affair and she presented to him on his birthday November 7th, the anniversary of the Russian Revolution.Her idea of creation in relation to sexuality and birth is a recurring theme in many of her later paintings including â€Å"Flower of Life† (1943), depicting a pollinating flower as a powerful representation of sexuality, also in â€Å"Sun and Life† (1947), where the amorphous plant forms are symbols of female and male initial alongside the life-giving sun in the centre and especially in the painting â€Å"Nucleus of Creation† (1945), this painting was directly inspired by the book â€Å"Moses the Man and Monotheistic Religion† by Sigmund Freud, the central figure is the abandoned baby Moses which resembles Diego Riviera surrounded by a fetus, a large sun, an egg being fertilized by sperm and also many influential figures of time including Stalin, Ghanaian and Jesus. Friday was influenced by her inability to have a child and this is a topic she explores through many of her works, in 1932 while in Detroit, United States Kohl suffered a miscarriage which is represented in the pain ting â€Å"Henry Ford Hospital† (1932), where the artist is shown as a small, naked, vulnerable figure in an enormous bed in the front of a vast plain with an industrious, cityscape on the horizon. The bed is stained with blood and flowing from her hand are images of a fetus, flower and other images linked to her miscarriage.Her miscarriage is also depicted in â€Å"My Birth† (1932), where Friday illustrates her own birth where she appears lifeless. Friday's work as a female artist in the 20th century has ad a profound impact on successive female artists. She suffered an early death at the age of 47, and like many artists since her death her work has achieved more popularity than during her life. In the sass Friday Kohl achieved a cult figure status; she is well-known for her adjoining eyebrows and explicitly, yet heavily personal work. Therefore in reference to the statement â€Å"art can be an expression of personal experience†, Friday Kohl's work would suppor t this as many events in her life led to the creation of many artworks. (1620 words)