Problems and Prospects of Ship Breaking Industries of Bangladesh

Problems and Prospects of Ship Breaking Industries of Bangladesh Submitted to: Mohammad Badruzzaman Bhuiyan Adjunct Faculty Department of Business Administration East West University Submitted by: Md. Mahedi Hasan ID# 2008-3-10-035 Section-1 Date of Submission: July 15, 2012 EAST WEST UNIVERSITY   In the context of increased importance of ship breaking activities in Bangladesh, specially contribution to construction & structural development (>80%); and in national economy & employment opportunity for the poor. But indiscriminate and haphazard ship breaking activities in once biodiversity rich coastal area of Sitakunda, Chittagong is now a barren field. The area is severely degraded with loss of its physical, chemical & biological characteristics.There is very little information on the present status of biodiversity in the area and impact of ship breaking on fisheries and biodiversity. Verbal reports from fishermen indicate that there is a drastic reduction in fish catches which is likely to be due to this ship breaking activities. Ship breaking activities has not yet been recognized as ‘industry’ and still there are no separate guidelines or rules for ship breaking activities in Bangladesh. As a result, there is often accident, loss of valuable human lives & serious violation of human rights & labour rights, including very low wages.On the other hand, impact of ship breaking on the biodiversity is also matter of exploration. But to assess the impact of ship breaking on biodiversity & fishery resources, a research or study is urgently needed not only for the conservation of fishery resources but also to implement a sustainable & eco-friendly policy for ship breaking in Bangladesh. Key words SBRI = The Ship Breaking and Recycling Industry. Shipbreaking: Shipbreaking is the process of dismantling an obsolete vessel’s structure for scrapping or disposal.Conducted on a pier, dry dock or dismantling yard, it involves a wide range of activitie s. From removing all the gear and equipment that are on the ships to cutting down and recycling the ship’s infrastructure. Shipbreaking is a challenging process, due to the structural complexity of the ships and the environmental, safety and health issues involved. Recycling: The process of taking a ship apart; term preferred by the shipping industry. When procedures to safeguard the environment and workers' health and safety are applied, known as â€Å"green recycling†.Executive summary The ship breaking and recycling industry (SBRI) converts end-of-life ships into steel and other recyclable items. Ship recycling offers the most environmentally sustainable way of disposing of old vessels, with virtually every part of the hull and machine complex being reused or recycled as scrap metal. Although the industry is beneficial from a life-cycle assessment point of view, over the years it has gravitated toward countries with low labor costs, weak regulations on occupational safety, and limited environmental enforcement.The â€Å"global shift† in the industry to countries with comparatively weaker regulatory systems is of particular concern as ships contain many hazards that can have significant detrimental effects on humans and the environment if not dealt with properly. Currently, the global center of the ship breaking and recycling industry is located in South Asia, specifically Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. These three countries account for 70–80 percent of the international market for ship breaking of ocean-going vessels, with China and Turkey accounting for most of the rest.Only about 5 percent of the global volume of such vessels is scrapped outside these five countries. This study focuses on the SBRI in Bangladesh and Pakistan to get a better understanding of the economics of the industry and the environmental impacts arising out of such activity and to explore possible ways in which such environmental effects may be mitigated. 1. 0 Introduction Bangladesh has a long coastal belt of about 710 km which is enriched with natural resources specially fish and other aquatic species of different varieties and has been the focal point of different economic activities.Most of these seashore areas are situated in Chittagong. Sitakund is a seashore area situated a few kilometers north of Chittagong where most of the shipsbreaking yards are concentrated. Shipbreaking industry has not been developed in a day. It has been developed gradually in Bangladesh passing through various stages of its development at an international level. Though the shipbreaking in Bangladesh started in sixties; commercially it started in late seventies. The only shipbreaking industry of the country has been developed in Sitakund areas, Chittagong.There are about 20 forward and backward linkage industries based on this shipbreaking. Now, there are about 20 shipbreaking yards in Sitakund where thousand and hundreds of labour are working. The wor kers are all engaged in dangerous physical labor but they don’t have safety equipments like helmets, goggles, gloves, boots and work suits, medical facilities and moreover financial security. Over the last twenty years more than 400 workers have been killed and 6000 seriously injured according to the Bangladeshi media.The explosion of the Iranian tanker TT Dena on 31 may 2000 alone is said to have caused 50 deaths. To this toll must be added thousands of cases of irreversible disease which have occurred and will occur in future due to the toxic materials that are handled and inhaled without minimum precautions or protective cares. 1. 1 Objective of the Study The ship breaking industry provides great advantages. It’s probably the most environmentally sustainable way of disposing of old vessels, it creates jobs and supply a substantial quantity of scrap steel for the iron and steel industries (e. , it contributed to about 50% of Bangladesh’s steel production). How ever, the hazardous waste and associated occupational health hazards pose a significant national and global concern. The main objective of this report is presenting an overview of this industry through analyzing the prospect and the environmental problems arise form this industry.1. 2 Methodology of the Study There are two types of Assignment method available and they are conclusive and exploratory. Considering the subject topic I have chosen exploratory method. . 2. 1 Primary Sources I have not conducted any survey, rather I have given emphasize on secondary sources. 1. 2. 2 Secondary Sources: In order to complete my assignment work, I depended on the secondary data more than primary data. I got the refined secondary data from the Internet by surfing huge web pages. I downloaded many WebPages, files ; related other things which were very much helpful for me to complete this assignment. 1. 3 Limitations (a) Time limitation is one of the problems to make this assignment. b) Amount of data collection is not very huge because only websites are not sufficient to complete this assignment. (c) Data collection process was irregular. 2. 0 Body of the report 2. 1 Prospect of ship breaking industry The ship breaking and recycling industry plays a significant economic role in Bangladesh and Pakistan, supplying a substantial quantity of re-rollable scrap steel for the iron and steel industries. SBRI provides more than half of Bangladesh’s steel supply, for example, making it a strategic industry in that country.The industry also creates hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs for some of the poorest and most marginalized segments of the population in those countries. The work force in each country varies with the volume of ship breaking but may range from 8,000–22,000 workers in the ship recycling yards to 200,000 in the supply chain, shops, and re-rolling mills—with dependents in extended families estimated to reach over 500,000 in Banglade sh. Shipbreaking plays an important role in the national economy for a number of reasons: 2. 1. Production of steel The scrapping of ships provides the country’s main source of steel and in doing so saves substantial amount of money in foreign exchange by reducing the need to import steel materials. Bangladesh needs 8 million tons of building materials per year, of which iron is a major component. The iron from recycled ships supplies iron materials in the country. This does mean however, that the owners have more power and control over the amount of steel that is sold and the price it is sold at. 2. 1. 2 Green industry (if properly recycled)In some ways it can be considered a â€Å"green industry†. Almost everything on the ship and the ship itself is recycled, reused and resold. The scrapping of ships supplies raw materials to steel mills, steel plate re-manufacturing, asbestos re-manufacturing as well as providing furniture, paint, electrical equipment and lubricants , oil to the number of businesses that have spouted up specifically as a result. 2. 1. 3 Source of revenue It generates large amounts of revenue for various Government authorities through the payment of taxes.Every year the Government collects almost 9000 million taka in revenue from the shipbreaking industry through import duty, yards tax and other taxes. 2. 1. 4 Employment Opportunity Despite the conditions that the workers are employed under, this is an industry that employs more than 20,000 people directly. It provides employment for some of the poorest people from the north of Bangladesh who would otherwise have no employment. These mainly economic benefits have made shipbreaking a powerful industry. But these economic benefits should be considered together with the social and environmental costs.Together, with better regulation shipbreaking can also bring social and environmental benefits. 2. 2 Environmental Impact 2. 2. 1 Pollutants discharged from shipbreaking Though shipbre aking has earned a good reputation for being a profitable industry in developing countries there are a number of environmental and human health hazards. Depending on their size and function, scrapped ships have an unladened weight of between 5,000 and 40,000 tons (the average being 13000+), 95% of which is steel, coated with between 10 and 100 tons of paint containing lead, cadmium, organotins, arsenic, zinc and chromium.Ships also contain a wide range of other hazardous wastes, sealants containing PCBs, up to 7. 5 tones of various types of asbestos and; several thousands liters of oil (engine oil, bilge oil, hydraulic and lubricants oils and grease). Tankers additionally hold up to 1,000 cubic meters of residual oil. Most of these materials have been defined as hazardous waste under the Basel Convention. In Bangladesh, ships containing these materials are being cut up by hand, on open beaches, with no consideration given to safe and environmentally friendly waste management practic es.Ships are not properly cleaned before beaching. Generally, an eyewash test is carried out to certify that a ship is free from dangerous chemical and fumes. Ship breaking activities is a threat to both the terrestrial and marine environment as well as to public health. It is like a mini version of a city that discharges every kind of pollutants a metropolis can generate like liquid, metal, gaseous and solid pollutants. 2. 2. 1. 1 Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP's)POPs are chemicals that are highly toxic, remain intact in the environment for long periods, become widely distributed geographically, bioaccumulate through the food web, accumulate in the fatty tissue of living organisms and pose a risk of causing adverse effects to the human population, wildlife and the environment. There has been a realization that these pollutants, upon exposure of human population, can cause serious health effects ranging from increased incidence of cancers to disruption of hormonal system. Shipbr eaking activities are a source of lethal POPs. 2. 2. 1. 2 AsbestosAsbestos was used in old ships as a heat insulator. As there are no asbestos disposal procedures, during scrapping, workers and the surrounding environment are exposed to the asbestos fibers. Exposure to asbestos fibers (even in very low concentrations) especially through inhalation may cause cancer and asbestosis. On the shipbreaking beaches, asbestos fibers and flocks fly around in the open air. Workers take out asbestos insulation materials with their bare hands. It has also proven to be one of the most lethal, as inhaling asbestos fibers can lead to a wide range of pulmonary roblems such as asthma and asbestosis – and can also be the direct cause of mesothelioma. 2. 2. 1. 3 Heavy metals Heavy metals are found in many parts of ships such as in paints, coatings, anodes and electrical equipment. These are taken apart with no protective measures in place and reused. Exposure can result in lung cancer, cancer of the skin, intestine, kidney, liver or bladder. It can also cause damage to blood vessels. 2. 2. 1. 4 Polluted oil As a result of breaking the ships, oil residues and the other refuses are being spilled, mixed with the sea water and left floating along the entire seashore.Oil may cause serious damage in different ways, such as a reduction of light intensity beneath the water surface which inhibits photosynthesis. Oil films on water reduce the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide across the air-sea interface which is harmful to aquatic life. It also causes damage to the bird population by coating their feathers with oil which causes buoyancy and insulation losses. Sometimes spilling may cause wide spread mortality amongst the population of fish, mammals, worms, crabs, mollusks and other water organisms. 2. 2. 2 Impact on physiochemical properties of seawaterShip scrapping activities pollute the seawater environment in the coastal area of Fauzdarhat to Kumira of Chittagong, Banglades h. As a result, toxic concentration of ammonia, marine organisms found in seawater had an increase in PH levels. Extensive human and mechanical activities accelerate the rate and amount of seashore erosion and results in higher turbidity of seawater. Critical concentration of DO and higher BOD were found with an abundance of floatable materials (grease balls and oil films) in the seawater. 2. 2. 3 Impact on inter-tidal sediments and soilsIn shipbreaking areas various refuse and disposable materials are discharged and spilled from scrapped ships and often get mixed with the sand. The scraps from the ships are staked haphazardly on the sea shore, leaving behind an accumulation of metal fragments and rust (particularly iron) in the soil. These together with extensive human and mechanical activities often go on as matter of routine work resulting in the beach soil losing its binding properties and this accelerates the amount of shore erosion and increase the turbidity of sea water and s ediments in the area. . 2. 4 Impact on biodiversity Shipbreaking activities contaminate the coastal soil and sea water environment mainly through the discharge of ammonia, burned oil spillage, floatable grease balls, metal rust (iron) and various other disposable refuse materials together with high turbidity of sea water. The high PH of the seawater and soil observed may be due to the addition of ammonia, oils and lubricants. High turbidity of water can cause a decrease in the concentration of DO and substantially increase the BOD.Furthermore, oil spilling may cause serious damage by reduction of light intensity, inhibiting the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide across the air-sea water interface, and by acute toxicity. As a result the growth and abundance of marine organisms especially plankton and fishes may seriously be affected. Indiscriminate expansion of ship breaking activities poses a real threat to the coastal inter-tidal zone and its habitat. 3. 0 Recommendation Conside ring the positive role of ship breaking in national economy ship breaking can not be stopped.Rather a sustainable approach should be taken to minimize the negative consequences of ship breaking activities in our coastal zone. Government should formulate and implement a national policy and principles for safe and sustainable shipbreaking after having consultation with relevant organizations, employers and workers. Both owner and contractors have to take the responsibility in providing compensation, treatment and security for the labours. Adequate compensation for victims of accident and their families, social security†¦etc. should be ensured.Finally, it could be said that, the ship breaking operation involves serious environmental hazards. If the ship breaking industry is to develop in the country, the same may only be allowed ensuring minimization of pollution effect. A longer stretch along the seashore is in no way justified for continuation of this business; rather a certain separate zone like a dockyard should be selected by the competent authority. Preventive measures against environmental and health hazards inherent in the process of ship breaking should be undertaken at the right time, before it is too late.Bibliography Hossain, D. M. M. M. , Islam, M. M. , 2006, Ship Breaking Activities and its Impact on the Coastal Zone of Chittagong, Bangladesh: Towards Sustainable Management, Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Ship_breaking http://www. shipbreakingbd. info/ Mamun, A. A. , Akther, M. , Ali, M. , Sumaia, K. , Alam, A. , 2005, Worker in Ship Breaking Industries: A Base Line Survey of Chittagong(Bangladesh), Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) Maria, S. , Frank, S. L. , Milen, D. , Robin, B. , Susan, W. , Roy, W. , 2010, Ship Breaking and Recycling Industries in Bangladesh and Pakistan, Report No 58275-SAS

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Transsexualism Case Essay Introduction Transsexualism deals with the basic features for the identification of human gender. This aspect has not received much understanding. Popular media has not shown the clear image of transsexualism and stories about the possibility for the occurrence of changes in sex has been explained in a very sensational way. These stories have led people towards the misconception about transsexualism and they do not know what the term ‘transsexualism’ really means. The term ‘transsexualism’ refers to the condition of a person in which a person’s psychological sex is quite different from the physiological sex of that person. Such people think that their soul has been put in the wrong gender body (Butler, 2001). This paper provides information about transsexualism, reality and myths about transsexualism, possible causes of transsexualism, treatment of transsexualism, social, legal and economic implications of transsexualism. What Does Transsexualism Mean? It is very important to understand few terms before the detailed explanation of transsexualism. People usually consider the terms gender and sex as the same concept but in fact they are quite different from each other. The term ‘sex’ provides information about the type of genital organs of a person. Thus this term is specific with the anatomical sex of a person. The term ‘gender’ explains how a person determines himself/herself in terms of female, male or others. The two terms are considered as one by a large number of people because majority of the people think about their gender that is in accordance with their anatomical sex. Anatomical sex has been explained to a greater extent as compared to gender. Some people get confused when they are asked to explain their gender as they do not consider them as a clear male or a clear female. There are two further terms that arise from the term ‘gender’. ‘Gender identity’ shows how a person experience and percept internally about his or her gender. ‘Gender role’ determines how a person spends his or her life in society and how he or she socializes that is dependent on the gender identity of that person (Campbell, 2001). Reality of Transsexualism Transsexualism is a condition in which a person does not like his or her genital sex and feels highly uncomfortable with it. Such feelings are long lasting. Such persons want their genital sex to be opposite of their actual genital sex. They feel that they would live a better and comfortable life with the genital sex opposite to their actual one. They want this change to be on permanent basis. A large number of people consider transsexualism as a psychiatric problem but it has been found that in reality a female body may have a male brain or vice versa. A psychiatrist consultant is assigned to make sure that the person who claims to be a transsexual and wants to change his or her genital sex is indeed a real transsexual. It is also determined that whether the person wishing to change his or her genital sex is mentally stable to cope up with the new gender in the society. Transgenderists is another term that is used by people who feel that their genital sex is not according to their gender and they wish to live their life the way that is opposite to their genital sex. Such people do not go through the process of genital surgery. Myths about Transsexualism Transsexualism is often misunderstood with some conditions that have some common points among them. Transvertism: People in this condition do not wish to change their genital sex though they often get dressed as the opposite sex. Homosexuals and Bisexuals: Such people do not wish to have the sex opposite to their actual genital sex. They attract same sex people. Hermaphrodites: Hermaphroditism is a condition which is very rare. In this condition, the person does not wish to change his or her genital sex neither he nor she considers himself or herself as a person with a gender that is opposite to his or her actual genital sex. Such people have genital sex organs that are not completely developed either in males or females. There is no mismatch of their body with their mind. They just have a body that is strongly intersexed (Elliot, 2001). Possible Causes of Transsexualism Unusual combinations in chromosomes lead to transsexualism though the possibility is 1 in 400. The chromosomes of transsexuals are not standard karyotype like standard karyotype of male (XY) and standard karyotype of female (XX). This is due to some confusion in the hormones when the development of fetus was taking place. Chemicals are another cause for the occurrence of transsexualism. Transsexualism may occur when a woman takes oral contraceptives without knowing that she has already conceived. Some drugs are also responsible for transsexualism when the drugs were given to pregnant women. The most common drug in this regard is diethylstilboestrol. Hormonal disturbance due to oral contraceptives or drugs lead to the birth of transsexual babies. There are some chemical pollutants responsible for the occurrence of transsexualism. Such chemical pollutants are man-made. Some of them are dibenzodioxins and polychlorobiphenyls that are found to bring disruption in androgen and / or estrogen receptors. Transsexualism may also occur without any biochemical reason. Sometimes, transsexualism occurs due to the anemic expectant mother. Sometimes, sufficient amount of nourishment is not received by the fetus, or sometimes sufficient quantity of material hormones become the cause of transsexualism when these hormones result in the disruption of the development of fetus by crossing the placenta in a large quantity. The gender and brain sex of the fetus can not be changed once pregnancy has passed the relevant stage. The brain can never be changed even when some changes may happen in the body due to the alteration in hormones. For this reason, the transsexuals undergo surgery to change their genital sex to match their gender as the brain had been developed (Heyes, 2000). Treatment of Transsexualism Sex reassignment therapy is the only effective treatment of transsexuals. No psychological treatment has been found effective enough for transsexual people. The mental health of transsexual people determines the extent to which the sex reassignment therapy is required. Transsexuals that are suffering from severe anxiety, depression, addictions of different types and possessing suicidal behavior often get much relieved from their problems when they go through the sex reassignment therapy. Gender identity disorder is the way to diagnose transsexualism among people who are ready to be treated psychologically. Transsexual people must have to go through psychological treatment before the sex reassignment therapy. Once they get the label of gender identity disorder, the rest of the way towards the sex reassignment therapy becomes easier for them. There may be some people who have been found with gender identity disorder but they do not wish to change their genital sex. Transsexuals usually do not prefer to undergo psychological treatment as they consider their desire of the sex reassignment therapy as their physical need (Hird, 2000). Social, Legal and Economic Implications of Transsexualism Transsexual people usually face harassment and assault when people around them come to know about their history. Transsexuals prefer to quit their previous job and leave their social circles after the sex reassignment therapy and they start living their life from the scratch. By doing so, they think that no body would ever come to know about their past. Sometimes, the family members and very close friends leave transsexuals after the sex reassignment therapy. The problems of transsexuals become worse when they have to face the legal issues. Such problems vary from country to country. In Britain, transsexuals are not allowed to make any amendment or change in their birth certificate. Where as, in the United States, some state jurisdiction allow transsexuals to make necessary amendments and changes in their birth certificates. They can even replace their original birth certificates with new ones. Other state jurisdictions help transsexuals by sealing their previous records so that their privacy can be maintained. Transsexual people had to face economic crisis after the sex reassignment therapy. They had to quit their previous job as the employers were not at all cooperative with transsexual employees. Now, the situation of economic issues for transsexuals varies from country to country. In the United States, anti-discrimination laws have been passed in California for protecting transsexual employees. The employers are forced to treat their transsexual employees equally. They cannot be terminated (Butler, 2001). Conclusion Transsexualism is a medical reality and it should not be treated psychologically. Transsexuals should be allowed to decide whether they want to go through psychiatric treatment. They should be treated as normal humans socially, legally and economically. References Butler, Judith. (2001). Doing Justice to Someone: Sex Reassignment and Allegories of Transsexuality. GLQ 7, no. 4: 621-36. Campbell, Carolyn. (2001). Transversing across the Genders. Transgender Tapestry 94: 63-68. Elliot, Patricia. (2001). A Psychoanalytic Reading of Transsexual Embodiment. Studies in Gender and Sexuality 2, no. 4: 295-325. Heyes, Cressida. (2000). Reading Transgender, Rethinking Womens Studies. NWSA Journal 12, no. 2: 170-80. Hird, Myra. (2000). Genders Nature: Intersexuality, Transsexualism and the Sex/Gender Binary. Feminist Theory: An International Interdisciplinary journal 1, no. 3.

Boots ltd Current strategic position

Boots ltd Current strategic position Management Summary Introduction This report will examine findings and analyse Boots current strategic position in the industry. It will analyse whether or not the new IT system has had any impact in the organisation efficiency and financial wise. Here I will discuss the formation of one of the most biggest pharmaceutical and cosmetic company in Europe. Boots is one of the largest cosmetic high street and online retailer in the country, and in recently in continental Europe. It was founded by John Boot in 1849 when Mr Boot opened an herbalist shop in Nottingham. Boots as a company was formed in 1883 and they appointed their first pharmacist a year after. They opened their first flagship store in Nottingham in 1892. Since then it has been one of the most popular place to go get cosmetics and medicine. The companys chemists were taken over by UniChem Plc in 1991 and they started their global brand recognition by opening their first Boots store in Republic of Ireland in Dublin in 1996. Since the mid 1990s Boots faced heavy competition from many sectors of the retail industry. They had to restructure their brand in order to counter attack the competition it faced. In July 2006, Boots merged with their biggest rival Alliance UniChem. By announcing this deal, this made Boots the largest distributor in pharmaceutical and healthcare products. This also gave them continental recognition as UniChem was one of the largest pharmaceutical players in continental Europe. Like Wal-Mart bought Asda but they are known as Wal-Mart in America and Asda in Europe, Boots is known as Boots in England but UniChem in Europe. Alliance UniChem and the Boots merger allowed these two companies become the biggest pharmaceutical and cosmetic dealers in Europe, reaching out to more and more people, thus making a huge profit in the process. It elevated both companies to higher grounds and is still thriving to be more successful. Boots have a website setup for the American market, but do not sell online, and many of their products are only sold via department stores and pharmacies in America, but they do not have outlets for the average customer to come and look around. In 1997, Boots formed a loyalty card scheme, called the Advantage Card, a card which customers carry, get points when they purchase products and then reward them with special offers. This also allowed the company to find out the buying habits, and find out what customers normally would buy and then send them special offers regarding these in order to bring them back into the store and spend more. They estimated that they would sign up eight million customers, but by December 1998 they went over this estimate by signing up over ten million customers to the Advantage Card scheme, and by this their estimate of the four percent sales growth actually succeeded. The cost of the scheme was  £25 million therefore the sales growth was an important part of this scheme. The IT system was a huge part of the organisations card scheme. Boots is a long-established IBM customer, but they were researching other companies in regards to their new customer analysis system before deciding to stick with IBM. The reason they went for the IBM solution was because they offered the complete package as well as their own technical support teams and experience. This would obviously save them time due to the fact they do not need to train up a new person to train more people therefore the ones that create this will be able to train the Boots employees into how to use the IT system. The database project started in spring 1997, 6 months before the card launch. This is because the company would need to make sure the database is right before they can officially launch the cards otherwise there would be a system overload, or even a backlog which would cost a lot of money, this would also enable the structure being right from the start. The size of the database eventually went up to 1.6 TB (terabytes) which held more than 2 million card holder details and some non card holder buyer behaviours in order to contrast between the two buying behaviours. The analyst team at Boots analyse these customer buying behaviours, thus finding out what type of products intrigue the card holders, as well as the non card holders. By doing this, they can create a report for the marketing team, and tell them what can be done to entice non card holders to join the Advantage Card scheme. They can also find out what products are selling the most between the two categories of buyers, and find out new ways to sell their products to the four groups of promotion buyers, the deal seekers (only seek promotion deals), stock pilers (who buy in bulk when the items in promotion then dont bother coming back when they are not), the loyalists (the ones that buy the products a little more when they are on promotion then revert back to their normal buying habits) and the new market (customers that buy the product when they are on promotion and then continue buying the products when they arent. This report will now analyse the Boots strategic position by evaluating using different methods. Strategic Evaluation Swot Analysis Using Swot Analysis, I will now analyse the organisations current position. Strengths Boots is a powerful pharmaceutical and cosmetic retail brand. It has a reputation of having great deals compared to other stores, and has a wide range of products in store. It has grown substantially from being a one-store shop in a city to being a continental brand (by merging with Europes biggest cosmetic and pharmaceutical brand Alliance UniChem). By merging, the company has become the biggest cosmetic brand in Europe, and has the entire infrastructure in place to make it a successful and big brand. The company has a good IT system which was created and run by IBM which is one of the worlds biggest IT company in the world, and uses its IT infrastructure to analyse what products are being sold the most, the most popular and customers buying behaviour, using the loyalty card scheme the backbone of this. By doing this, the analyst team at Boots use this information to give these loyal shoppers deals and it therefore eventually makes profit. The company uses its vast financial profits to invest time and money in training people and retaining a development team. By doing this they have people who know what they are doing, therefore have an advantage over other brands who do not consistently train and invest in their employees. The companys online shopping is a great help to people who cannot go to the store because of their disability/being old. Their online prescription feature allows the user to order their prescription drugs online and delivered to them. This reaches out to more people, and especially to those with disability who cannot go to their local pharmacy, and get it delivered to their door the next working day. Weaknesses Though Boots is one of the biggest brands in UK and Europe, it still is not Global like some of the companys rivals. The system that is in place could cause error hen external influences such as recession affects shoppers. It may set the trends of customers and forecasts but not necessarily forecast the trend for recession and other external influences. Like most other companies, the year of 2009, which was mostly hit by recession and VAT went down to 15% to help people with this downfall, affected businesses. Their loyalty card system is showing the customer buyer behaviour, but is it really taking into account the recession period? People are buying less and less and therefore targeting customers that used to buy these products, and offering them deals that they may not buy due to the recession, will adversely affect them, the buyer and the company. Other external factors that contribute to their weaknesses are interest rates and inflation. By this going up each year, it makes the product prices go up also. This affects the trend in buying. Will people buy the same product they bought cheaper the year before? The loyalty card scheme may help towards this problem, but will casual buyers end up buying it here or go and buy it from a pound shop. In terms of company image, Boots are well known only in UK, whereas the company uses a different name in Europe due to Boots not being an universal word and Alliance is a universal word in Europe and UniChem is the name of the company they merged with, thus giving them profits but not actual name recognition. The company have recently moved their brand to the USA. The company is also known as Alliance Boots, and their pharmacy over there is called The DrugStore. They do not have shops in USA, but sell their products in department stores or normal drug stores/pharmacies. But because their American website does not allow online shopping, only advertising the brand, and they do not have any outlets in America, they are missing out on huge profits as America are one of the highest prescription drug users in the world. It may be good distribution but making outlets will sell more. If the company was to merge with an American pharmacy/cosmetic/pharmaceutical company, they could slowly intr oduce their brand to the American market and make it global. The IT system needs to be enhanced so it can cope with this expansion. The brand in the UK also only have shops in high streets, maybe making more stores like Tesco have with their Tesco Express branches, they can reach out to more people. Opportunities Boots should take the opportunity of merging with an American company so that they can break the American market. Also to do this same thing for Asia they can make their brand a Global brand. In 1997 they introduced Boots in New Zealand, but the store closed down in the same year due to slow sales. If an opportunity of merger for good companies in Asia and America come in, Boots could do well with this, that way they can focus their intentions of getting brand recognition in these markets where they could see their profits go above the scale. Boots are just a trade and distributor in America, this means they selling in department stores and pharmacies, but they do not have a store out there to show the market what the company actually does. New locations offer Boots opportunities to exploit the market development. Threats Being number one means that you are a target for competition, locally and globally. This means more and more companies will be competitively putting their prices down to compete with big companies, thus getting more and more people to shop with them rather than the big companies. The stores loyalty card scheme is helping this cause, getting more and more customers to shop with Boots so that they can be rewarded. By being a global retailer, if they expand their operations to the USA and further, means they are exposed to political problems in the country they do their business in. Political downfall and economy downfall means fewer shoppers, and they need to tackle this problem to avoid loss of profits. The cost of producing many products has fallen because of lower manufacturing costs, due to outsourcing to low-cost regions of the world. This has lead to more and more price competition between rivals, therefore resulting in price deflation. This is a threat because rivals are finding more and more ways to entice customers to shop with them rather than their competitor. Supermarkets in particular will name their rivals in advertisements, stating they are cheaper than them. Boots on the other hand do not tend to name their competitor, rather focusing on their own name recognition to sell their products, and using their loyalty card scheme to reward their loyal customers, whilst the casual customers do not bother signing up to the loyalty card scheme and tend to shop only when there are promotions in store as the loyalty card offers do not appeal to them. Their direct competition in terms of cosmetics AND pharmaceutical products are Superdrug. Superdrug sell from both categories, but Superdrug does not seem to carry such a large range as does Boots, but are slightly cheaper. Therefore when it comes to recession, Superdrug will tend to sell more due to them selling cheaper. When recession is over, will customer buying behaviour change? There is a chance of that, un less they are so used to buying cheap products it may change slightly. Superdrug have less variety than Boots, therefore Boots tend to sell more of the products that the average customer cannot buy in Superdrug. Price is normally higher on these due to the company knowing their competitor not selling the same product. Porters Five Forces Model Now I will use Porters Five Forces model for competitive analysis of the companys strategic position. The five forces allow the marketer to compare a competitive environment. Existing Competitors The main existing competitor is Superdrug in terms of what gets sold in Boots. This is because Superdrug sells what Boots sell, but has less variety but is cheaper. Customers tend to shop at stores that are cheaper, but because of Boots selling more variety it counter attacks this problem. It also allows the customers to choose between the brands, which gives healthy competition for both, which is good for the company and customers, as it gives them new ways of ousting the competitor. Superdrug does not have a loyalty scheme, thus eliminating the need for a good IT system. Boots have an advantage over this as their IT system was created and developed by IBM, and they can monitor activities using their IT system, and this is a huge bonus for them. Other competitors are supermarkets and smaller stores, such as Asda and Tesco. Asda and Tesco do not have pharmacy facilities, but they sell cosmetic goods, which are most of the time are on offers. This tends to leash the customer to their store, but one main disadvantage of them is that they do not tend to sell varieties of these products. They may have their own loyalty cards, but people who tend to shop more and more on cosmetic products tend make use of their Boots Advantage card. Threats of New Entrants

Hamlet :: Hamlet Shakespeare Summary Review Analysis

Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father's death, but, because he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness. Claudius and Gertrude worry about the prince's erratic behavior and attempt to discover its cause. They employ a pair of Hamlet's friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to watch him. When Polonius, the pompous Lord Chamberlain, suggests that Hamlet may be mad with love for his daughter, Ophelia, Claudius agrees to spy on Hamlet in conversation with the girl. But though Hamlet certainly seems mad, he does not seem to love Ophelia: he orders her to enter a nunnery and declares that he wishes to ban marriages. A group of traveling actors comes to Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test his uncle's guilt. He will have the players perform a scene closely resembling the sequence by which Hamlet imagines his uncle to have murdered his father, so that if Claudius is guilty, he will surely react. When the moment of the murder arrives in the theater, Claudius leaps up and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agree that this proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill Claudius but finds him praying. Since he believes that killing Claudius while in prayer would send Claudius's soul to heaven, Hamlet considers that it would be an inadequate revenge and decides to wait. Claudius, now frightened of Hamlet's madness and fearing for his own safety, orders that Hamlet be sent to England at once. Hamlet goes to confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius has hidden behind a tapestry. Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes the king is hiding there. He draws his sword and stabs through the fabric, killing Polonius. For this crime, he is immediately dispatched to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. However, Claudius's plan for Hamlet includes more than banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sealed orders for the King of England demanding that Hamlet be put to death. In the aftermath of her father's death, Ophelia goes mad with grief and drowns in the river. Polonius's son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is to blame for his father's and sister's deaths. When Horatio and the king receive letters from Hamlet indicating that the prince has returned to Denmark after pirates attacked his ship en route to England, Claudius concocts a plan to use Laertes' desire for revenge to secure Hamlet's death.

The Deplorable Willy Loman of Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman :: Death Salesman essays

The Deplorable Willy Loman of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   For those of you that don't know what deplorable means then you need to check out the tragic play "Death of a Salesman", by the American writer, Arthur Miller.   The main character of this story is Willy Loman, who is almost the walking definition of this word. The life of Willy Loman is portrayed as a   tragic existence for these   few reasons;   he was a ghastly role model for his sons,   a inconsiderate and unfaithful husband, he allowed one incident to affect the rest of his life, and finally, he killed himself, when he still had so much to live for.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   First of all, Willy was a dire role model for his two sons Biff and Happy.   He was a loving and giving father, but he always treated Biff better than he did Happy.   Biff was the all-star quarterback and everyone in the city loved and admired him.  Ã‚   Willy was no different, he always put Biff before anyone else in his household, which is something that a father should never do to his family.   Willy's love for his sons was very apparent, however he set in them very low moral values.   For example, Willy told Biff and Happy to run up the street and steal some sand to finish some steps, which tells them that stealing is OK.   This is a trait set in him by his father, which proves to haunt him his entire life.   Willy was also a cheat, whether it was adultery or simple card cheat, his dishonesties certainly rubbed off on his children, and proved to be the downfall in their lives.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   On the other hand, Willy affected more than just his sons   life with his deceit.   He greatly altered his own when he was caught in the mist of an affair with a meaningless prostitute, by his beloved son Biff.   This event proved to be the turning point in these two individuals lives. Willy's wife Linda, was a great women who certainly didn't deserve the heartache and disrespect that Willy gave her.   For instance, on many occasions in the story Willy is talking to his sons, and Linda will simply try to state something until Willy orders her to, "shut up.

Early Years Essay

Activity are planned to extend children learning and development area as they learn new words and able to build on their communication and language by describing and explaining what they are doing and asking question. This also extends their vocabulary example the children enjoy playing with weighing scales so I plan activities using different resources such as lentils instead of sand or dry pasta to learn numbers, sizes, quantities etc. Again activities are planned around sand and water play as it stimulates creativity, where children are encouraged to explore a range of resources to make something with wet and dry sand using their imaginations and sharing ideas. This helps children come out with all sorts of ideas which is very impressive. They make sand castles, make shapes with moulds and patterns in the sand with fingers and objects like small plastic rakes. They also make learning fun by using their finger to trace letters and numbers in the sand. Sand and water play activities are things I do with children that combine fun, learning, creativity and time together. This makes the children confident as in the early year’s foundation stage learning area talks of expressive art and design as it shows how children explore play with a range of media and materials, page 5. Children often request and choose to play in the water and sand area and I encourage that by focusing on what they are doing and why they choose what they do. This helps the children to take led in activities and make decisions on their own. They are able to explore a range of resource which would broaden their knowledge as they keep trying and creating their own ideas with it. Water and sand play is also helpful in teaching the children about the environment. The use of technology is ever increasing in early childhood settings. Children at my setting have access to use computers for educational games and software for learning such as e-reading, which they find engaging, interesting and refreshing. I believe that technology can impact both positively and negatively on children and the key is increasing the positive elements whilst simultaneously eliminating the disadvantages. Technology can be stimulating, educative and entertaining, which are positives. On the  contrast they can make children lazy and inactive. The fact that technology is changing at a very fast pace means that we must constantly reflect on the kind of careers and professions that children in our care will be undertaking in future. As a childcare provider I therefore embrace the reality that children of today are in a  technological world and must understand how its benefits can serve their positive development in all spheres of their life. Also the use of technology must be viewed as one of the many tools that children will use in learning and not an end in itself. Indeed in many cases, it represents one of the best ways of learning. For example, children who are keen on a profession in the IT industry must be encouraged to learn and be comfortable with technology from a very early age. As a childminder and provider of education to the children in my care, I have a responsibility to collaborate and work with children to empower and support them to be great citizens of the technological world, which they are very much part of. Indeed many of the important subjects that children have to learn such as mathematics, science and English are increasingly being delivered in part through greater use of technology in the 21st century. Technology plays a very important role in the development of children. This is because young children learn greatly through exploring and experiencing their world, and technology serves as an alternative resource in their quest to do so. Children use technology to learn and play, which is very useful for their development. In terms of their education it can help them with their literacy and n umeracy needs as they grow. There are many ways that technology supports their literacy development at the childcare setting and home as well. Children can link words to pictures using technology. For example, children can link words and their picture equivalents in a similar way to picture books. There are currently software’s that offer spoken versions of these exercises. Children are similarly able to create simple stories with the help of an adult. This may involve drawing simple pictures and typing up basic stories that goes with them. Technology also represents an exciting means for kids  to learn and feel comfortable with ICT before they proceed to pre-school. For example, children can draw pictures using a computer and write stories or record their stories for parents, teachers or friends to listen to. Children are hugely exposed to technology at their homes through the playing of games and finding clever ways of extending this through learning and activities makes it possible for them to have fun, discover and explore the bigger world out there. For example, technology if well explored allows them to develop their emotional and social skills such as sharing and taking turns in listening through watching age appropriate movies. It can also shape their approaches to learning such as developing various skills at their own pace and developing their attention spans. It can further enhance their language development skills through listening to read-aloud- books, which promote literacy. This is similar to (Brice Heath, 1982; Wells, 1985) who support the view that listening to stories being read aloud is significantly related to children’s knowledge about literacy on entry to school and to their later reading achievement (ST14 p50). Technology has and continues to impact on young children and as childminder I have a responsibility to ensure their experiences with technology are age appropriate and empowering for them. In my setting children have access to technology and play with all kinds of technology games in each play area. Children are influenced with the technology as they tend to exhibit it in their day to day activities. With reference to my appendix one, water and play areas have a few technology resources they play with, an example is the duck that changes colour in water. The children enjoy playing with it as they tend to get to shout out the colours and play the guess game amongst themselves to see who can guess the next colour. This encourages the children to talk to themselves and motivates them to think to get it right as children want to be the first to get things right. Other forms of technology such as the use of play stations and Xbox Kinect provide exciting and wonderful opportunities for children to learn and play at the same time. The use of motion sensors can measure how active children are whilst  participating in a variety of sports such as long tennis, football, golf etc. The use of these monitors to measure the extent of children’s physical development can act as both an evaluating and motivating tool. These and other technological advancement impact positively on physical development if well incorporated and provide a more accurate determination of physical activity levels and children involvement. The children do talk about other technology toys they use at home for example the changing colours ducks are used by some of the children at home for bath times and that influenced some of the children to know their colours and looking at that I was motivated to add that to my resources for the other children to experiences that and it has really helped. Again technology has a great impact on children’s physical development as it has taken over children’s upbringing. Whereas once children just played football in the garden or played with dolls house, run around playing hide and seek, technology is now an important aspect of growing up and children prefer to either sit and play computer games and this has made children less active as they hardly play outdoors and socialise. Children who play computer games at an early age can influence their behaviour for example if a game is violent and they are exposed to it then it may encourage negative behaviour either now or later. Children tend to play fighting games due to a game they have played previously. Equally an educational game will encourage learning and can encourage positive behaviour. If children play too many computer games at home then they may lose concentration in the classroom as they often become tired. In my setting during role play activities and dressing up, children always come up with characters they have observed in a game and share with other children. I do encourage activities which will develop them in their learning development in knowledge and understanding of the world as it explained in EYFS under specific areas understanding of the world. Children are encouraged to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment page 5. Children also use the computer to create their own design and talk about them. I encourage them to use the printer to print out what they have designed in colour to make the picture stand out, as in Reader 1 chapter 17 page184; children were being encouraged to use the photocopy with the assistance of staff. This type of  technology makes children explore and learn different things. I do have polices and procedures for using some of the technological equipment in my setting as older children use mobile phones these days not only for making calls but for social networking, taking pictures and playing games. I do have a policy that restricts the usage of phones in my setting s as children takes photos and put them on social networking sites. I have a policy that limits the children to how long they can play computer games otherwise they soon become addictive. (EYFS section 3 talks about safeguarding and welfare of the children). In conclusion, children learn through many resources as in my water and sand audit, children were able to use measuring scales to learn their numbers and changing colour ducks to learn their colours. It can be said from the above discussions that there are enormous advantages and disadvantages of introducing technology to children from an early age. It is my view, however, that the positives far outweigh the disadvantages if well harnessed. Technology underpins a lot of activities in society right from schooling to employment and children deserve a head start to progress through other stages in their lives. Early introduction to technology makes children confident in their everyday use of ICT; enhancing children’s creativity and aiding their learning as they move on to other key stages in their development and growth. Technology helps children in the physical development, for example there are games that help children’s physical development like the tennis wii games which children physically use their hands and body to play. Again, in terms of numeracy there are a lot of uses to which technology could be put. For example, children can learn about patterns through using technology in activities such as building blocks; patterns in music and other activities that provide a sound basis for understanding mathematics and also encourage them to learn about their environment. Talking about the impact of technology on children was interesting example talking about both negatives and positives sides. The difficult part was trying to make references to back what I have written. I learnt how children explore and make things through different resources and materials and asking question to encourage them to think of ideas and solutions example talking to them about cold and warn water.

Rape as a Weapon of War

In recent years, global organizations have fought successfully to protect women’s rights and gender equality, and Gabon is determined to play its role in maintaining this trend. Gabon is against all forms of violence against women, and recognizes rape as a serious violation of women’s rights. Gabon also recognizes that sexual violence is perpetuated by War . Currently, armed conflicts across Africa are forcing many women and children to migrate to unsafe territory, and increasing their vulnerability to poverty, abduction and human trafficking . These conditions directly expose them to rape and forced prostitution .Prisoners of war are trafficked into Gabon from Benin, Nigeria, Togo and Mali for prostitution, while others are brought as housemaids and eventually forced to become prostitutes . Human trafficking forces many innocent women and children to live in fear of being exploited. However, Gabon is committed to policies which will bring an end to sexual violence, as well as the conflicts which cause them . In 2001, Gabon enacted strict laws for the prosecution of child traffickers. Gabon has also established a national commission to fight child trafficking, chaired by the nation’s vice president .The Gabonese government also set up a free hotline to fight human trafficking and sexual violence in April 2003, in collaboration with UNICEF. This was the first initiative of its kind in Africa. Gabon recognizes that raising awareness of sexual violence against women is crucial to ending it. The government of Gabon is also confident that a centre to provide protection and assistance to the victims of human trafficking established with the assistance of the European Union in March 2002 will help to rehabilitate the lives of many war-ravaged and sexually abused victims .In January 2002, Gabon joined the the First Specialized Meeting on Child Trafficking and Exploitation in West and Central Africa, in Cote d’Ivoire along with representative s of African countries and UN agencies. Following this meeting, the Yamassoukro Declaration was adopted, upon which Gabon committed to collaborate with other African countries in campaigns against human trafficking . Gabon recognizes the Declaration as a crucial step in uniting womens’ vulnerability to rape across the region.As stated by former Prime Minister Jean- Francois Ntoutoume Emane, the ‘empowerment of women’ has been a major priority for Gabon. Gabon recognizes that women must be empowered to fight sexual violence, for the battle must be fought with them ang not for them.Country Report < http://www. protectionproject. org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/gabon. doc> Ibid Ibid Policy Paper No. 14. 2(E) Human trafficking in Nigeria: Root Causes and Recommendations Country Report < http://www. protectionproject. rg/human_rights_reports/report_documents/gabon. doc> Ibid Troubnikoff, Anna. Trafficking in Women and Children: Current Issues and Developments. Nova Publishers, 2003 Country Report < http://www. protectionproject. org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/gabon. doc> Press Release No: UNIS/GA/1655. General Assembly Special Session Continues, as Heads of State, High-level Ministers Discuss Initiatives for Social Development. < http://www. unis. unvienna. org/unis/pressrels/2000/ga1655. html >

Challenging the Pedagogy of the Oppressed Essay

The essay, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, discusses how we can be humanized. According to Paulo Freire, oppression dehumanizes both the oppressed and the oppressor. This is because due to oppression, the oppressed is reduced to being a thing, deprived of its rights and freedom. It comes to a point that even the oppressed believe that they are not worth anything. The oppressors are also dehumanized because in the process of subduing the oppressed, they treat the oppressed as things to be overpowered. The oppressed to them are no longer humans, because they do not have the same rights as the oppressors have. Therefore, according to Freire, liberation must come from the oppressed: they must free themselves. This is because the oppressors cannot give true liberation; this is a type of false generosity. Since both are of different classes, they have different interests. Therefore, if the oppressor gives liberty, the oppressed is risking a lot more than the oppressor if they take the offer. The oppressor is giving liberty on its own terms: it will only give what it is willing to give, and not what is right. For the oppressed to be truly free, they must gain freedom by themselves. They must do this through their own efforts. Now, according to Freire, since the oppressed are so downtrodden that they cannot believe in themselves, they must be taught to believe in themselves because no one can save them but themselves. This can only be done through trusting in the abilities of the masses (the oppressed), as well as believing in the cause. Unlike the oppressors, one’s attitude must not be condescending towards the oppressed; one must treat them as equals, capable of learning. Unlike the oppressors, who learn abstract ideas inside classrooms, the oppressed learn concrete things outside. They are treated as unlearned because they are unable to have the same type of education those in power have obtained. Since this is the case, they must not be treated as charity cases, because they are not charity cases. Freire’s essay is very interesting, to say the least. The concept of humans abusing each other is not exactly novel, but the concept of empowering each other to attain freedom, juxtaposed with what love really is, is innovative. These concepts were connected by Freire. As part of the privileged class, Freire puts responsibility upon my shoulders. Instead of making me feel guilty because of my status, he points out that I can be part of change. My status is not important; only my commitment is. Which is why it is my responsibility to be part of the movement to change the system wherein society is divided into the privileged and the poor. This ideology is comparable to Daniel Defoe’s Education of Women. He talks about educating women in a special school designed to teach them certain subjects. Unlike Freire though, Defoe talks of an education solely for women. This means that men receive a very different kind of education. The curriculum, of course, is decided upon by men. Frerie’s though, talks of an education everyone receives. Also, Frerie does not talk of passive students; he is talking of a kind of education where students interact with the teacher. This is based upon the the concept that the teacher has as much to learn from the students, as the students have as much to learn from the teacher. In effect, the students mold their education as they learn. Defoe mentions no such thing. It is as if the students will forever rely on the teacher, and that the students are teachers are not equals. Which is revolutionary, actually. It has been inculcated in us that teachers are at a higher position than us. The platforms in front of classrooms emphasize this fact. We are taught to learn from them because they know so much more than us. We are made to feel as if we are blank slates, or even empty sponges. But this is not true. We are, before becoming students, children of life. We explore the world outside, and come up with answers to explain our questions. Just as the oppressed are experienced, so are we. We have a lot to contribute to the class, much more, as we can combine our kaleidoscope of experiences and contrast it against the teacher’s. Freire also redefined teaching as merely imparting information. Freire goes beyond this to discuss humanizing people. After all, teaching is not about making robots. It is about imparting a part of yourself, sharing a piece of your soul. Freire exposes how education is used to alienate people, and then instructs how it can be redeemed. We can redeem ourselves, to turn away from the bestiality this system enforces upon us. Freire exposes how large the system we are fighting, but at the same time, leaves hope that we can transform it. And this is the challenge Friere leaves us.

Do Young People Today Make Good Use of Their Leisure Time?

Leisure time can be well spent in many different ways. One popular option among the young is playing video games and watching television. While other activities like sports,social gathering and reading are available to them,many people feel that they spend too much time on these indoor games and screens and prefer them to be more active. In this essay,I will discuss my view on the issue to get positive results out of free time. Nowadays, younger generation has greater choices of leisure facilities than previous one. Among such facilities are television and video games.Some social experts and families are concerned about health of teenage overindulge on these activities. This is supported by some reports that sitting too long in front of television could lead to problems of eyes and back. On the other hand, some medical experts believe that some video games can improve the dexterity of the player and this could help his or her future career like operating doctor or pilot. In addition, watching television keeps young audience inform about what happens around locally as well as globally. Related article: How Teenagers Spend Their TimeThat would enhance teenagers' inquisitive mind and encourage them to keep eyes on challenging local and international issues. While such benefit is welcomed, there also are dangers of exposing them to violence, crimes and explicit scenes on some television series which can have negative impact on younger personalities. Alternatively, there are many activities which have positive results in term of social, physical and educational values. For example, walking, jogging and trekking in a recreational park improve their physical strength and give an opportunity to observe nature and environment.Furthermore, spending time with family, relatives and friends outdoor enriches their social lives. As a result, they would be more interactive and responsible socially. Finally, one could simply be entertained by reading at home or playing some music. In conclusion, how much time should we spend on each activity during extra time is debatable. Each ha s its own merit so long as individual does not involve excessively. In my opinion, young and adult alike should choose sensibly on type of activity and time spent to get most benefits out of their free time.

Beauty and the Beast Essay

Dave Barry in Beauty and the Beast states how women care more about their looks than men do. I can relate to this story because as a woman I know that we care more about looks than man do, we always try and look good for other people as well not only for our loved ones. For a woman our appearance is a big deal and we don’t like to get bad comments about our looks. Most men think of themselves as average-looking as Barry stresses, men never ask for others opinion of how they look while getting ready. Their primary form of beauty care is shaving themselves and after a while put their attention in other things, such as sports. Some theories that people believe in, that could be why women care more about their looks than men, start in childhood. Berry states examples such as when females are growing up they play with Barbie dolls. The concept of a Barbie doll is to imitate a human that has impeccable looks and it is the responsibility of the child to brush the doll and keep her looking up to professional fashion standards. On the converse end of this situation, males go through their childhood playing with action figures. These action figures are not designed to care about looks, but to care more about acting tough and being brave. Their names portray something that is cool and brave, such as the example that Berry gave, â€Å"Buzz-Off. † When little boys are playing with â€Å"Buzz-Off,† little girls are play with Barbie, which is a name of something that is neat and clean. â€Å"If you’re a man, at some point a woman will ask you how she looks. How do I look? She’ll ask. †` Barry opens his article with this statement; this immediately informs the reader that the article is going to discuss how women care about their looks. There is a contest here in New Mexico famous in the Hispanic culture that I have attended a few times, Miss Chiquitita were little girls between the ages of 8 to 12 compete against each other and make a runway shows with them modeling dresses, at the end the judges picks a winner, but I have notice that the judges always end up picking the thin little girls, in my point of view this is wrong because the rest of the contestants end up thinking they need to look a certain way in such a young age. Women always likes to be told that there beautiful at every time of the day. Women’s insecurity about their appearance is driven by competition with other women. We see this quite clearly in connection with the slender standard of attractiveness where women wish to be more slender than men find attractive. The reason, of course, is that they want to beat their competitors – other women. In general, women are much more concerned about their appearance than men are. The key reason for this is that their appearance is central to how they are evaluated by others. When women ask the men how we look we know the answer, we know that we look good but we just want to hear it from other people because we like to get complemented of our looks. In my personal experience I have the pressure to look good for other people as well because I feel that if I do not look good people will judge me for my appearance. I have noticed that when a group of girls get together they judge each other if they did not get ready, but on the other hand when men do not get ready nobody makes a big deal out of it. In this generation I think men are starting to take care of themselves more then back in the day. For instance, I have a guy friend that when we get ready to go out he takes as long as I do just to get ready. Men this days are being metro sexual and caring about their looks now a days like women do. But I think the major cause of this is the media because they always show women that look a certain way and they are good looking and famous, so we have that idea of being the definition of good looking and same for guys. In my point of view looks are important because that’s the first impression you give to other people. Like Dave Barry I agree that women do take much longer to get ready and care more about their looks than man do, but I think we have good reasons for this we just want to feel good about ourselves. It sheds light on a subject that people do not give much thought to, but when they stop to think about it, they do wonder why there is such a different conception of care of looking beautiful among the two genders. This article points out some reasons to why this might be, by identifying the thesis, giving examples to support the thesis, and then giving reasons to why people feel the way they do on the subject.

Questions-Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Questions-Communication - Essay Example Diversity within an organization can take a number of different forms such as diverse cultures, religions, nationalities and job groupings (Shockley-Zalabak, 2002; Mor-Barak, 2011). In my organization, the implementation and maintenance of programs that value diversity is generally undertaken using a number of approaches, key among them is review and re-writing of policies so as to create a division within the organization tasked with prompting inclusion and workforce development (Mor-Barak, 2011). This division is mandated to undertake a special recruitment policy that is designed to seek to promote diversity within the organization. To this end, training programs are conducted to promote the adoption of diversity among the employees. The division also implements a variety of internal mentorship and internship programs that are designed to prepare some of the internal candidates both for competition with outside job applicants and upward mobility to prevent their being marginalized by the special recruitment program (Mor-Barak, 2011). The diversity valuing programs practiced by my organization are seen to be quite effective at increasing both the awareness and valuing of diversity in the workplace. They are designed to increase the organization’s diversity via the special recruitment policy while simultaneously promoting the competitiveness of the existing employees through the internal mentorship and internship programs (Mor-Barak, 2011). However, there are a number of changes that can be made to increase the overall effectiveness of these programs. While increasing the awareness and integration of diversity within the organization is seen to be primarily dependent on employees at every level of the organization working at fulfilling their roles, it is also critically important for the organization’s leadership to increase both the amount of resources and the level of guidance and support it lends to these programs (Mor-Barak, 2011). Reference: Mor-Barak, E. M. (2011). Managing diversity: toward a globally inclusive workplace. Los Angeles: SAGE. M4A1: The communication style used by a past leader in my organization, its relation to his leadership style and its suitability to our workplace and culture When I joined my organization, my direct supervisor primarily used to employ the use of an assertive communication style. His role of directing the new recruits on how to perform their duties necessitated that he used the style to ensure that he was able to portray himself to be in authority when working with the recruits (Shockley-Zalabak, 2002). The assertive communication style is seen to have been quite appropriate to the supervisor a suitable to our workplace as it perfectly complemented his transactional leadership style. In line with his leadership style, the manager used to provide us with a number of pre-agreed tasks to perform and would then punish or reward us depending on how these tasks were performed (Shockley-Za labak, 2002). In the event that one of us would continually fail to adequately perform the assigned task, the supervisor would then undertake to provide more intensive and closely supervised training to the employee and would then encourage the employee by providing the employee with bonuses if they managed to register performance improvements. However, the communication style used by the supervisor could have been drastically improved if the supervisor undertook to try and listen more to the input provided

Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 38

Journal - Essay Example It is important for any relationship, of whatever kind, that all involved feel like they are equals. In problem orientation, this is attained. However, in control orientation, one party ends up feeling like they are less powerful. Moreover, if problem orientation is used, the parties involved feel that their interests and needs are taken care of and are not ignored. In control orientation, often there is a feeling of being ignored that can cause distress. Since problem orientation tries to ensure that the solution benefits all parties involved, it is more beneficial to everyone involved as it not only solves the problem at hand, but also caters to the needs of as many parties as possible. In short, problem orientation is the right way to solve problems because it ensures that all those involved not only feel equal to one another, but that the problem goes away and the parties do not feel as if their interests were

Inferential Statistics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Inferential Statistics - Essay Example Patients with extremely low T-cell counts at imminent danger of dying will not be excluded but will be given special treatment as noted below in the discussion of ethical concerns. Study Design: Patients will be split into three groups: A placebo control group, a standard cocktail control group and a hivaril experimental group. For the hivaril group, in order to mask that a newer drug is being provided, the rest of the cocktail elements will be simulated by identical-looking placebos. Patients will be monitored for six months regularly to check T-cell performance and other vectors of improved health, as well as to see for toxicity. Statistical Model: Our intent is to see, at a very high confidence level with a moderate margin of error (+/- 3% would be acceptable), if hivaril is comparable to or superior to both the cocktail control group and the placebo control group. The hypothesis is directional, with the null hypothesis being that hivaril is worse than the cocktail and identical t o a placebo. The drug would still be a major improvement if it were better than the placebo but slightly worse than the cocktail. The alternative hypothesis is as noted. Because three groups are being measured, and must be to preserve a placebo control, ANOVA will be used. Luckily, the sample size is large enough that no other modification is needed.