Meaning of Life and Action Movie Essay

I’m not a big fan of action movies. What bothers me is not that the protagonist is most often chased throughout the movie, jumping out of (through, onto) moving vehicles, dangling from or climbing the walls, delivering shots or skillfully escaping various projectile weapons. It’s that once the excitement is done, nothing much remains. It gets tired and tiring very quickly, and in the end makes me feel that I would have as good of a time trying to cross a very busy Toronto intersection. It never occurred to me that the reason why the effect of action movies may not be lasting or profound is that very frequently they are not done very well. I just couldn’t imagine what a well-done action movie would be like. Last night I watched Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, and for the first time felt moved, moved rather deeply, by an action movie. It may seem an unlikely combination, Mel Gibson directing and co-writing a film on a decline of Mayan civilization. But he got something right – not necessarily the details (though the details seem OK according to some experts on Mayan culture) – but the feeling of it. On surface, this is no different than any other action movie – the protagonist is still being chased by the ‘bad guys’, running, climbing, dangling, fighting, leaping. The difference is that the meaning of the action is placed in the context that challenges our own understanding of what it means to survive. Apocalypto is a meditation on fear. It confronts us with the stark reality of having to negotiate our continued presence or potential destruction in a world where the most grotesque cruelty will come not from the world of wild beasts but from the familiar hands of other humans, even those sharing one’s language and culture. In most action movies we feel indiscriminately tense that no harm should come to the one who is chased (we must still have hearts of prey to be so easily identified with the pursued and not the pursuer). In Apocalypto, the protagonist is teaching us how to negotiate fear so that death, if it were to come, is done as well as living. And finally, that running away and running toward may look alike, but are not. Not at all bad for an action flick.

Issues in Psychological Testing

Issues in Psychological Testing PSY/475 October 24, 2011 Issues in Psychological Testing What are at least two ethical issues associated with psychological testing? What impact do these issues have on the field of psychological testing? Informed consent involves the process by which a psychologist gain an individual’s voluntary consent prior to the administration of an assessment or test. As stated by Hogan (2007), â€Å"The psychologist is responsible for informing the person about the nature and purpose of the assessment† (p. 91). When providing this information it is imperative that the psychologist do so in a manner that is understandable to the examinee, it needs to be communicated on his or her level. If the patient or examinee is under the legal age of consent or in unable to authorize consent for another reason; parents, a legal guardian, or appropriate substitute must then provide consent. It is important that the psychologist convey that consent can be withdra wn at any time during the assessment process (Hogan, 2007). Exceptions to this rule exist including assessments mandated by the court or other government regulation in which case the psychologist need only explain the nature and purpose of the test as well as any limitations to the rule of confidentiality (American Psychological Association,  n. d. ). Implied consent is another exception and applies to assessments administered during the job application process and â€Å"institutional testing programs† such as school assessments (Hogan, 2007, p. 591). Test security is another ethical issue related to psychological testing. The administrator for a test must ensure that materials and scored results are kept in a secure location and not easily accessed by unauthorized persons. Care should be taken to refrain from revealing the content of a test (test items) publicly through media outlets or even casual conversations. Both of these issues are significant to the process of psychological testing. Informed consent is necessary to provide anyone volunteering to take an assessment or test the opportunity to fully consider what personal information will be revealed as well as any ramifications that may result in doing so. Participants must be afforded the chance to make this determination without the undue influence of others. Most tests require the cooperation of participants if they are expected to yield true and accurate results with any degree of reliability. Additionally, test security is significantly important as well to ensure that individuals who participate in an assessment do not have prior knowledge or exposure to the questions asked. Psychological tests are more reliable when the examinee has not had time to prepare or rehearse the answers they will provide. If the contents of assessments given to prospective employees are revealed to the public, individuals who have seen them may have a significant and unfair advantage over those who have not. What are at least two legal issues associated with psychological testing? How do these issues affect the field of psychological testing? The equal protection clause, found under Section one of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is important to psychological testing. This clause provides that all individuals shall be afforded protection under the same laws as everyone else regardless of class, race, gender, etc. According to Hogan (2007), â€Å"If a test (or anything else) operates to arbitrarily restrict the rights (including opportunities) of some individuals (citizens), then the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment becomes relevant† (p. 600). The relevance of this clause as it relates to psychological testing is that no test or measurement should be used for the purpose of identifying an individual as a specific race, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion, culture, or age. If such tests are used for the purpose of discrimination it will yield untrue or skewed results because people will not feel secure enough to disclose any personal information that could lead to them being rejected on the basis of any of these factors. The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (or FERPA) of 1974 is another important legal issue that relates to psychological testing. FERPA guarantees that individuals, parents, or legal guardians have a right to openly access to any information about themselves, or children in the case of parents and guardians. Additionally, they can â€Å"†¦challenge the validity of information in agency files, and that unwarranted other parties do not have access to personal information† (Hogan, 2007, p. 604). With regard to testing this means that there should be access to assessment and test scores and that the release and availability of these scores is limited to specific persons unless consent has otherwise been provided. Which court case do you feel has had the largest impact on the field of psychological testing? Why? I believe the class action lawsuit Soroka v. Dayton Hudson Corporation filed in 1989 impacted the use of psychological testing in the pre-employment screening process. The lawsuit claimed that portions of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the California Psychological Inventory, which security applicant were required to take during the application process violated the â€Å"†¦privacy provisions of the California Constitution and certain anti-discrimination laws† (American Psychological Association, n. d. , Issue). The complainant contended that the required inventories contained questions that were invasive, probative, and had no significant job relevance. According to Saterfiel and Associates  (2003), the true or false questions included statements such as – â€Å"I believe my sins are unpardonable† – â€Å"I am attracted to members of my own sex† – â€Å"My sex live is satisfactory† – â€Å"I have never been in trouble because of my sexual behavior† and – â€Å"I feel sure there is only one true religion† (Saroka v. Dayton Hudson). Target used these inventories to help identify emotional characteristics that deemed to be problematic in security personnel. Target claimed to have no knowledge of the responses provided by prospective employees stating that â€Å"The tests were administered with answer sheets which were then placed in sealed envelopes and sent to the consultants for scoring and interpretation† (American Psychological Association, n. d. , Facts). Target further asserted that they received only reports from their consultants and never saw any candidate’s responses to the inventories questions. It was determined by the Superior Court that the complainants failed to establish that employment was denied based on religion, sexual orientation, or sexual traits. Upon appeal this decision was reversed and Target eventually settled the case out of court. I think this case was important to the issue of psychological testing, specifically their use in the pre-employment screening process because even when outside consultants are used, businesses and corporations administering tests such as the ones in this case, seek personal information that in most cases is not relevant to the job being sought. Subsequently, the evaluations, depending on who is completing them may display bias toward potential employees for reasons that go against the rights afforded to us under the U. S. Constitution. References American Psychological Association. (n. d. ). Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct: 2010 Amendments. Retrieved from http://www. apa. org/ethics/code/index. aspx American Psychological Association. (n. d. ). Soroka v. Dayton Hudson Corp. , dba Target Stores. Retrieved from http://www. apa. org/about/offices/ogc/amicus/soroka. aspx Hogan, T. P. (2007). Psychological testing: A practical introduction (2nd ed. ). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Saterfiel and Associates. (2003). Legality Issues Supporting the Use of Pre-Employment Testing. Retrieved from http://www. employment-testing. com/legality. htm

Educational Psychology and Special Education

What is the definition of a learning disability and who should qualify to be special education? What assessments should be made to be able to know what child belongs where? This is what we are going to explore in this paper. We want to see exactly who qualifies and how to go about assessing what needs can be met by choosing to place a child in special education or leaving in general education and making some modifications. The main point to remember for any child is doing the best we can for their success.Learning disabilities are a bit tough to diagnose, the reason for this is because learning disabilities affects everyone differently. While one person may have difficulty with reading or writing another person may have trouble with math or following through with directions. â€Å"Researchers think that learning disabilities are caused by differences in how a person’s brain works and how it processes information† (Medicinenet, 2013) Usually the people with learning disa bilities, such as Aspbergers, are highly intelligent and only have problems with how the brain sends the information, not being non-intelligent.IDEA states that â€Å"A learning disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia†.This encompasses a wide range of children and we have to figure out how to best assess whether these children should be put into special education, or if they could function better with modifications to the general education classroom. Because learning disabilities are so multidimensional the assessments must also be in order to properly diagnose what steps to take. One of the most important parts of assessment is to alway s keep everyone involved in the child’s life in the loop.Keeping open communication and checking often to see what is working and what is not is a vital key to the assessment process. Checking first who needs to be involved within the team and then going from there with making the plan and seeing if it works or what needs to be changed. It is important to find out first if the child truly has a learning disability, second the nature, specificity, and the severity of the learning disability to know how to proceed with it. If you do not know the extent you cannot do very well at teaching for their abilities when you do not know what is lacking.â€Å"Schools are required to implement a system of interventions before evaluating a child for a disability† (Logsdon, 2013) This is important because we do not want to put any child into a special education classroom without reason, this would not benefit that child at all. It is so important to know exactly what needs the child has and modify to try to benefit them before you place them. We must not simply send children to special education because the teacher does not want to deal with them.People tend to want to box people into certain categories and this just cannot happen with learning disabilities. A child who may have difficulty reading may be dyslexic, or they may simply not be being read to and worked with enough. They also may have moved into the country fairly recently and may be lacking because of a language barrier. There are 9 ways that are great for adapting instruction to be more easily understood by children with learning disabilities as stated by Teachers First. The first is adapting the size of what they are to read or do, then adapt the time for assignments and testing.Next, increase personal assistance by peer teaching, pairing students who are less adept with more advanced students. Fourth, is input, allow for more hands on types of teaching. Fifth, Adapt the skill level or the amount of problems that they must accomplish and change the output, how they respond to what was taught, such as drawing pictures, writing a story, or working with a computer program related to the lesson. Allow the child to participate in the lesson either mentally or physically to keep them on task.Alternate is the next one, adapt the goals and outcomes with the same  materials, tailor the lesson to the child’s needs and what they can handle, and lastly change curriculum if necessary. If the lesson is on the Vietnam war, you might be able to have them interview a person from the Vietnam war instead of having a discussion about it as they might get more out of that. It is all about our children and making the lessons understandable to them. An example of making adaptations to a lesson would be a child with vision impairment. For this child it is very difficult towards the end of the day to be able to read because her eyes are fatigued and cannot take much more strain.For this rea son her parent is allowed to read to her and she can write her answers to questions because the child simply cannot do that for herself at the end of the day like the other children. She also has adaptations in her regular education classroom with magnifiers, a monitor by her desk to blow up what is on the board, all her books and papers are blown up, and she always sits in the front of the classroom. These are modifications for a visually impaired person who is very bright, but lacks some because of her vision impairment which creates the learning disability.â€Å"The world is full of examples of accommodations that permit people with disabilities to perform specific tasks they might not otherwise be able to. Drivers with poor vision wear glasses or contacts, elevators mark the buttons in Braille, and voters with disabilities may be given assistance by the person of their choice . † (Luke, Schwartz. 2010) We must do the same with our children. We need to take them and assess where their issues lie and do the best we can to create a successful learning environment for them!

Teaching Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Teaching - Essay Example t is, therefore, the responsibility of the educators to ensure that they structure their pedagogical methods in such a manner that is interesting and appealing to the learners. It would be more beneficial if the learning process is learner centered. This method would allow for an all inclusive classroom where all the learners’ exceptions are met. The teaching and learning process is an intricate one that places almost all the responsibilities on the teachers. Being in front of the classroom, the educators must be keen to select the best teaching methodologies appropriate for the learners’ abilities. It is obvious that an interesting teacher has massive impacts on the learners as compared to one who relies on the lecture method to impart knowledge (Malik, 2011). The theories of learning, particularly the constructivism theory have been of great benefit in the teaching and learning process. It is evident that researchers in the field of education have been on the move to devise theoretical approaches that would be useful in the classroom setting. This leads to an interpretation of the fact that various theories have indeed found their way to the practical aspect of education. Learners have been incorporated in the classroom setting through engagement in the learning process as well as responding to the concepts being taught (Hubber & Tytler, 2004). It is important that educators change the notion of the insustainability of the theories of learning by virtue of provision of limited evidence. Though they do not reject the theory, it would be imperative that they apply the concepts of these theories in learning due to the relevance of the same. It is clear that the implications of these theories are not evident in the learning environment. Research conducted by educational analysts indicates that though a lot of educators do not accord much relevance on the theories by the analysts in the educational field, their works are still relevant in the learning

Recycling trash in azerbaijan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Recycling trash in azerbaijan - Essay Example Eurasian Recycling LLC will seek to resolve this issue by taking in waste from towns at nominal fees and making recycled products from it. If the company is able to address this problem, the independent waste collectors will pay the premium price, as they will have to negotiate with the company. The company has two value propositions for end user consumers of compost or recycled trash and municipalities. For the municipalities, the company will offer budget-saving and cost-effective services that will help in addressing problems of waste disposal in Ganja City and its environs. In addition, for the end users, it will provide a valuable revitalization of the soil in terms of tillage, water retention, structural stability, and porosity (Stevens et al 17). Therefore, by acquiring trash from the municipalities around Ganja, the company will recycle and compost it for the customers to buy at a profit. The market niche for the product is the organic soil enrichment market with most farmers still using inorganic fertilizers. These include farmers and nursery owners, as well as resident landscapers. There is room for growth in the organic soil enhancement market as more farmers move away from chemical fertilizers (Stevens et al 17). Eurasia Recycling LLC’s major product is r ecycled household organic waste to be used in farms, while the major service involves offering municipalities around Ganja City alternative ways to dispose of organic household waste that is collected around the city. The waste collection service is not perishable because there will always be waste, while the eventual product is not perishable either because agriculture is the economic backbone of Azerbaijan (Stevens et al 17). In addition, the product is responding to trends in the market, which is organic farming, and will hold for the foreseeable

Discussion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 88

Discussion - Essay Example in this case transparency will be beneficial both to me and others. This is because; transparency implies openness, correspondence, and responsibility. Transparency is working in such a route, to the point that it is simple for others to see what movements are performed. For instance, a clerk making change at a purpose of offer by isolating a clients huge bills, numbering up from the deal sum, and setting the change on the counter in such a path as to welcome the client to confirm the measure of progress exhibits transparency. I have a combined strength of enhanced sender and receiving skills. This helps me a lot in communication as it always help me achieve the purpose of communication. the two skills are vital as they the receiver gets to understand the message while the receiver makes sure the message is received and understood too. I can pass this strength to others through a meeting while discussing on how to improve the performance of the organization. The big idea I derived from this week’s discussion is effective communication that helps us better understand an individual or circumstance and empowers us to intention contrasts, assemble trust and regard, and make situations where imaginative plans, critical thinking, love, and minding can prosper. As basic as correspondence appears to be, much of what we attempt to convey to others—and what others attempt to impart to us gets misjudged, which can result in clash and dissatisfaction in particular and expert

Reading assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Reading - Assignment Example Raustilia and Sprigman discount statistical provisions by proponents of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) who are poignant that the US economy forfeits at least 200 billion dollars and 750,000 US job vacancies every year. Raustilia and Sprigman argue that there is no lucidity in these figures, since the job vacancy figures double the number of employees who got enrolled in the filming industry in 2010. Raustilia and Sprigman also quote Tim Lee who argues that it is not unusual for statistics to be punctuated with estimations, double and triple counting. The same duo continues that at times, piracy can substitute for legitimate transactions, and may therefore not be bad. The same also contend that piracy may also trigger the saving of more money, and the economic relevance of increased savings may not be sidestepped (Raustilia and Sprigman, 1). However, on a personal standpoint, the opinions that Raustilia and Sprigman advance seem less plausible, logically and e thically sound, as shall be seen in the discussion that ensue forthwith. In the first place, piracy in itself is a crime, being a form of copyright infringement. This is because, like any other form of piracy, P2P file sharing program infringes copyright laws by copying and distributing a recording company and an artiste’s work without the consent of both. In this light, the Copyright Act of 1909 exists and is in force, even though more strictness is attributed to written work. Conversely, had piracy been attributed as a less injurious crime or as a tolerable and beneficial undertaking as Raustilia and Sprigman opine, then there would be no need of forming institutions and agencies which guard against piracy. Of particular concern is the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as a powerful lobby group which represents the recording industry and favors stricter laws and heavier punishments for those who pirate music. RIAA is poignant that since 2002, music revenue ha s plummeted by 7% as the sales of CDs receded from 882 million to 803 million units. RIAA is also specific that the information immediately above showed that three times as more CDs were shared via P2P than the CDs that had been bought. It is obvious that this trend must have cost music producers and artistes. Furthermore, Gorski points out that doing away with the provisions and enforcement of Title 17 of Sections 501 and 506 of the United States Code is bound to create a very confused and lawless situation which may override the gains that Raustilia and Sprigman taut as reasons that legitimize music piracy. Title 17 of Sections 501 and 506 of the United States Code states that it is illegal to create copies of another person’s creative work. It is at this point that gives the federal law the mandate to protect artistes from unlawful and unauthorized reproduction, distribution and transmission of copyrighted material. It is against this backdrop that several people and compa nies have in times past been subjected to legal suits because of music piracy through the use of P2P file sharing. The same has also led to five year jail terms and an imposition of fines totaling 250,000 US dollars (Gorski, 161). As if all the above is not enough, the No Electronic Theft Law (NET Act) prescribes copyright violations which

Project work of a British company profile Essay

Project work of a British company profile - Essay Example The first store to be opened was in 1929 in Burnt Oak, and the first self service store was later opened in St Albans in 1956 making it the first and self service which was operational up to 2010. Due to the need to expand and the customers and products being congested, the management saw the need to relocate to a larger premise on the same street. During 1950s, Tesco grew bigger and the management started to expand more thus acquiring more than 800 stores in London (Simms, 2007). For example, in 1957 the company bought 70 Williamsons stores, in 1959 other 200 Harrow stores outlet stores were opened and in 1960, 212 Irwin stores among others. The motto of the business was to pile it high and sell it cheap and this made the customers to flock in the supermarket. The company kept on expanding and in 1995, Tesco introduced a loyalty card and later in the same year an internet shopping services were also available for the customers. In 2006, Tesco announced the need to move into United S tates making sure that grocery stores were opened in the western states making it to have an idea to expand globally. The main section that Tesco usually deals with is Tesco Superstores. This is a supermarket that is stocked with groceries and other non food goods and the stores are normally branded as Tesco. The supermarket usually deals with groceries and the store first operated in Liverpool. Tesco express to provide food stuffs to the customers and shopping is done at Tesco express and later the food stuffs are packed. The stores are found in busy districts and in residential areas where the customers get access to the products (Nash, 2006). Tesco Extra stores are hypermarkets that provide all kind of product ranges. These are largest supermarkets and they are stocked with food, clothing, electronic gargets and entertainment systems. The hypermarket is usually on two floors to make sure that all range of products is available

BBusiness studies - Economics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

BBusiness studies - Economics - Essay Example Sloman (2006) has explained that demand is limitless and is related to wants. Moreover, if goods and services were free, people would simply demand whatever they wanted. Supply on the other hand has limits. It is related to the resources available to the firms (Sloman, 2006, p.5). Growth, inflation, unemployment, GDP etc are some of the areas in which microeconomics is mostly interested in. This paper mainly focus on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its effects on a country’s economic growth and personal wellbeing. Mankiw & Taylor (2006) have mentioned that GDP is a measure of total income of a nation (Mankiw & Taylor 2006, p.464).They also pointed out that GDP is the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time (Mankiw & Taylor 2006, p.466). It is calculated based on the total consumer investment and government spending, plus the value of exports, minus the value of imports (GDP, n. d). The following formula can be used to calculate the GDP of a country in given financial year. From the above equation it is clear that when the import increases the GDP decreases whereas when the consumer spending, investment made by industries, and governmental spending increases, the GDP also increases. The current recession (Recession is a phenomenon in which the output in the economy declines or the growth becomes negative (Sloman, 2006, p.6)), has forced people to think twice before lavishly spending their moneys. Westerners who normally spend more than what they earn has already started to save some money for the future after visualizing the negative impacts of recession. But from the above formula it is evident that too much saving can drastically affect the GDP. GDP is a measure of standard of living in a country even though many economic Gurus have different opinions. The GDP performances of United State in the recent years can be

How does the culture of a selectrace affect the value of sacramentals Essay - 1

How does the culture of a selectrace affect the value of sacramentals to the Church and individual spirituality - Essay Example f both culture and religion in the human society affect the human individuals in the communities around the globe and how each other intend to affect the systems of understanding and life-guidance that is provided by both aspects of directive human living. Through this discussion, it is expected that a presented indication as to how human living and human perception toward modern Catechism and religious consideration have been changed through the years of human advancement due to the implicative elements that culture itself suggests to the human communities worldwide. This part of the paper shall show a definitive pathway that would lead to the readers understanding of what religion and culture is and what roles are they playing g in the lives of human individuals living in certain communities around the globe. In this section of the reading, a defining factor on the differentiated approach of cultural preferences shall be presented in connection with the changes that it proposes on the recognition of the importance of Catechism in the society. This section shall tackle about the developments happening in the human society then and at present and how these developments affect the acceptance of people towards the guidelines and rules that are presented to them by religion through catechism. For this section of the reading, the researcher shall present the modern approaches to catholic catechism that reflects the effect of social culture towards the establishment of rules and ways of living suggested by modern religion. Through the basic discussions, this section shall summarize all the necessary points that are importantly needed for the proving of the major options of realizing how culture and religion go hand in hand or on the other hand, stand against each other, in presenting modern human lifestyle guidelines. Religion and culture are two primary foundations of the present systems of human society. Basically though, these two primary entities of the human

Special Ed. Essay Example for Free

Special Ed. Essay With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001 and revisions of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), schools have implemented the pre-referral process encouraging individual based level of education for a particular student. Historically, before recent updates to state and federal special education guidelines, students typically received special attention to their specific needs through parent conferences, generic observations, a few general intervention techniques, psychological evaluation, or simply a review of report cards, social records. Since the implementation of IDEA, students are now receiving proactive approaches to match his or her level of need. Two such approaches of evaluating individual students are Positive Behavior Support (PBS) and Response to Intervention (RTI). Both PBS and RTI are structured on a different model, but both have the same goals. Each intervention approach takes into account components and accounts for critical universal factors that target a specific individual, group, or level. These two models offer a range of interventions that are scientifically applied to a student, based on the student’s level of needs through previous monitoring in the classroom. Response to Intervention (RTI) is defined as â€Å"the practice of providing high-quality instruction and interventions matched to student need, monitoring progress frequently to make decisions about changes in instruction or goals, and applying child response data to important educational decisions† (Batsche et al. , 2006). RTI has emerged as the more popular of the two intervention model’s and has been accepted by most schools in the United States, as the new way of thinking about early intervention and identifying a child’s educational disability. The RTI approach considers the application of an individual student’s difficulties in schools by evaluating student’s environment and then provides intervention as soon as the student shows signs difficulty, lack of focus, or academic problems. The goal of RTI is to ensure all students receive the highest quality of education and instruction and reduce any possible false referrals to unnecessary classes, or programs. RTI has a three tier model for also eliminating unqualified teachers as a reason for a student’s lack of performance, or grades. For example in, tier I of the three modeled tier, teachers are required to implement different teaching techniques in order to gauge a student’s performance and focus toward learning. This form of teaching is a method only most qualified teachers can provide in the RTI process. Tier one is described as a universal assessment using formal and informal instructional techniques. Tier two targets students that have not made progress in a given amount of time and are monitored frequently. These students are considered as having some academic weakness. Tier three is more of an intensive intervention and for students that do not respond to instruction form tier two. Tier three students may be eligible for special education classes and programs. When a student is evaluated and qualifies for tier three, the students will be specially monitored and eventually reviewed for receiving an individual educational program (IEP). Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS), is based more on a model of how to solve inappropriate behavior and prevent that behavior through teaching and reinforcing appropriate behaviors. â€Å"Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) is a process for creating school environments that are more predictable and effective for achieving academic and social goals. For some schools, PBIS will enhance their current systems and practices, for others it will radically change the culture for the better† (www. cms. k12. nc. us). Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS) is a systemic approach to proactive, school-wide behavior based on a Response to Intervention (RTI) model. â€Å"The concept of PBIS has been researched in education for approximately 15 years† (www. cms. k12. nc. us) and has been implemented successfully in thousands of schools in over 40 states. PBIS applies evidence-based programs, practices and strategies for all students to increase academic performance, improve safety, decrease problem behavior, and establish a positive school culture. Schools implementing PBIS build on existing strengths, complementing and organizing current programming and strategies. The PBIS model had resulted in dramatic reductions in disciplinary interventions and increases in academic achievement. Data-based decision making is a hallmark of PBIS and is a scientific approach to the pre-referral process to special education. There are many ways to define, or explain the concepts of PBIS and RTI, but each provides a specific three tiered pre-referral process to special education that will enhance the quality of life for students participating in these interventions. Whichever intervention a student is placed, he, or she should receive a higher quality education and instruction. Elements common in these models indicate a system of intervention based on a student’s performance that will indicated whether there is a legitimate learning disability, not just the need for additional instruction for no reason. References RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION. (2006). In Encyclopedia of Special Education: A Reference for the Education of the Handicapped and Other Exceptional Children and Adults. Retrieved May 23, 2012, from: http:library. gcu. edu:2048/login? qurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww. cred oreference. com/entry/ wileyse/response_to_intervention CPI Educate. Empower. Enrich. (2012). Retrieved May 23, 2012, from: http://www. crisisprevention. com/Resources/Knowledge-Base/Positive-Behavior-Support SEDL Advancing research, improving education (2012). Retrieved May 23, 2012, from : http://www. sedl. org/pubs/sedl-letter/v19n02/rti. html CMS Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. (2011). Retrieved May 23, 2012, from: http://www. cms. k12. nc. us/cmsdepartments/PBIS/Pages/default. aspx Response to Intervention (2012). Retrieved May 23, 2012, from: http://www. nasponline. org/resources/handouts/revisedPDFs/rtiprimer. pdf

Nature of Knowledge Essay Example for Free

Nature of Knowledge Essay In the study of knowledge we distinguish between knowledge by acquaintance, in essence to know someone or know of something. Ability knowledge is for example to know how to swim or how to ride a bike. And, our main concern, propositional knowledge that is sentences or statements that can be either true or false. To have knowledge one needs to have a belief and for this belief to be true. The following text will show how true belief, even if it is justified in a rational way, does not suffice for knowledge. Take Nina, she is walking by some slot machines in the casino. She feels drawn to one of the machines, and believes it is her lucky day and that she will win because of the nice appealing colors on the slot machine. She places her bet, the wheels spin and line up three lucky 7’s, she wins and her belief turns out to be a true one. But while her belief being true, intuitively this do not suffice for knowledge, as it is easy to ascribe this winning to pure chance. Even if different suppositions may justify Nina’s belief in winning, it is natural to think that what Nina lacks in this situation to have knowledge, is justification. And also for this justification to be strong enough for Nina to be a rational being in believing she will win, without need to turn to superstition or vagueness to explain her belief. But even if Nina where to have a justified true belief, which she formed in a rational way, it is easy to show that this neither suffice for knowledge. Say Nina is a con girl, she has tricked the manager of the slot machine manufacturer to give her a manual, showing all the results the machine can produce, together with a serial number for each spin which is also displayed on the slot machine. So it is easy to look down in the manual what the next result will be. It is noon and Nina is now standing in front of the slot machine in the casino. She reads the serial number in the display and matches it in her manual. The next spin will line up three lucky 7’s and win. She places her bet and spins the wheel. Unbeknown to Nina there was an error when printing the manual so all the numbers are mixed up, making the manual useless. And this day the casino owner celebrates his 60th birthday by letting all the machines go off program at noon and give every placed bet at that time the three lucky 7’s line up. Nina’s justified belief turned out to be true, but due to lucky and unlucky circumstances we do not ascribe knowledge to Nina in this situation. Nina was responsible and rational when forming her belief, considering she went the length to trick the boss to give her the manual to see which spins win. If her goal is to win at slots, she was responsible when gathering evidence and responsible and rational in believing her evidence. And even if this example showed that an agent with a justified true belief formed in a rational and responsible way, do not necessarily have knowledge. It is easy to see that even if the agent lacks knowledge, she will often be successful in reaching her goals, because of the rational way she gains justification for her beliefs. Though it is not sufficient or may not even be necessary to have justified true beliefs when trying to grasp the nature of knowledge. Bibliography: Pritchard D. (2006) What is this thing called knowledge?, Routledge, Oxon

US Stock Market and GDP Analysis

US Stock Market and GDP Analysis Stock Prices Definition Stock (or share) which is sometimes known as equity is a claim to partial ownership or holdings of a firm. Initially, the original owners of a firm sell their shares or stock to gain additional funds to finance the firm expansion which can be said as the owners sell part of the ownership of the firm to the stockholders. This is known as the Initial Public Offering (IPO). After the IPO, the stocks can be sold and resold by the stockholders in the stock market with the aim of gaining profitable returns through the price differences of the stock. Stock prices are determined through trading on a stock exchange such as NASDAQ, SP 500 and DJIA. Generally, stock prices reflect investor expectations for future corporate earnings and thus reflect for future economic growth. The Origin of the Stock Market The stock market originated in Europe prior the industrial revolution in the 1700s. Many traders in the market wished to make investment in huge businesses but this could not be affordable with a single trader. Thus, they gathered their funds together to invest in a new business as partners (Grazian, 2008). This is similar to the practice of shares nowadays and has inspired the origin of the stock market. In the beginning, the stock market trading started on an informal note. The traders met at coffeehouse which was used as a market place in the 1700s. The first exchange was created in Philadelphia during 1800 and in New York during 1817 and finally the trading rules were formed (Grazian, 2008). In the United States, the first stock exchange took place in Philadelphia over 220 years ago which was known as the â€Å"Board of Brokers† and the Board met at the coffeehouse. The Board of Brokers was later changed into the Philadelphia Stock Exchange in 1875 and it is now included in NASDAQ as NASDAQ OMX PHLX. The market became more structured without manipulative auctions and a fair commission structure was formed. The group of stock brokers was reorganized and known as the â€Å"New York Stock and Exchange Board† in 1817 (Terrell, 2006). In 1896, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (or the Dow) created by Charles Dow and one of his business associate, Edward Jones was first calculated. Along with other stock market index, such as NASDAQ and SP 500, the Dow is one of the most closely indicator to track the stock market activity. Besides the Dow, SP Dow Jones Indices also determined the SP 500 in 1957 (Standard and Poor’s, 2009). The SP 500 is more preferable than other stock market indices as it is determined through a more diverse constituency and weighting methodology with 500 stocks chosen for market size, liquidity and industry grouping. It is recognized as the best representation of the U.S. stock market and also classified as a leading indicator for the U.S. economy. Thus, the stock indices from the SP 500 were used as the data in this study. c. Stock Prices As an Economic Indicator Economic indicators give us a better idea of where the economy is headed. There are two types of economic indicators, which are the leading indicators and the lagging indicators. Leading indicators often change before the economic adjustment and thus can be used to predict the future economy whereas the lagging indicators reflect the economy’s past performance and only identifiable after the economic adjustment. Stock market is a leading indicator. Most people will first look at the stock market performance first when talk about the economic trends although it is not the most important indicator. This is because stock prices mainly depends on the expected earnings of the domestic firms, thus it can indicate the economy trend if the estimated earnings are accurate. A strong market usually followed with economy expansion while a down market always leads to economic downturn. However, it is undeniable that here are inherent flaws for stock prices to act as a leading indicator for the future economy performance. Firstly, the estimated earnings can be inaccurate. Secondly, the vulnerability of stock market which is probably adjusted or manipulated. For example, the government can manipulate the market to keep it high via various strategies to avoid public from panicking of economic crisis and the traders and corporations can manipulate the market via high-volume trades or other strategies. Thus, the true underlying strength or value of stock prices may become unobvious due to its vulnerability to be manipulated. Thirdly, the stock market is also susceptible to the creation of bubbles (Binswanger, 2004), which may convey false information about the economy’s direction. Economic Activity Definition The goal of economic activity is to produce goods and services in order to fulfill the needs and wants as well as to improve the social welfare. Economic activities are related to production, distribution, exchange and consumption of goods and services at all level in the society. Furthermore, economic activities can be defined as human activities which are performed in exchange for money or money’s worth, in other words, economics activities are those efforts performed by human to earn income, money, wealth and to maximize their satisfaction of wants with scarce means. The primary aim of the economic activity is to produce goods and services with an objective to make them available to the consumers. Thus, gross domestic product (or GDP) is one of the common ways to assess the economic activity. In this study, the economic activity is also represented by the indicator of GDP. The Origin and History of GDP The idea of gross domestic product (GDP) arose during the period post-carnage of the Great Depression and World War II in 1930s. GDP which was described as the ultimate measure of a country’s overall welfare, a window into an economy’s soul and the statistic to end all statistics was used widely and globally and become the defining economic indicator in the last century (Dickinson, 2011). Simon Kuznets, an economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research introduced a formula to determine GDP to the U.S. Congress in 1937.The original formulation of GDP was essential as it included all economic production in a nation. However, Kuznets’ formula was not being widespread utilized until the Bretton Woods conference created World Bank in 1944. After that, GDP was used widely as a tool to determine the nation’s economic condition. Although there are few economists questioned on the accuracy of GDP in measuring overall economic welfare, the GDP is still widely used now (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2008). GDP is also described as one of the great invention in the 20th century because without this invention, economists, researcher and policymakers could not have played their role effectively with the unorganized data. GDP As an Economic Indicator Unlike the stock prices which serve as leading indicator, GDP serves as lagging indicator which changes after the economy adjustment. Although lagging indicators do not show the direction of economic trend, they reflect how the changes in economy over time. GDP is a tool that typically recognized by economists to measure the economic welfare. Increase in GDP indicates that the economy is strong while decrease in GDP indicates that the economy is weak. As stated previously, GDP is not a flawless indicator, many economists questioned on its accuracy especially in the financial market as some strategies such as quantitative easing and excessive government spending could have been carried out by the government to boost up the GDP of a nation. Despite of the flaw, as a lagging indicator, GDP is still a good determinant to measure the economic condition of a nation. Theories on Predictive Power of the Stock Price for the Future Economic Activity There are two theories in the theoretical literature on the forecasting ability of the stock prices for the future economic activities. The first theory explains the forward looking behavior of the stock market while the second theory discusses the causal effects of the stock prices on the economic activity (Croux Reusens, 2013). Forward Looking Behavior of the Stock Market Based on the idea that the stock price is the present value of future dividends (Fama, 1990), the theory of forward looking behavior of the stock market arose. The purpose for the stockholders to own stock is to earn from the interest difference when the stock is resold or to earn the dividends from the corporation. The increasing stock prices reflect the higher expectation of stockholders to earn more dividends. As the dividend is a payment made by a corporation to its stockholders out of its profit, the increase in expectation of stockholders towards future dividends gained indicates that there will be a rise in the corporation’s profit. Furthermore, the corporation’s profit is known to be positively correlated with the GDP of a nation, thus the rise in corporation will bring increment to the nation’s GDP. Therefore, a rise in the current expectation towards the nation’s future economic activity will definitely result in increase in the stock price. However, several researchers have argued that the vulnerable property of stock market to be manipulated may affect its predictive power towards the future economic activity. Stock prices may deviate from their fundamental value due to the speculative bubbles (Binswanger, 2004). Speculative bubbles is a situation in which the securities’ pieces such as stock prices rise far above their actual value as a result of irrational exuberance rather than the basic underlying fundamentals of the market. This can attract investors or stock traders to invest in order to take advantage of the profits. After some time, the bubbles will eventually burst and causes the stock prices will drop below their market value before they reach the equilibrium again. Thus, from this phenomenon, stock prices may deviate from the fundamental value sometime and hence its predictive power will be reduced. Apart from that, the globalization of the investment market also may reduce the predictive power of sto ck prices towards the nation’s GDP (Mao Wu, 2007). This means that is foreign investment in the domestic activity which brings about increase in stock price, however, since it is the foreign investment, it may not bring direct impact on the nation’s GDP. Causal Effects of the Stock Prices on the Economic Activity The causal effects of stock prices on the economic activity can be seen through the activity of consumption and investment. The connection between the stock prices and consumption can be explained by the wealth effect (Modigliani, 1971). The wealth effect refers to the increase in spending which due to the increase in perceived wealth. The rise in stock prices will bring about an increase in the income and wealth of the stockholders, they may increase their consumption as a result from having higher purchasing power. Since consumption is positively correlated with the GDP, the increase in consumption as a result from the rise in stock prices will affect the nation’s GDP. However, Pearce (1983) argued that the wealth effect depends on the distribution of stock holders in the nation. For example, most of the stockholders in the United States are comprised of small groups of rich people who have lower propensity to spend out of wealth. Besides, the causal effect of stock prices on the economic activity can also be seen through the activity of investment which its impact is on the cost of capital. The cost of capital is the fund for a firm to finance its business. The sources for capital can be varied from company to company such as equity financing and debt financing. Generally, the cost of capital is the weighted sum of the cost of equity and the cost of debt. With the increase in the stock price, the effective cost of equity will be reduced as a result from overvaluation of the stock price (Fischer Merton, 1984). Besides, cost of debt also will be lowered due to high stock prices as it could give some positive signals towards the lenders and thus raise the creditworthiness of the firms which would result in better loan condition (Morck et al., 1990). The Economy of the United States There is lots of news recently about the rapid growth rate of China absolutely furious pace for over the last decade and may overtake the United States to be the largest economy in the world. Nevertheless, the United States still keep the place of the largest economy in the world by far in the year of 2013. The United States has been keeping the place of the world’s largest economy for at least a century. With one third of the world’s millionaires and 40% of the world’s billionaires stay in the nation, the United States become the wealthiest nation in the world. The diversify economy and open market in the United States helps the economy to stay strong. The United States is also considered the largest manufacturer and the most influential financial markets in the world. Stock Prices in the United States The United States is considered to have the most influential and largest financial markets in the world. Almost every large company in the US is traded on a Stock Exchange. This study employed SP 500 as the stock market indices to be analyzed as it is the best representation of the U.S. stock market with 500 stocks chosen for market size, liquidity and industry grouping through a more diverse constituency and weighting. Figure 1.1 Time plot for quarterly average of daily SP 500 stock price index in the United States (Source: Economic Research, 2013) Figure 1.1 shows the moving trend of stock prices in the period from first quarter of 1974 to third quarter of 2013. From the figure, the stock prices in the United States generally showed a fluctuating rising trend with a record of expansion from 1974 to 2000 with gradual increasing rate at the beginning and higher pace increasing rate later from 1993 to 2000. There were significant market downturns in 2002 and 2008. The stock prices reached the peak in the second quarter of 2000 and started to drop afterwards until the minimum point in the first quarter of 2003. This market downturn has been known as the market crash of 2000. The causes for this crash are believed to be the corporation corruption, overvalued stocks and the emergence of day-traders or momentum investors. Several strategies has been listed out by the government to overcome the crash, for example accounting reforms to have better disclosure of corporate balance sheet form and new rules are set for the day-traders to apply more restriction. Besides the market downturn of 2000, there was a market downturn in 2008 as well. From the figure, the stock price index continued to rise after the market crash in 2000 and reached at maximum point in the second quarter of 2007 but falls gradually afterward till the minimum point in the first quarter of 2009. This period was ranked among the most horrified financial market history in the United States. This market crash is believed to be caused by the corporate corruption and the mortgage crisis. The stock price indices continue to climb after the market crash of 2008. GDP of the United States The United States has been the largest economy in the world in term of GDP level for at least a century. Figure 1.2 Time plot for quarterly GDP in the United States (Source: OECD. StatExtracts, 2013) The figure 1.2 shows the time plot of GDP of the United States from first quarter of 1974 to third quarter of 2013. Generally, the GDP level in the United States showed a gradual increasing trend across the period. From the figure, there are slight decreases in the GDP level are shown in 1982 and 1991 as a result of economic crisis. In addition, a more significant fall of GDP level was shown in the third quarter of 2008 after a gradual increasing trend. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) declared that there was an economic recession since 2007. This economic fall is believed to be the result of mortgage crisis during that period. Relationship between Stock Prices and GDP of the United States The United States is famous to be the largest economy and the most influential financial market in the world. The tradition connection of stock prices and GDP of the United States has always be the topic of interest to be study among the researchers. Figure 1.3 Time plot for quarterly GDP and quarterly average of daily Stock Price in the United States (Source: Economic Research, 2013 and OECD. StatExtracts, 2013) Figure 1.3 shows the relationship between stock prices and GDP in the time plot from first quarter of 1974 to third quarter of 2013. In the tradition connection of the stock price and GDP, stock price is believed to contain the predictive power towards the GDP. From Figure 1.3, the stock prices generally moving in the same direction with GDP. However, the market crash in 2000 brought about economic expansion instead of the economic recession. This phenomenon goes against with the tradition relationship between stock price and GDP. However, the market crash of 2008 has successfully predicted the economic recession in 2008. Therefore, the contradict phenomena have again caught the attention of several parties to further study in the predictive power of stock price towards the GDP. Objective Although the theories and the tradition relationship state that the stock prices contain the predictive power towards the future economic activity, there are several theoretical and empirical researchers have contradicted opinions. Moreover, the historical data of stock prices and GDP of the United States also show a general similar moving direction of the stock prices and GDP but the market crashes in 1987 and 2000 resulted in economic expansion instead of economic recession. This issue has again prompted the further research in the tradition relationship of the stock prices and the economic activity. Hence, the purpose of this study is to determine the predictive power of stock price on the future economic activity, i.e. future GDP in the United States. Scope of Study This study focuses on the United States which the quarterly data is obtained with the sampling period from first quarter of 1974 to third quarter of 2013. The national stock price index of the United States, SP 500 is chosen. The quarterly average of the daily index is calculated because it is believed to be more representative for the entire quarter than the value at the end of quarter. Besides, quarterly nominal GDP is chosen as the representative for the economic activity. Both data is expressed in the domestic currency with CPI base year of 1982.

Compare and Contrast Kami and Shen, the Japanese and Chinese Words for

Compare and Contrast Kami and Shen, the Japanese and Chinese Words for God The words kami in Japanese and shen in Chinese both are translated into English as the word god. Although they both refer to somewhat similar supernatural elements, they are by no means identical to each other. Chinese shen is an abstract term referring to spirits and relating to abstract thoughts such as the heavens and the afterlife. In contrast, kami are very often related directly to a person or actual object and are worshiped in a hope for more day-to-day help or this worldly benefits. In order to help explain the relationship between kami and shen, I will first explore the similarities between the two terms, then discuss the unique characteristics which define both shen and kami. Motori Norinaga, an eighteenth century Japanese intellectual, said that the meanings of shen and kami "coincide seventy or eight per cent of cases†¦ Ever since ancient times, their meanings have both been expressed in a single character†¦ with no difference being paid to the difference between the two" (qtd. in Xiaolin 1). When the Japanese first borrowed the Chinese writing system to use as their own, they used the Chinese character for shen to express both kami and shin (another Japanese word for spirits, more closely associated with shen.) In all of the Chinese texts that the Japanese imported, shen was translated as either kami or shin, using kami when the spirit was well defined and shin when it was more of an abstract thought. It was not until the Japanese later differentiated their writing from Chinese that the characters for shen and kami became different. The non-differentiation between the two words helps to show their close similarity to each other. Chine... .... Practically Religious. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai'i Press: 1998. Schipper, Kristofer. The Taoist Body. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1993. Tanabe, George J. Jr. "Introduction: Japan." Religions of Asia in Practice. Ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2002. 591-612. Teeuwen, Mark. "Motoori Norinaga on the Two Shrines at Ise." Religions of Asia in Practice. Ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2002. 678-693. Teiser, Stephen F. "Introduction: Chinese Religion." Religions of Asia in Practice. Ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2002. 295-329. Xiaolin, Wang. "Cultural Differentiation: On shen and Xin in Chinese and Japanese." Trans. Robert Neather. City Univ. of Hong Kong. 17 Apr. 2003. <http://www.cityu.edu.hk/ccs/Newsletter/newsletter3/HomePage/CulturalDiff/CulturalDiff.html>.

Personality and the Workplace :: Workplace Essays

Personality and the workplace 1 Individual Assignment on Personality and the Workplace PSY 250 – Psychology of Personality Personality and the workplace 2 There are many situations that can be mentioned when we get into the subject about interpersonal situations at my workplace, but on in particular pops out to my attention, respect. Respect is the one thing that the military was built up on. Well, during the next few pages you will read about how it has changed throughout the years in the military or at least in my career field, how it has been dealt with, how it got this way, what can be done to change it and who is responsible for making the changes. Not only will you read about respect, you will also read about how higher promotion rates have motivated many of the newer supervisors into trying to make the career field a better one for everyone. Through the use of creativity, involvement and implementation these new supervisors are trying to make a change in our military discipline that is so greatly needed. Since I have returned to my current career field, after managing three dorms, I noticed that the level of respect has changed from when I was there 2 and a half years prior. We have acquired many new very young troops who don’t want to do what they are told, not only are the younger troops acting this way, but many of the non commissioned officers (NCOs) or should I say lower ranking supervisors are acting this way as well. Things aren’t how they use to be when I first came into the military, back then you were told to do something and you did it no questions asked. It got done simply because someone who out ranked you told you to do it. Now days the troops want an explanation to why they are asked to do something, they don’t do it or they do it wrong or carelessly. Personality and the workplace 3 Due to the diversity of the personalities in our workplace it becomes very difficult to try and pin point a specific personality trait for the cause of our problems. It varies based on each individual; sometimes it is due to the fact that we as supervisors allow our subordinates to get away with murder. In the case of the military we strive on discipline and respect, and when we allow a troop to disrespect any of us or just let them cross over the line once, they forget that they are in the armed forces and tend to lower their standards.

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) Essay -- Hyperactivity C

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  You have probably heard and may even have used the term hyperactivity. The notion is a modern one: there were no hyperactive children 50 to 60 years ago. Today, if anything, the term is applied too often and too widely. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) estimates that all teachers have in their classrooms at least one child with ADHD (Simmons, RG. 1993).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Actually, hyperactivity is not one particular condition: it is â€Å"a set of behaviors† such as excessive restlessness and short attention span that are quantitatively and qualitatively different from those children of the same sex, mental age, and socioeconomic status (Gutskey, T.R. 1991).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Today most psychologists agree that the main problem for children labeled hyperactive is directing and maintaining attention, not simply controlling their physical activity. The American Psychiatric Association has established a diagnostic category called attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to identify children with this problem. What are the signs of ADHD   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Professionals who diagnose ADHD use the diagnostic criteria set forth by the American Psychiatric Association (1994) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: the fourth edition of this manual, known as the DSM-IV, was released in May 1994 (Soar, R.S. & Soar, R.M. 1994).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The primary features associated with the disability are inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. A child with ADHD is usually described as having a short attention span and as being distractible. In actuality, distractibility and inattentiveness are not synonymous.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Distractibility refers to the short attention span and the ease with which some children can be pulled off task. Attention, on the other hand, is a process that has different parts. We focus (pick something on which to pay attention), we select (pick something that needs attention at that moment), and we sustain (pay attention for as long as is needed). We also resist (avoid things that remove our attention from where it needs to be), and we shift (move our attention to something else when needed). When we refer to someone as distractible, we are saying that a part of that person’s attention process is disrupted.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Children with ADHD can have difficulty with one or all parts of the attention process. Some children may... ...to become effective. †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Deliver negative consequences in a firm, business-like way without emotion, lectures, or long-winded explanations (Cohan, E.G. 1986).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I believe that teachers and parents need to be aware of the symptoms of ADHD. It is essential to understand how those symptoms impact the child's ability to function at home, in school, and in social situations. When the adults in the child's life understand the nature of the disorder, they are better able to structure situations to enable the child to behave appropriately and achieve success. It is important to remember that the child who has difficulty with attention, impulse control, and in regulating physical activity needs help and encouragement to manage these problems. I feel that a classroom environment that is rich in structure, support and encouragement can nurture success in all students. Completing this research paper has been an effective tool in reinforcing these concepts. Brain scan images produced by positron emission tomography (PET) show the differences between an individual with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (right) and someone without the disease (left) (Zametkin et. al. 1990).

Reproductive Health in Nursing Essay

Reproductive Health Bill was introduced by Congresswoman Bellaflor J. Angara -Castillo is also known as  ³Reproductive Health Care Act of 2002 ´,assembled at Senateand House of Representatives of the Philippines, and now known as House Bill 5043 of 2008. It ¶s been years since the bill was approved in the senate, due to some churchconflicts, biomedical ethical issues and some scientific research conflicts. Today thereare still lots of Filipino citizen who are now fully aware about this bill and why this billwas imposed.Before I write this reaction paper I had to read the Bill twice and read somearticles, reaction and comments in the internet I had read books and research which isrelated to reproductive health, sex education and Bioethics, for me to fully understandwhat was the RH bill all about and the reason of the creation of this bill.Poverty, the main problems that the Philippine is facing today and they say thatthe primary factors that lead to poverty is due to overpopulation, the Philippines has apopulation of 64,318,120 in 1990. Today the population is ballooning and estimated toover 94 million according to latest census and the top 12 th  country having the mostpopulation. The population is growing by about 2 percent a year, giving the Philippinesone of the world ¶s highest population-growth rates.This is one of the reasons of the creation of the Reproductive Health bill to give asolution to poverty by eradicating the overpopulation problem, by implementing familyplanning, sex education and prevent the sexually transmitted disease.

Are Hybrid Cars Becoming Safer or More Harmful to the Environment?

Hybrid cars have a very special technology because they boast two power sources: a regular gasoline engine and an electric motor powered by a huge battery unlike conventional cars which have only regular gasoline engine. These components generally work in tandem, though the exact mechanism varies depending on the car. When the car is at stop, the engine shuts off. While you push the accelerator, the electric motor turns on to drive the car forward. When you need the power such as for climbing a hill, the gas engine gets a boost from the electric motor. The electric motor normally recharges itself by censoring the heat energy generated as you brake (Brown, 2008). Hybrid cars also help to reduce the amount of smog emission because of less working of gasoline engine. This does not mean that hybrid cars help the environment because they still have the issue of their batteries about being extremely harmful to the environment. Nowadays, there are more than 5 million hybrid cars around the world but this means that there will be also 5 million batteries from these hybrid cars. What would happen in the next few years if these batteries end up in landfills? According to environmental researchers, 90% of 1 million metric tons of lead which is produced every year is used for vehicle batteries (â€Å"Hybrid Battery Toxicity†, 2006). These batteries still have issues even though they are more environmentally friendly than the standard batteries. Nickel may cause cancer in human body because it is considered as a human carcinogen (Olberding, 2010). Therefore, many people are concerned about nickel mining as one kind of misuse of natural resources. According to the Environmental Defense, there are three main battery types such as lead, nickel, and lithium. The worst thing that harmful to the environment is lead battery, followed by nickel, and lithium (Banas, 2010). By the way, the rechargeable hybrid cars can force power plants to produce excessive amounts of electricity; therefore, power plant emissions can be just as harmful as exhaust pipe emissions. Running hybrid cars on the street can also contribute the amounts of greenhouse gases as same as running normal vehicles because hybrid system works effectively only on heavily congested streets (â€Å"Hybrid Cars Negative Environmental Impact†, 2007). Even though hybrid cars help the environment, they are still harmful to the environment due to battery use, use of natural resources, and ineffective use of motor systems. II. Opposing Arguments A. Batteries The batteries in hybrid cars give a better choice for the fuel economy and environment that have been becoming to the next generation of car’s technology. They provide the electricity for electric motor; hence, the motor uses less gasoline when they are working in an urban area. Hybrid cars are able to provide more than 35% in fuel economy (â€Å"Facts on Hybrid Cars†, 2012). The nickel metal hydride batteries have been using in every hybrid car since the first hybrid car was produced. Both lead battery and nickel hydride batteries are rechargeable batteries, but the environment impact of nickel is much lower than lead acid which are used in conventional vehicles. According to the article â€Å"Nickel-Metal Hydride† (2006), the nickel-Metal Hydride is a solid battery; more energy can be given for the amount of space. Density is an essential concern, as weight is a severe wall to efficiency. Hybrid cars are still sold in lowered numbers; therefore, the negative effects of hybrid batteries are not instant. B. Natural resources Today's hybrid cars are shown up by many benefits; increasing fuel economy, and saving the fuel. Even though it is true that hybrid cars can save lots of gasoline, and we can get our tax back from them, the best thing of these benefits is the very less produced amount of gas emissions. Hybrid cars emit 80% less greenhouse gases than conventional cars (â€Å"Hybrid Cars Emissions Information†, 2012). This translates to less airborne pollutants and a cleaner earth. The important factor of negative effects of vehicles on the environment is greenhouse gasses. As a result, most of greenhouse gasses are from human activities and cause the temperature in the air and ocean to rise (Hybrid Cars and Pollution, 2012). In fact, the temperatures are increasing. The changes have observed over the last few decades are mainly because of human activities, but we cannot refuse that the important part of these changes is also a mirror of natural changeableness (Hybrid Cars and Pollution, 2012). Large metropolitan areas around the world are widely covered by this smog while many millions of cars are concentrated. This smog is made of nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and many evaporating organic compounds. Hybrid cars produce a much lower these gases than conventional vehicles. However, the size of the car can be a great different in emissions between the hybrid and conventional vehicles. According to Banas (2010), the average of compact hybrid cars emits 10% lower smog than their conventional counterparts. This means that the models of hybrid cars such as mid-size cars, mid-size sport-utility vehicles, and full-size SUVs help to reduce smog-producing gas emissions by 15%, 19% and 21%, respectively, more than their conventional counterparts. Hybrid cars are esteemed as being fuel efficient, and good for the environment. C. The efficiency of hybrid cars Nowadays, hybrid cars have been building to be more efficient than conventional cars; as we known, small cars could be run more efficient than big cars. According to the article â€Å"An Introduction to Efficiency† (2006), one of the easiest ways to show efficiency is to get your amount of work with regard to how much energy was taken in the initial place. The efficiency of conventional cars can be described as how much the power of the engine is producing and divide by the amount of energy that was produced by gasoline when it was consuming. The energy of one gallon in gasoline is 115,000 British Thermal Units (Btu), and one Btu can increase the temperature of one cubic foot of air 55 degrees F (â€Å"An Introduction to Efficiency†, 2006). Therefore, if a hybrid car’s engine had a 100 percent of efficiency about burning gasoline, then every single Btu worth of energy carried inside the gasoline would be used only to move the car onward. However, today, the best using of efficient gasoline engines is 30 to 35 percent. This is almost the same kind as the efficiency of a common light bulb, which uses the energy to produce light but gains more heat. If you touch the dense fluorescent bulb by your hand, you can feel why it is so effective: it produces abundance of light and less wasted heat. Conventional cars are comparatively inefficient at using the all amount of energy which stored in gasoline, and it is because of the engine’s mistake. Automatic transmissions can be infamously inefficient component in a car’s power train. Conventional cars are inefficient using of gasoline. Both aerodynamic and the engines utilize use very little of the energy contained in all gallon of gas when they are burning because they are too heavy. So, hybrid cars can rip out the less using of gasoline than conventional cars; as a result, they have designed to help increase the using amount of energy efficiency. Hybrid cars use electric motors to provide some portion of their driving force. Unlike gasoline engines, electric motors can be greater than 90 percent efficient at using electrical energy (â€Å"An Introduction to Efficiency†, 2006). As a result, if an electric motor consumed 100 kW/hrs of energy from the battery, 90 kW/hrs of energy would be turned into beneficial work. Some hybrid cars use manual transmissions, which they are much more efficient than automatic transmissions. As a result, hybrid cars do not have big electric motors and small conventional engines because electric motors are so much more efficient than conventional engines. This means that gasoline engines are the strongest point because they are completely developed and presently cost of efficient energy alternation device from a manufacturer’s standard system. However, big electric motors require huge energy storage like batteries. Big batteries are extremely expensive but that could be lower price if hybrid batteries are widespread to the world’s market, and being used by consumers as common as hybrid cars in today (â€Å"An Introduction to Efficiency†, 2006). The efficiency of hybrid cars is much more than conventional car due to the use of batteries and the transmission systems. On the other hand, hybrid cars are not good for all aspects of the environment. III. Why They Are Wrong The chemical material, which uses in whether hybrid car batteries or conventional cars’ batteries, is toxicity. There are three main battery types that many hybrid car’ companies are using or considering for using in hybrid cars such as lead-acid, nickel-metal hydride (NiMH), and lithium-ion (Li-ion). However, lead-acid is the worst toxic of the three, and it's very bad to the environment (Fuller, 2012; Banas, 2010; Olberding, 2010). Nickel is better than lead, but it still have a big problem because it is potentially carcinogenic and the mining process is considered hazardous (Fuller, 2012). We should be concerned about the environmental impacts of nickel mining, and decomposition of the batteries. The types of power plants are the most serious cause of the environmental impact of hybrid cars that depend on where they are charged. California, for example, obtains 80% of electric power in its cities from pure sources, such as hydroelectric plants. Charging a plug-in hybrid vehicle in California cannot be good for the environment, since both the cars and the power plants produce harmful emissions (Banas, 2010). However, most states use coal burning power plants to generate electricity; therefore, charging a plug-in hybrid vehicle produces power-plant emissions that can be just as harmful as tailpipe emissions, according to an Ohio State University study (Banas, 2010). Not only hybrid cars but also the power plants are bad for the environment. An important issue is the process of production as it could be a somber side of hybrid cars. One thing that many people don't usually think about consuming products is how much energy is expended to actually make them and move them around. For example, when people buy food from long distance, it requires burning lots of gasoline or diesel fuel to transport that food. If more people bought local food, it could reduce wasting fuel in progress (Fuller, 2012). This can ensure that, the process takes a lot of natural resources and energy to build a car and that include hybrid cars too. Every material that were used or parts of the car have to be make up and forged; therefore, it uses a lot of amount of electricity and the natural resources to make it. The issue of hybrid cars has caught the interest of the media and the public in 2007, CNW Marketing Research, Inc. reported that Dust to Dust: The Energy Cost of New Vehicles from Concept to Disposal. The article claimed that it is necessary to create the calculation of a dollar value for all energy, build the operation of a vehicle, and there is the surprising claim that the Toyota Prius costs more over the course of its lifetime than a Hummer H3 (Fuller, 2012). This made the Prius drivers become discomposed, since Toyota marketed hybrid cars and accentuated fuel efficiency and economic friendly driving. After many media and internet newspapers started mentioning about the paper and disseminating the information, many publications speedily criticized the information from CNW for ambiguous information and lack of evidence. Most of the energy used by a vehicle came from its design and production, several other studies have found that 80 to 90 percent of a vehicle's energy is used during operation — in other words, when you're driving it (Gleick, 2007). The most important thing is; it probably uses 13 % of their lifetime energy to become a car. Even though hybrid cars save the environment, but before they become a car, they have to pass many processes which are harmful to the environment. How hybrid car motor could be work effectively; they depend on the driver behaviors and driving styles and geographic areas. If drivers drive very fast, busy driver that commute to and have to go to work every day on long distances of highway, this does not help anything about saving the fuel. The Hybrid car motors only work in the startup. However, It is going to be fine even if you want to burn more fuel at times as when you are driving on the highway, the gas can be used to recharge your battery system (â€Å"All About Hybrid Cars†, 2012). This is a big concern about hybrid cars. If the drivers drive very long distances, they will not get the benefit from their hybrid cars. If they drive in the city; therefore, this process will be changed. Gasoline assisted hybrids are often started by the electric motor, so the stop or go of your commuting will largely depend on electric as opposed to gas. You can even expect to save about 15% in gas this way. However, you must be mindful that typically the electric motor will only run up to about 15-25mph before the gas engine kicks in (â€Å"All About Hybrid Cars†, 2012). If the drivers decrease the speed of their cars many times or rapidly, the gas will kick inattentively. However, the function of electric motor will not be work better on the highway and up hills and down hills areas. The electric motor typically assists in startup, but will kick in areas of high speed or when the engine needs run on the very fast speed (â€Å"All About Hybrid Cars†, 2012). Hybrid cars could be worked effectively in the urban area or city commuter. IV. Arguments for hybrid cars A. Batteries toxicity When these hybrid car batteries are dead, where will they end up? When batteries are disposed of improperly these metals can be detrimental to the environment. Lead and nickel sitting in a landfill can cause pollution to the groundwater causing acid rain and making it unsafe for drinking and also harmful to plant life (Bova, Goodwin, Marrs, Oliva, 2010). The effects of these toxicity batteries are human carcinogen, causing many diseases and reathing problem in humans. According to a study done by Environmental Defense, the more popular lithium-ion batteries found in most hybrids and electric vehicles are not as toxic as their lead and nickel counterparts, but still have negative effects on the environment (Bova, Marrs, Goodwin, Oliva, 2010). The big car companies such as General Motors and Toyota claim that hybrid car batteries can be 100% recyclable but the processes are too expensive. However, many companies are promoting the recycling of hybrid car batteries by motivating their customers. For example Toyota offers a $200 stipend and even provides a number to call printed on the battery itself. Even with these incentives there is no way to guarantee that owners will in fact recycle the batteries; leaving the window open for batteries to end up in the landfills causing further destruction of the environment (Bova, Goodwin, Marrs, Oliva, 2010). However, nowadays the numbers of hybrid cars around the world is still lower than conventional cars. If the number of hybrid cars is increasing over the year, landfills all around the world will be full of toxicity batteries, corrosive materials, and carcinogenic B. Overconsumption of natural resources Nowadays, the most essential problems in the world are global warming and rising oil prices; therefore, we should concern about the alternative energy, and especially friendly environment, which focus on hybrid car designs. The most accessible of these designs was the hybrid car, with working models already on the road. With their highly fuel efficient design, they deliver much of what they promise, but the hybrid picture is not entirely problem free (â€Å"Hybrid Cars Negative Environmental Impact†, 2007). Many hybrid car companies did a big problem because before they were going to be batteries and electric motors, they are very rare elements and don’t exist that much around the world, which go a long way to explaining their expense. Most of these elements currently come from China, and the supply as it exists today is not expected to last more than several years under even the most generous estimates (â€Å"Hybrid Cars Negative Environmental Impact†, 2007). Many efforts are going to find a new resource for these rare elements, but they will not be produced that much until they are becoming less and cause a shortage. Hybrid cars are complex vehicles and full of new technologies and high end technology; therefore, these make hybrid cars to be hard to build which use lots of energy to build hybrid cars. Some hybrids can charge their batteries from mains power, and this could be generated by a dirty’ technologies such as coal fired power stations or nuclear power (â€Å"Hybrid Cars Negative Environmental Impact†, 2007). This is the fact about hybrid cars on the market, and it means that different types of hybrid cars can use different types of power to produce electricity which affects the environment. C. Inefficiency of hybrid cars Once hybrid cars are built and spreading everywhere on the road, the important thing that will come up on drivers mind is, they are doing good for the environment. This is the fact because hybrid cars use less fuel than conventional cars but it depends on how they drive. Remember that a hybrid will probably never match the listed fuel efficiency because of the way the efficiency test is done, and because unless you only ever drive on heavily congested streets you won’t be utilizing the hybrid system effectively (â€Å"Hybrid Cars Negative Environmental Impact†, 2007). If hybrid cars are running on the high way, there will be only the gasoline’s engines that are working on the time and neglecting the effective of hybrid system. Even though hybrid cars regard as green environmental cars, hybrid cars with an internal combustion engine will still emit smog. Catalytic converters handle most of the contamination, but there’s still that good old greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. Even hybrids pump this out, they just pump lower amounts of it, and mostly because most hybrids have engines that stop when the vehicle comes to a halt (â€Å"Hybrid Cars Negative Environmental Impact†, 2007). However, driving hybrid cars is not saving the world but you have just been retarding your harmful to the environment. V. Conclusion Hybrid cars are not good for the environment at all. They are still bad to the environment. Even though hybrid car batteries are good for the environment right now but what if they end up in the landfills when they are expired in the future; therefore, our landfills will be full of toxicity. Many people think that hybrid cars are green environmental cars but they didn’t think about the process of building hybrid cars. Every process of making hybrid cars is bad for the environment due to the use of natural resources. However, when hybrid cars are shown up on the road, hybrid car motors sometimes cannot work effectively because they are working well only on the congested areas. The effective of hybrid car motors are also due to the behavior of drivers because if they always step on the accelerator, they will negate the efficiency on hybrid system. The price difference of a hybrid might not always benefit the gas deductions. Depending on how you drive, hybrids might not always be a match for your lifestyle. There is always the issue of the toxicity of the battery, even though they are not as harmful as standard car batteries to the environment. It is also beneficial to keep in mind that today’s EPA standards are slightly outdated. They will normally be on the lower end of what EPA estimates are, due to differing factors such as driver lifestyle, location, and the type of car it is. I strongly believe that hybrid cars are not that save the environment at all but they have just slowed down the impact on the environmental; therefore, do your researches before you buy a hybrid car.

Lean Manufacturing and Supply Chain

1. 0 INTRODUCTION: From humble beginnings, Tesco has grown to become the UK's largest supermarket chain. Over ten years ago, Tesco set its sights on becoming the Toyota of the grocery business. Since then the company has become renowned for its best practices in supply chain management (SCM), which included lean management and the use of RFID technology. The company has got an advantage over its competitors by incorporating innovation in its supply chain like point of the sale data, continued replenishment triggered by customer demand, primary distribution, cross dock distribution centre and use of single vehicle to serve several stores. . 0. Background Tesco was founded in 1910 by Jack Cohen, who invested his serviceman's gratuity of ? 30 in a grocery stall. The first private label product introduced by Cohen was Tesco Tea. The name Tesco was a combination of the initials of the tea supplier – TE Stock well and the first two letters of Cohen's name. Tesco opened its first sto re in 1929. Cohen was influenced by the supermarket culture in America and tried to introduce the concept in the UK. The company's driving force was the idea: ‘Pile it high and sell it cheap. In 1947, Tesco went public and a year later, Tesco self-service stores were started. In 1956, the first Tesco self-service supermarket was opened. In the 1960s, Tesco went on an expansion spree and acquired several store chains. The Retail Price Maintenance (RPM) Act8  in Britain prohibited large retailers from pricing goods below a price agreed upon by the suppliers. To overcome this obstacle to price reduction, Tesco introduced trading stamps which were given to customers when they purchased products; they could be traded for cash or other gifts.RPM was abolished in 1964, and from then on, Tesco was able to offer competitively priced products to its customers. The first Tesco superstore, with an area of 90,000 square feet, was opened in 1967. By the 1970s, Tesco's ‘Pile it high, sell it cheap' philosophy no longer appealed to shoppers. As people got richer, they started demanding expensive and luxury items. The poor performance of Tesco even led to the saying ‘doing a Tesco,' which meant snatching defeat from victory.  Control Key and Word – Text and Graphics.Tesco's image took a further beating when Imperial Tobacco Company which had considered acquiring Tesco as a part of its diversification strategy, did not go ahead with the deal as it felt that Tesco might damage its corporate image. To arrest the downslide in its fortunes, Tesco's management went in for an overhaul of its stores during the decade. Several stores were closed down to concentrate on the superstores. The smaller stores that still remained were refurbished to make them more customer-friendly.Tesco diversified into operating petrol pumps in 1974. In 1975, Tesco offered price discounts through a scheme called ‘Checkout at Tesco. ‘ By 1979, the company's turnover h ad reached ? 1 billion. In 1985, lan MacLaurin become Tesco's first CEO from outside the Cohen family. MacLaurin streamlined Tesco's operations, closing most of the smaller stores and opening large 30,000 square foot stores in the suburbs. Tesco also introduces a centralized distribution system, added fresh food and its own label for food products. These were successful moves.In the 1990s, the UK supermarket industry faced of 16. 7 per cent, behind Sainsbury's at 19 per cent. The other major competitors were Asda and Safeway. Several warehouse stores like Costco and discount stores like Aldi, Lidl and Netto also entered the UK. In 1997, Tesco's marketing director, Terry Leahy, become the new CEO. He had introduced new pricing policy of lowering prices to match those of Asda, which resulted in Tesco's prices begin 4-5 per cent lower than those at Sainsbury's and Safeway. 3. 0 DEFINING ISSUES 3. SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGMENT Supply chain management is a business administration strategy that aims at the improvement in efficiency of cash flow through information sharing and Business Process Reengineering (BPR) in the supply chain as a whole. The emphasis is put on maximizing a consumer’s worth by conflating products, services, information, and the cash flow into one seamless stream. What was formerly a â€Å"push system†, in which the product was sent downstream and sold, has become a â€Å"pull system† that produces only the quantity sold.However, since the order cycle is different, the quantity of orders from retailers to wholesalers becomes the smaller wave compared with the wave of actual sales because of subjectivity. Subjectivity goes also into the wholesaler’s decision; thus, manufacturing quantities fluctuate significantly. Such a phenomenon is called the â€Å"bull whip† effect or Forester effect. The phenomenon may be avoided if retailers, wholesalers, and manufactures share information. A large number of bottlenecks exist on a supply chain. The entire supply chain must be improved in balance.It is important to construct a system that creates unity throughout the supply chain. In order to optimize the system as whole, information sharing is required. It begins by sharing such information as the transition of sales trends showing consumer interests as well as real-time inventory data on a supply chain. Figure 1. Supply chain management In such a situation, RFID attracts attention as a new data career that uses the Internet. Wal-Mart stores will have RFID on pallets or corrugated boxes of products from their top 100 suppliers beginning January 1, 2005.Tesco of Britain, Metro of Germany, and the U. S. Department of Defense also decided to use RFID similarly. Promotion of RFID has been incorporated in E-Japan strategy as well. 3. 2 LEAN SYSTEM The core idea is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources. A lean organization unde rstands customer value and focuses its key processes to continuously increase it. The ultimate goal is to provide perfect value to the customer through a perfect value creation process that has zero waste.To accomplish this, lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimizing separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimizing the flow of products and services through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers. Eliminating waste along entire value streams, instead of at isolated points, creates processes that need less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make products and services at far less costs and with much fewer defects, compared with traditional business systems.Companies are able to respond to changing customer desires with high variety, high quality, low cost, and with very fast throughput times. Also, information management becomes much simpler and more accurate. 4. 0 PROBLEM STATEMENT Tesco’s supply chain improvements described indicate that supply chain management has the potential to improve a firm's competitiveness. Tesco’s supply chain capability is as important to a company's overall strategy as overall product strategy. Firm’s supply chain management encourage management of processes across departments. . 0. QUESTIONS AND THEIR SOLUTION: 5. 1. QUESTIONS 1: To what extent can Tesco's supply chain practices be said to follow lean principles? Tesco is an extremely successful company and a major part of its success has been due to its distribution network, Tesco has successfully applied lean distribution and just in time strategy into their distribution network. Using just in time within their distribution network gives Tesco a competitive advantage over its competitors by reducing inventory costs and improves scheduling.It also insures proper protective maintenance and stress quality in all phases of production from qua lity by suppliers to quality within Tesco. However, it is not enough. The original seven muda are: * Transport (moving products that are not actually required to perform the processing) * Inventory (all components, work in process and finished product not being processed) * Motion (people or equipment moving or walking more than is required to perform the processing) * Waiting (waiting for the next production step) * Overproduction (production ahead of demand) Over Processing (resulting from poor tool or product design creating activity) * Defects (the effort involved in inspecting for and fixing defects) According to the original seven muda, Tesco can improve its suppliers more by teach them the lean technique. They did it before but they must do it for their new suppliers around the world. 5. 2. QUESTIONS 2: How can lean practices give benefits to Tesco operation? Lean operation is an alternative to traditional operation that an increasing number of organizations are adopting. The ultimate goal of a lean system is to achieve a balanced, smooth flow of operations.Sup- porting goals include eliminating disruptions to the system, making the system flexible, and eliminating waste. The building blocks of a lean production system are product design, process design, personnel and organization, and manufacturing planning and control. Key benefits of lean systems are reduced inventory levels, high quality, and flexibility, reduced lead times, increased productivity and equipment utilization, reduced amounts of scrap and rework, and reduced space requirements. The risks stem from the absence of buffers, such as extra personnel and inventory stockpiles to fall back on if something goes wrong.The possible results of risks include lost sales and lost customers. Lean can make more profit in Tesco’s supply chain management by: †¢ Point-of-sale data in the store directly to a shipping decision in Tesco’s RDC. †¢ â€Å"customers as pacemaker† r egulating the provision stream †¢ increased the frequency of deliveries to the retail stores †¢ shipping dollies directly up to POS. †¢ Contingency plan: buffer stock of full dollies is still held aside †¢ supplier’s distribution center for the items has disappeared. †¢ Converting RDC as cross-docks, reducing costs their also. Increase in loyalty of customer leading to increase in sales and more certainty in demand too. †¢ Reduced costs, operating costs were offset by overall profits in a long run †¢ increasing its share in every format †¢ Better forecasting ability, i. e. better knowledge of consumption of each type of consumables at store. †¢ Reduced inventory case as RDC was converted into Cross-docks. †¢ Reduced Transportation costs due to milk runs. †¢ Reduction in stock points too. †¢ The no. Of logistical activities for a pallet to reach the final storing point reduce to 200%. 5. 3.QUESTIONS 3: What are the ma in differences between operating lean practices in retiling and in manufacturing operations? Lean Manufacturing is a systematic methodology that identifies and eliminates all types of waste or non-value-added activities; not only in production or manufacturing operations, but in the service industry as well. Whether you are manufacturing a product or providing a service, there are components that are considered â€Å"waste†. Lean concepts are purely about creating more value for customers by eliminating activities that are considered waste.Any activity or process that consumes resources, adds cost or time without creating value becomes the target for elimination. Lean focuses on the â€Å"big picture† or improvements in the entire business process as opposed to incremental improvements. It is the business process system that can significantly improve a company's profitability. Lean concepts improve operating performance by focusing on the continuous flow of products, m aterials or services through the value stream. To achieve this, the various forms of waste must be identified and eliminated. Waste can include any activity, step or process that does not add value for the customer.Lean Manufacturing, sometimes also referred to as the Toyota Production System (TPS), is about the systematic elimination of waste. There are a number of waste types which are: 1. Waste from Overproduction — producing more than is required by the customer or marketplace which generates unnecessary inventory. 2. Waste from Transportation — multiple handling or movement of products does not add any value to the product. 3. Waste of Motion — of the workers, machines, and handling. Searching for tools or parts due to the inappropriate location of these items is considered waste of motion. 4.Waiting — a worker waiting for a machine to finish a cycle, waiting for a supervisor to answer a question, or waiting for information or materials reflects an i nterruption to flow and need to be eliminated. 5. Processing — unnecessary processing steps should be eliminated. Combine steps where possible. 6. Inventory — or Work In Process (WIP) is material between operations as a result of large lot production or processes with long cycle times. This reflects system problems. 7. Defects — producing defective products is pure waste. Prevent the occurrence of defects instead of scrapping or repairing.Like lean manufacturing, lean retailing is an approach to re-inventing a long established business practice by using new information technologies to cut out waste and make operations more profitable. Pioneered by Wal-Mart – but subsequently taken up by most large retailers – lean retailing relies on the use of Barcodes to manage every step of the product value chain, from raw material sourcing through manufacturing through final delivery to the shop floor. Major attention is given to â€Å"just in time† del ivery to cut inventory costs, and to investments in IT infrastructures to allow stores to share sales data in Real Time with their suppliers.In many cases, Lean Retailing software systems will automatically place new orders for a given product from the manufacturer as soon as an item is scanned at the checkout counter, and in some cases, even the invoicing for that automatic order is automatized as well. Lean retailing aims to â€Å"cut out the fat† (waste) from the retail sourcing process to maximize profits for the retailer. Lean Manufacturing combines the advantages of craft and mass production systems, whilst avoiding the disadvantages of each.Lean manufacturing is ‘lean' because it produces products using fewer resources than traditional ‘job shop’ and ‘mass production' methods. Lean Manufacturing involves removal of all unnecessary costs (i. e. ‘waste'). Waste elimination is translated into customer satisfaction (i. e. improved performance , quality, cost, delivery etc). In this regard, it is the same as Just-in-Time (JIT) Manufacturing; the difference being that Lean Manufacturing encompasses the whole business rather than just manufacturing. It includes product development, production, supply chains, distribution and customer service. . 4. QUESTIONS 4: What challenges does the increased internationalization of both its suppliers and its markets present for supply chain management in Tesco? Tesco's real strategic store internationalization began in 1994 with entry into Hungary but soon expanded into other central European countries. First steps were then made into the Asian market, both as a reaction to the Asian economic crisis of the 1990s, which meant assets were cheap, but also due to a more positive sense of the scale of the market opportunities in China and Japan, for example.Over time the countries in which Teseo operates have changed slightly. Withdrawals from some markets have been made (Palmer, 2004, 5), re cognizing the lack of scope to become the market leader and/or the desire to invest elsewhere. In some cases, these withdrawals have been made as part of asset-swaps with other leading global retailers, each recognizing their own strengths in particular markets. During this time Teseo also re-entered Ireland through a major acquisition, though it is still not represented in continental western Europe .The strategic approach to store internationalization has seen Teseo develop different solutions for diverse markets, using distinct formats and tailoring the product and service offer to the local market. In many countries it operates as a multi-format and even multi-channel retailer (home shopping is available in Ireland and Korea) and focuses on the core values and brands of the business. Behind the scenes people, processes and systems have been enhanced and rolled out initially as ‘Teseo in a Box' and more recently as the Teseo Operating Model.As can be readily understood, the internationalization of Teseo at store level brings supply chain issues as well. At the same time, Teseo buys products on a global basis and this also has to be ‘fitted in' to the ever changing pattern of supply and demand. With formats and products varying by country and with time, the need is for a supply system that can be adaptable. In some cases, eg Ireland and Hungary, the composite model has been effectively exported to thesecountries, often with the same logistics service partners.Ln other situations there is an attempt to rethink the supply system and the technology needed and use this as the platform moving forward. For example, in 2003/4, based on the UK composite model, Teseo opened the largest distribution centre in Asia at Mokchon, Korea. It also opened major centers in Poland and the Czech Republic, extended a centre in Hungary (and added another fresh food distribution centre) and developed a new composite site in Ireland. As internationalization continues, so the infrastructure and the processes in the supply chain need to keep pace with or even lead the developments.The processes are now embedded in the Teseo Operating Model, but new faculties to meet expansion needs are required. In November 2007, Teseo finally opened its much heralded Fresh and Easy stores in California and Nevada. Years in the planning, this US entry is intended to achieve 200 stores by February 2009 and to eventually develop into a major chain. Based on extensive consumer research with US families and a trial store built secretly, Fresh and Easy stores average about 10,000 sq ft and hold around 3,500 product lines.They focus on providing faster, easier neighborhood retailing with an emphasis on fresh food and fresh prepared meals at affordable prices. Environmental, neighborhood, employment and organic credentials are stressed. Fifty stores had opened by the end of February 2008, with expansion into Arizona, although a ‘pause' in development was announced in April 2008 to reflect on the learning from these early developments. It is too early to judge the success or otherwise of this US venture, but it has attracted considerable attention. The store format is different to Teseo stores elsewhere.Whilst the Teseo name is not used, its operations are based on the Teseo Operating Model, but with reduced complexity. The in-store processes are simplified, including extensive display-ready packaging, self-checkout and automated replenishment. The systems are advanced, linking processes to the service centre in India. This simplification has reduced payroll and other costs. In supply terms, the Fresh and Easy operation is a little different to other Teseo operations, partly because the model of practices and processes has been built up from scratch, though it does rely on core processes from the Teseo Operating Model.For example, there has been a degree of co-location of production with distribution. UK suppliers with particular expertise have c o-located production facilities at the head office and distribution hub (Riverside, CA), so as to react quickly to demand. Whilst this is not unknown in, for example, Japan, the attempt here is to move towards a low-touch, lean operation and to rethink traditional approaches. There is extensive recycling of packaging, use of returnable crates and retail-ready merchandizing and packaging. The emphasis is on fully automated, one-touch replenishment supported by deep shelves.At Riverside, pick-by-line has been introduced and various environmental initiatives, eg solar power, developed (Stites, 2007, 4). Store stock levels and availability were initially poor, however (Uwins, 2007, 55) and the distribution systems performance has had to improve as the store development programme has moved on. The sizes of the stores are 10,000sq ft selling around 3,500 items (Telegraph). The stores are much smaller than supermarkets such as Wal-mart, which shows Tesco are not prepared to go in direct co mpetition with them. Furthermore, Tesco have nvented a new format in America; convenience retailing as we know it in the UK – a small shop selling a wide range of fresh, top-up groceries – does not exist in the US, where a convenience store means a petrol station selling cigarettes, doughnuts and little else (Telegraph). Tesco predicts Americans will prefer the convenience of a smaller store providing it caters for their needs. By Tesco being the first major competitor in the ‘convenience’ market, they can have ‘first picks’ on store locations, suppliers, employees and partners. This concept is known as first mover advantage.However, perhaps the reason no other company has broken into the market before is because it is not profitable or not in demand. A strategic alliance can be defined as cooperative agreements between potential or actual competitors. Tesco announced that they would form an alliance with Safeway, an American supermarket, and share profits. The strategic alliance will facilitate Tesco’s entry into the foreign market by renting stores from Safeway in prime locations. If Tesco purchased the buildings and the project was unsuccessful, losses would be much higher than if they rented them.Therefore, a strategic alliance allows companies to share the fixed costs and reduces the risks involved in entering new markets. Furthermore, the USA has different property laws to the UK and so can be confusing to follow the law-with an American company in alliance their knowledge can be transferred to Tesco and vice-versa. However, strategic alliances can be risky too. If Safeway go bankrupt and have to sell its stores, terminating the contract, it puts Tesco in a vulnerable position of either purchasing the stores it rents or move elsewhere.Either way, it will cost the company money. 6. 0 CONCLUSION Overall, Tesco's Supply Chain Management Strategy is its long-term goal. It is important for Tesco to have an operat ional strategy because it establishes the types of goods and services the company will offer its target market, and how Tesco are going to get advantages over its competitors. Tesco made good planning and control in its capacity, supply chain and quality. Besides, in order to make improvements in operation, Tesco measures quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost.Although they have made some improvements, there are still some disadvantages in its operation. The future retains numerous distinct scenarios for Tesco. The business has currently developed into a worldwide business. One of their likely future strategies could be dedicated to gathering a spectacular clientele service, as they have currently developed enough. As cited previous, Tesco is the market foremost in the UK. To sustain this location it is significant to advance its services all the time. 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