Surgical Technology

In order to apply these concepts you first need to understand ways to evaluate the Issues. How is ethics defined? According to the Ethics Center for Engineering and Research, ethics means being concerned with what Is right or wrong, good or bad, fair or unfair, responsible or irresponsible, obligatory or permissible, praiseworthy or blameworthy. (Online Ethics Center for Engineering, 2006) It Is associated with guilt, shame, indignation, resentment, empathy, compassion, and care. It Is being Interested In character as well as conduct.This article presents two ways to evaluate potential ethical questions: First is the utilitarianism system. This system concerns itself with determining the greater good and what decision will be beneficial to the most people. The second system presented Is the deontological system. Under this system, a worker would look at the needs of the individual and determine the best course of action for the patient themselves. There is no suggestion that these tw o methods should conflict. In fact, quite often, what is best for a patient is often what is best for society as a whole.The robber arises In the Instances where these two methods conflict. In these cases, a worker must apply the concept of prudence. This Is the Idea that a salary person would make the same decision under the same circumstances. After presenting the general concepts of ethics, the author lists several examples of situations where questions of this nature may arise. Personal decisions such as abortion, Den's, drug use, and sterilization are explored. Society decisions to allow animal and human experimentation and organ transplantation are also reviewed.Situations that could tangentially cause a worker to be uncomfortable are examined. The author points out how difficult it is watching a DEN patient pass without acting can be. The issue of a patient's right to privacy Is also delved Into. A patient Is not required to reveal their HIVE status even though this could pos e a danger to any worker in the operating room. Quality versus quantity of life is explained, however, the ethical problem is not a decision that needs to be made. In this case, the law has already determined assisted suicide Is not an option.The problem lies in the workers desire to help a wing individual die, even though they are unable to do so. This instance shows that ethical problems do not necessarily Involve decision making on the surgical technician's, but rather a state of mind in many circumstances. Despite the medical reason one might have for being hospitalized or cared for by a health care professional In an operating room setting and, regardless of how â€Å"ethically or unethically† the medical situation may be perceived through the eyes of the medical 1 OFF professional, It Is ten Neal care proportional's duty to De Touches on ten patient.The patient has a right to quality health care regardless of the circumstances or situations surrounding the procedure. Th is includes, but is not limited to, any situation that evokes an inevitable emotional human response. The underlying theme in patient care and ethics is that the health care worker's feelings do not play into the decisions that need to be made for the patient nor do they have any bearing on what is best for society as a whole. Our responsibilities, as Purpose Surgical Technologists, go beyond the mere ability to perform our daily Job functions.Our position is all encompassing in that, not only does it include the use of surgical instruments and equipment towards promoting health and well being, but it also extends to the rights of the patients under our care to receive the best quality, appropriate care within the patient's wishes and desires. We, as health care professionals, owe it to our patients to give them the highest possible quality of care of which we are capable. Uses in Career In order to be able to provide care without Judgment you need to do some deep soul searching and have a complete understanding of your ethical beliefs and biases.Once you have that understanding, if you find your ethical beliefs could interfere with your work performance, you need to share these feelings with your employer. Each patient is entitled to the same level of understanding regardless of your personal Judgment. What you feel or believe to be wrong does not necessarily have a bearing on what is best for the patient. Summary The intent of this article is to point out the various ways a health care professional can evaluate circumstances they may encounter in the work place.They can determine what is the best ethical course of action for society as a whole, they can determine what is best for the patient and his or her personal situation, or they can combine the two methods and approach the situation prudently. No matter which approach is taken, it is always best to take your personal feelings and emotions out of the equation. The bottom line is to combine doing what is right in general with what is right for the patient. Even in a surgical situation, customer service is paramount. Putting yourself in another person's shoes may be a simple click, but it goes a long way in this occupation.

Children properly Essay

Also it made the people in Britain more aware of what living conditions were like in the cities, foster parents were appalled at the state of the children they were looking after. This quote from source E shows how the foster parents were shocked at the children’s behaviour. â€Å"The children went round the house urinating on the walls, they stank the place to high heaven†.  Evacuation could also be seen as a success as some of the children had a positive experience in the countryside, they saw it as an adventure. Source D shows evacuees at bath time, and although the baths are crowded, all the children are smiling and look as though they are enjoying themselves. From my own knowledge I know that Eric Buchanan enjoyed his stay with his foster family, the quote â€Å"It was marvellous† shows how he thought it was wonderful being in the countryside.  Another advantage of evacuation was that it freed women up so they could help with the war work.  Evacuation can also be seen as a failure for the following reasons.  The organisation wasn’t very good as parents didn’t know where their children were and the quote â€Å"we hadn’t the slightest idea where we was going† from source C shows how the children didn’t know themselves where they were going. Many of the children had a bad experience during their evacuation. One example is Michael Cane. The quote â€Å"we came out of the cupboard and the woman hit us with a tennis racket† shows how some children were abused by their foster parents. Also some of the foster parents just did it for the money and didn’t bother to look after the children properly.  Another example of pore organisation was the fact that the children were split from their families, their siblings would often be on the other side of the countryside and the children may have never seen their families again. Some of the foster parents had not been prepared for the state in which the evacuees were. They were shocked at the state they were in and didn’t know how to cope. Two examples of this are source E and source F. The quote from source E â€Å"filthy habit of the children† and the quote from source F â€Å"common view of evacuees† show how the children were perceived as filthy, dirty and horrid children.  As a conclusion to this, I don’t think evacuation was a great success as they did not achieve a lot of what they wanted to achieve, a lot of the children had bad experiences, it was poorly organised and many of the foster parents didn’t care about how they treated their children.

Bioethics of Euthanasia

As biological organisms, humans design patterns of how to live by way of autonomous lifestyle choices, only after being born into a subjective realm of existence with social opportunities and limitations suggested by how one is nurtured and raised. A sense of a connection to objectivity is gained depending on how closely one associates themselves with an organized institution such as religion, or other form of moral code. The idea that knowledge learned from a moral superior at a young age can suggest, or sometimes in early adulthood, coerce decision-making is indicative of a set of parameters or expectations that one must achieve so to honor the objective family belief. Therefore, the family is also an institution which generates the same attachment to objectivity that encourages a certain set of goals. Ultimately though, it is one’s subjective experience that has it’s own social, physical, mental, and spiritual habits and attachments that cause the mind and body to perform and exist in a particular way. The overarching illegality of euthanasia across North America is supported by religious institutions which act as the sole moral platform for questioning the professional conduct of medical practitioners. The hegemonic belief that is fostered views euthanasia as a breach of non-maleficence, though doctors have and will likely continue to comply with life-ending aid in North America, regardless of recent deliberation regarding legislation. A legalization of euthanasia could ease tensions for physicians and patients dealing with chronic fatal health conditions, but would require specific criteria for legality. The debilitating suffering from a terminal illness should be the first criteria, as well as an autonomous request made by the sufficiently competent patient. Those who advocate for the legalization of euthanasia are part of a particular morality that sees beyond the mystical value of medical non-maleficence and opposes overarching institutional moralities that forbid life-ending decisions. Also of concern is the slippery slope argument, whereby any level of legal euthanasia would likely incite requests for more flexible criteria, publicly bringing into question the intangible value of human life. A central notion of biomedical ethics that stands as a major contender against the legalization of euthanasia is non-maleficence. To generally adhere to the principles of non-maleficence, physicians should not provide ineffective treatments to patients as these offer risk with no possibility of benefit and thus have a chance of harming patients. In addition, physicians must not do anything that would purposely harm patients without the action being balanced by proportional benefit (Beauchamp, 155). This benefit is not necessarily beneficial to the terminally ill individual who has requested euthanasia. The benefit referred to in the medical field is generally an extension of life and a restoration of health, which is not a reality for the terminally ill, rather a benefit might be an end to incurable suffering. Because many medications, procedures, and interventions cause harm in addition to benefit, the principle of non-maleficence provides little concrete guidance in the care of patients, and acts as a fairly weak argument against euthanasia. A helpful distinction when debating the validity of physician assisted suicide is that of ‘killing’ and ‘allowing to die’. If a patient is too frail to undergo restorative treatment, it can be said that the withholding of that treatment is allowing the patient to die. On the other hand, ‘killing’ entails taking action that would hasten the onset of death. There is considerable overlap between these two concepts, to the point that a clear distinction is not readily discernible (Beauchamp, 172). The prima facie nature of allowing a patient to die, as expressed by Beauchamp is acceptable under certain conditions whereby a medical technology is considered futile, or ineffectual, or a patient and/or surrogate decision maker has validly denied a medical technology (173). In the case that a patient is suffering unnecessarily, and has denied or been denied the opportunity for treatment due to severity of illness, should euthanasia not be an acceptable option? This action would undoubtedly fall under the category of ‘killing’, but if the nearest solution is the imminent death of a terminally ill patient, the concept of non-maleficence should not apply to a deliberate hastening of the patients’ biological shutdown. It can also be argued that fading to death in palliative care with little to no cognition is of little value, and coming from a strictly utilitarian perspective, in some cases, may be unnecessary. If an elderly patient has no immediate family, and is in the final stages of a degenerative disease, the option of the patient to deny extended care and hasten the imminence of death should ot be considered immoral. The approval of certain cases such as the example above would definitely introduce a ‘slippery slope’ argument whereby the notions and parameters of conducting euthanasia would be challenged, inflated, and publicly scorned. The infamous example of Dr. Kevorkian is indicative of the demand for physican-assisted suicide, and the flexible moralities of perhaps many physicians who are faced with the challenge of allowing a patient to pursue a hastened death. Michigan doctor Jack Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder for delivering a lethal injection to a 52-year-old man suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. It was the first time in five trials that Kevorkian was found guilty of a crime after participating in, by his count, at least 130 assisted suicides. Likened to â€Å"a medical hit man† by the prosecution, Kevorkian compared himself to Martin Luther King and told the court he was no more culpable than an executioner. The 70-year-old doctor had dared prosecutors to charge him and threatened a hunger strike if convicted. â€Å"Suicide†). The case of Kevorkian’s assisted suicides shows that public hegemonic belief places all burden on the physician involved, for it is technically legal to carry out or attempt suicide, but not with the aid of any other person, especially a clinician. These laws tend to make sense in every realm except the medical world, where euthanasia is an issue that arises with the terminally ill, and particular moralities strongly advocate for the right to die under certain circumstances, as illustrated by Kevorkian’s rash threats of a hunger strike if convicted. Obviously viewing himself as a liberator, Kevorkian’s particular morality quickly earned him a reputation, and having participated in over one hundred assisted suicides, he stands not as a reputable opposition to hegemony, but rather a moral pariah. Kevorkian’s comparison of his ‘moral fallacy’ with the conduct of an executioner is an interesting philosophical idea, and also illustrates the exclusivity of moral professionalism within the medical world. This is mostly apparent in the United States where there is a domination of privatized health care, and plenty of capital punishment. The application of morality is varied when it comes to death and dying, in a society where a 20 year old can be put to death for committing murder, and in the same society, a terminally ill, suffering patient cannot decidedly seek a peaceful death without moral intervention. In both cases, strong moral impositions are made, and guide the fate of both individuals. The convict has a chance at rehabilitation, and renewing his moral adherence and contribution to society, but is not rewarded the chance because his actions stripped him of his dignity. On the other hand, the dying patient is not permitted to seek assistance in death because common morality forbids it, much like the same common morality denies the convict a second chance. The patient is denied euthanasia because the hegemonic function of the medical field is to avoid non-maleficence, so according to the same morality, the criminal is denied rehabilitation and put to death because the function of the law is to appropriately punish offenders. This paradox shows how two distinct versions of the same common morality are stamped like a ‘cookie cutter’, yielding the anticipated results of the societal function: the patient can’t die because medicine is designed to keep him alive, and the criminal can’t live because capital punishment is designed to eliminate him. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the application of euthanasia in the medical field should be acceptable in certain circumstances, and that exclusive clinical moralities should allow deliberation on the subject, and not continue to function in a ‘cookie cutter’ fashion. In Canada and the United States, laws distinguishing ‘active’ and ‘passive’ categories of euthanasia are divided into four sections: â€Å"deliberately killing persons who wish to die or assisting them in suicide (active voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide), deliberately killing persons whose wishes are unknown or opposed to such treatment (active involuntary euthanasia), withholding or withdrawing life-preserving means from those who do not want them used (forgoing treatment of competent individuals), and letting persons die by withholding or withdrawing life-preserving means when their wishes are unknown or when they want, or would tolerate, such means to be applied or maintained (forgoing treatment of incompetent individuals)† (Dickens, 136). According to these legal parameters, it would seem that active and passive euthanasia should only occur when indicated by the patient, living will, or a surrogate, such as active voluntary euthanasia, an d the forgoing of treatment to competent individuals. These two forms provide the patient with the moral decision to adopt the institutional values of their choice and affect their course of longevity and suffering. In the cases of active involuntary euthanasia, and the withholding of treatment from incompetent patients it can be said that, morally, the physician has no right to change the course of the patient’s treatment without clearance from a living will or surrogate. To conduct active involuntary euthanasia, or withhold treatment for no apparent reason indicated by the patient or surrogate, negligence would necessarily apply and represent the justified fault of the attending physician. Dealing with death is a subjective experience that generates fear, and causes humans to seek comfort in institutional beliefs, whether that be family, religion, other forms of spirituality, or modern medicine itself. Death reminds humans of their biological capacities and fleeting opportunities for experience in life, and generates a desire to medicalize suicide. â€Å"We want physicians to provide the means to end life in an antiseptically acceptable fashion. Knives, guns, ropes, and bridges tend to be messy. We seek a more aesthetically pleasing way of terminating life, one that leaves the patient looking dead, but not disgusting. For this, as in so much else in the 20th-century quest for happiness, we turn to the physician† (Paris, 33). Much like we seek aesthetic modifications from plastic surgeons, and mental stability from psychologists, we turn again to professional doctors for a method of dealing with the harsh reality of death. Though euthanasia may be an acceptable option for some people in certain sets of dire circumstances, it is the fear of death generated by the triumphs of medicine that provide the illusion that death and suffering are something a physician can cure. Medicinal miracles and the rise of technological medicine give people the impression that old losses are new triumphs, at least insofar as one can be kept alive for longer with chronic diseases. This notion sparks the fear of suffering before death, and that morbidity will be extended instead of compressed. Essentially then, it is the physician who bears all weight of the laws pertaining to euthanasia, which seems unjust when there is little more that medicine can do for a terminally ill patient than aid in their peaceful departure from life. The argument that legalized euthanasia would initiate the slippery slope, and â€Å"hospitals would become cruel and dehumanized places† are refuted by the suggestion and observation of the exact opposite (Schafer). As Schafer suggests, â€Å"experience has shown that what happened was exactly the opposite of what was predicted by the naysayers: Doctors and hospitals have become kinder and gentler, patients' wishes are better respected than previously and society has come to accept the importance of individual autonomy at the end of life† (3). Clearly, the legalization of euthanasia would not entirely disrupt the nature of medical care in Canada, and with current debates indicating the possibility of change, society may undergo a change of ideas in the near future. The idea that euthanasia may provide a patient with more dignity at death than what is often referred to as ‘sedation to unconsciousness’ is becoming more common, and should not be deemed unacceptable next to palliative care. With the right safeguards in place, euthanasia should be one of many life-ending options available to Canadians near the end of their life, with palliative care being a morally adjacent decision. The subjective experience of death is one’s own, and even familial institution can only do so much to comfort the process of being terminally ill. Therefore it should be a decision of the patient to seek medical help, either in the form of sedation and longevity, or immediate peace.

Alcohol Ban and Devolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Alcohol Ban and Devolution - Essay Example With 23,000 incidents of alcohol-fuelled violence each week with relevant elevated alcohol consumption trends (Leifman, 2001), the agency has proposed that existing laws are enforced to reduce the incidence of alcohol-related violence on the streets and on public transportation. England's objective of reducing the harm caused by alcohol misuse is recognized and focuses on the prevention, minimisation, and management of the harms caused by alcohol misuse. These measures addressed in its objectives aims to identify alcohol misuse and the enforcement of existing powers against crime and disorder and promotion of responsible drinking. Under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (CDA98) and Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) the partnership of both agencies is held responsible in the consideration of crime and disorder issues in their own core activities that improve safety and security in local neighborhoods. Criminal Justice Boards and Youth Offending and the Drug and Alcohol A ction Teams shall be a voluntary forum for coordination of local priorities. They are tasked to bring together the key local agencies with an interest in reducing the harms caused by alcohol misuse: the health service, the criminal justice system and the local authority. With the support of the Scottish Executive for a complete ban in on alcohol consumption in public places, (The Herald, July 19, 2006) the proposal, has spawned public outburst. Festivities organizers and popular across Wales and Scotland and gaming grounds personnel rallied against the ban with arguments pointed out that such is the breach on human rights while legislative proposals control the sale and purchase of alcohol (Scotland Bill on Alcohol). It is apparent that Scottish culture towards drinking in a study (SSA, 2004) has often prevailed over a perceived problem of alcohol misuse. A majority believed though that drinking should not be allowed in public places including public parks, football matches, in the street and on trains. With this thought in mind, the Scottish Executive has proposed their own policies that set rules against "irresponsible promotions and providing stringent licensing measures that prohibit the sale of alcohol to minors and operator a "no proof, no sale policy". Further, the licensing boards are tasked to oversee according to their own discretion, the issuance or refusal of alcohol on licensed premises. The UK policy and strategies on alcohol ban may not be applicable to Wales and Scotland simply on the grounds of the distribution of legislative power to both. Unless Wales and Scotland decides to adopt the laws implemented by the UK on its citizenry, alcohol ban which has been forced to play second fiddle to a smoking ban may never be heavily implemented particularly within Scottish laws for their own obvious reasons that are cited above and in particular the allowance and transfer of legislative powers are decentralized and distributed on the local level or crea tion of laws and its necessary implementation.

Monopolistic Competition. Concept, Advantages and Limitations Essay

Monopolistic Competition. Concept, Advantages and Limitations - Essay Example These factors could be the brand name, brand personality, quality etc. Examples of firms competing in the monopolistic market are clothing brands, restaurants, and other service industries. This kind of competition is termed as monopolistic because each firm has its unique position in the market despite the presence of several other competitors. They usually have a loyal customer base that comprises of people who are not frequent switchers. Switching is generallyassociated with some sort of dissonance occurring in the whole buying experience and customers are generally indifferent to small price fluctuations. As far as the market is concerned, it has certain key characteristics including: presence of many firms selling the same commodity with a slightvariance also known as a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that makes them stand out amongst the market clutter. Product may have substitutes but the exact identical cannot be present due to its unique differentiating factors that are not based on prices. Customers have lesser control over prices as compared to the producers. Prices are also unlikely to be influenced by the competition. Market leadership can be attained but by a small margin and on the basis of captured market share. There are no serious barriers to entry as compared to other market competition types. Production is usually lesser than the capacity and is based on carefully calculated demand. There are several problems associated with monopolistic competition that have been identified by several economists. Firstly, this form of competition will lead to no economic profits in the long run. This is because here are likely to be more market runners after some years and they will offer better incentives or differentiating factors if the current... This paper offers a comprehensive theoretic analysis of the monopolistic competition, as a type of economic market. The limitations of that type of market, as well as its advantages and disadvantages to producers, customers and the economy as a whole are considered. Monopolistic competition refers to several different market players with unique differentiating factors The firms operating in monopolistic competition are also inefficient as they do not produce at the optimum level. Inefficiency, in economic terms, means that the available resources are not use at the optimal bringing down the chances of incurring lower cost with every marginal product. This form of competition will lead to no economic profits in the long run. This is because here are likely to be more market runners after some years and they will offer better incentives or differentiating factors if the current firms do not invest heavily in product research and revamping. This, too, will be an addition to the costs and in the long run, the convenient and inevitable influx of new competition will result in minimal or no economic profits. In order to minimize future losses and build customer loyalty , focus should be on the quality management and customer service as advertising and marketing campaigns, packaging and ambiance stay for some time until a prospective market leader enters the picture and replicates it. Negative aspect of monopolistic competition is that firms engage in misleading advertising and focus less on quality control after sometime.

Discussion Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Discussion Questions - Essay Example In this way, firms of different sizes could be compared on an equal footing. For example, COGS of firm A may be greater than that of firm B. But its sales may be higher too. Q6. The dates on financial statements are important because they indicate the period in which profits or losses accrue and cash flows occur, as well as the financial status of the company as at a date. Q7. The income statement presents the incomes or revenues and expenses or costs of the firm incurred during a period, regardless of paid or not, to arrive at the profit or loss. On the other hand, the cash flow statement of the firm presents the revenues or costs received or paid during a period, regardless of incurred or not, to arrive at the cash outflow or cash inflow. The balance sheet captures the financial snapshot of the firm as at a particular point in time. The profit or loss on the income statement enters the retained earnings account, which is under shareholder's equity in the balance sheet. The cash inflow or cash outflow from the cash flow statement is added to or subtracted from the beginning cash balance to arrive at the ending cash balance, which is under current assets in the balance sheet. Q5.

Case study Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Case study - Research Paper Example The continuity of business and profitability of a firm highly depends on that firm’s customer base. The critical aspects to capture in customer relations are quality of product or service and customer satisfaction relative to buyer behavior and decisions (Kerin, et al. 2006). Apple, Inc. is one of the best companies in customer relations. The company, a leading PC and mobile handsets vendor, focuses on product innovation and merges this pursuit to consumer needs, tastes, and preferences (Grant, 2011). Successful customer relations are realized from functional practices that seek to address customer satisfaction. In a world that is highly driven by technological advancement, Apple has taken a leading position in making PC and mobile handsets consumers a part of the company’s system. In other words, the company’s business activities and operations integrate and involve the consumers in the design and development of new products. The company employs customer feedbac k to better company-customer interaction. In doing so, Apple’s customers have been involved developing new products that carries their individual specifications and features. This means that Apple’s potential customers express what they would like to have in their products, and the company designs and develops products that meet the qualities highlighted by these customers. Apple understands that customer relations are primarily based on customer satisfaction in terms of product or service quality and pricing. Apple employs creativity and innovativeness in developing new and improved products for consumers. This allows the company to dominate the market in the industry within which it operates and at the same time capture a significant market share that subsequently improves its business portfolio. Based on this factor, maintaining a close and constant contact with customers is vital. This is a practice that Apple highly values and observes. Programs like GE Six Sigma black belts and management experts foster Apple’s customer relations (Stanton, 2011). On the other hand, Kudler Fine Foods Company performs at a less than perfect scale in relation to customer service. Although the company is a successful grocery store that offers diverse and dynamic products and services, its customer relations aspect is not fully developed. The needs, tastes, and preferences of consumers of perishable goods highly vary from time to time and from one region to another. In this respect, all customers cannot be equally accounted for in terms of satisfaction. However, this diversity in meeting customer demands is not fully integrated into the operations of Kudler Fine Foods. Although the company has designed, formulated, and implemented functional programs that target its customers, not all customers have been accounted for. In fact, only regular and heavy consumers are targeted by the implemented programs like specialty food program and Frequent Shopper Progra m (Kudler Fine Foods, 2004). Such and other programs in the company locks out a substantial percentage of customers, and the company cannot, therefore, be said to successfully realize effective customer relations at all customer levels. Apple’s actions to enhance its customer relations results in numerous achievements, all of which are deeply rooted in the company’s operations and business aspects. Improving customer relations has improved Apple’

Population growth in Mexico Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Population growth in Mexico - Essay Example Mexico is primarily a middle-income nation and its economy is predominately linked with the economy of the United States of America. The country has shown rigorous improvement in its economic performance in the recent years. Furthermore the country is rich in mineral resources and other natural resources (The World Bank, 2013). Population Growth Rate of Mexico Mexico is one of the densely populated countries in the world. The population of the country has shown an increasing trend in the past years. From 1930 to 2000 the percentage population rise of the country was around 3.75%. However, since 1970 the population growth rate of the country is falling constantly. The fall in the population growth rate has been widely attributed to the declining fertility within the country. .. Figure: 1 below will provide a clear representation of the s (Tuiran, Partida, Mojarro & Zuniga, n.d.). Figure 1: Population Growth Pattern of Mexico (Tuiran, Partida, Mojarro & Zuniga, n.d.) Various survey res ults showed that the population of Mexico had been tripled since the year 1960’s. However, the population growth rate of the country in the recent years i.e. in between 2000 to 2012 is comparatively low to previous decade. The population growth rate in between 2000 is 1.4% which is quite lower in comparison to last two decades. The population augmentation rate of the last 10 years of Mexico is given below in figure 2 (Trading Economics, n.d.). Figure 2: Population Growth Rate (Trading Economics, n.d.) Despite the fall in the population growth rate, constant increase in population can be seen. The population of the country was around 101.02 million which has increased to 116.9 million in the current year (2013). This shows that the population of Mexico is continued to rise considerably over the years. The rise in the population of the country is illustrated below in the figure: 3. Figure 3: Comparative Population Growth of the Last Ten Years (Trading Economics, 2013) It is kno wn that rise or fall in growth of population is directly dependent on various factors which comprise of death rate, birth rate, fertility rate, and infant mortality and migration patterns among others. In general decrease in death rate and increase in birth rate is among the primary reason for the rapid growth of population in various countries of the world. Apart from rise in population is also quite related to migration patterns. Now-a-days, people travel from one place to another in search of their livelihood and gets settle to other country resulting in rise in population of that country. Similarly, fertility and infant mortality rate has high impacts on the rise and the fall of population of a country (Dettman, 2007). It has been analysed that the death rate of Mexico in the recent years has dropped considerably. Correspondingly, the death rate in the country was around 5.05 per thousand of the population in the year 2000 while in 2012 the rate seen a marginal decline with 4.9 per thousand of the population. This has been illustrated below in figure 4. Figure 4: Death Rate (Index Mundi, n.d.) Similarly, the birth rate of the country also shows a declining rate over the years. It has been observed that the birth rate of the country in the year 2000 was approximately 23.1 per thousand populations which have fallen to 18.8 per thousand populations in the year 2012. It can be observed that both the death rate as well as the birth rate shows decline from the past years. Figure 5: Birth Rate (Index Mundi, n.d.) Apart from these factors, it has also been learnt that infant mortality rate in Mexico is declining up to a larger extent. In 2000, the infant mortality rate of Mexico was recorded as 26.1 per thousand live births which fall to 16.7

Attributes of A Leader Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Attributes of A Leader - Essay Example Malcolm X was a renowned black civil rights leader. He dedicated a majority of his life to creating racial pride in his black listeners. Many things led to his strong feelings against white domination, including his family life and his experiences as a young adult, this created his dreams and goals and followed up with his many accomplishes as a civil rights leader. Malcolm X was born in Omaha Nebraska. Growing up his family was constantly harassed by whites who didn't like his father, Earl little because he was an organiser for the "Back-to-Africa" movement. His father was murdered when Malcolm was just six years old. Shortly after his father died his mother had a nervous breakdown and the rest of his family was split up by welfare agencies. Malcolm continued to go to school with dreams of someday becoming a lawyer or a doctor until his eighth-grade teacher told him he should learn carpentry and just forget his dreams because he was black. He dropped out of school that year and he supported himself for a few years as a hustler. Malcolm cheated his way through his young adult life until he was put into jail for burglary While in prison Malcolm adopted the Islamic religion. He believed that blacks all over the world should join forces and fight against racism. In his mind, white people had broken up his family and ruined his life all because of racial tension. Above all, he stressed strong ethical conduct among blacks, in other words, a strong racial unity. Malcolm believed that one day blacks would be repaid for all the loss and suffering caused by whites. Malcolm made it his goal to convince fellow blacks to speak out against racism; he dedicated the rest of his life to this task (Robin 1999 p 12). He never lagged with a gap between his thoughts and his actions. Whatever he desired he went and attempted, and continued until all options were exhausted. Only his goal was not to improve his standing in life, but to improve his peoples', he must be respected as they are because of his commitment to his goal The population recognized his creativity and freshness behind these ideas. They realized that like other ideal Americans in history, Malcolm had new theories, but more importantly that he new how to use them. His thoughts were unlike past notable Americans, but they were just as creative and original as those men and women who were considered ingenious role models. Malcolm's ability to implement these new ideas on the population affects the world around him. He sets out to change the world with fresh, new ideas, and succeeds in gaining

Safety Precautions for Nurses while delivering Medications to Patients Essay

Safety Precautions for Nurses while delivering Medications to Patients - Essay Example â€Å"A medication error is any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer. Such events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures, and systems, including prescribing; order communication; product labeling, packaging, and nomenclature; compounding; dispensing; distribution; administration; education; monitoring; and use" (National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention, 2012, p. 1). From the definitions, these errors are an action that are apparently committed and are divergent from the intended act; and, as a consequence fails to adhere to the principles of safety and conformity to the delivery of the highest quality of patient care, as expected from the health care profession. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) appropriately provided definitions of patient safety and quality of care as presented from the paper written by Mitchell. Accordingly, the IOM was reported to have provided the definition of quality as â€Å"the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge† (Lohr, 1990; cited in Mitchell, 2008, p. 1). As such, quality of care incorporates elements that ensures patient safety and the delivery of highy quality of health services. Concurrently, patient safety was defined by the IOM as â€Å"the prevention of harm to patients† (Aspden, Corrigan, Wolcott, & al., 2004; cited in Mitchell, 2008, p. 2). The nursing theory that espouses both patient safety and quality of care is adherence to the principles of beneficence and least harm: to do good and to possibly inflict the minimum possible harm, if not at all preventable. In this regard, several studies have already tried to

Crooks Essay Example for Free

Crooks Essay Crooks as the biggest victim on the ranch discuss Monday 24th October 2011 In the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’ Steinbeck presents Crooks, the black stable-buck as the biggest victim on the ranch because of his race. Crooks is also the most damaged person, emotionally and physically. He has a crooked back and has begun to mimic the cruel and violent behaviour of the other men on the ranch. The impact of his loneliness also makes him push people away, leaving him even more lonely and segregated. The other men exclude Crooks because he is black. He is not allowed to go into the bunkhouse with all the white men because they are racist and follow the racist behaviour of segregation. It is clear that Steinbeck is critisising wider society through his description of Crooks. Crooks has his own room ‘had his bunk in the harness room’ he lives alone and is no more important than the animals symbolised by the nearness to the animals. He is alone all the time and gets lonely but never admits it because he is too proud. Steinbeck show’s the irony of Candy saying ‘must be nice to have a room all to your self’. When Lennie comes in to his room, Crooks has right to ask him to leave but instead acts as though he didn’t want Lennie to stay. He says – ‘come on in and set a while†¦long as you wont get out and leave me alone. ’ The ellipsis’ show his hesitation after he admitted he wants the company he realizes and changed it around to say he wants to be alone. This is so Crooks can maintain his pride and his dignity. He his so lonely that he admits to Lennie – ‘just a guy talking to another guy doesn’t matter if he understands. ’ This tells us Crooks is happy talking to Lennie even though Lennie does not understand most of the things Crooks is saying. It is the company and the talking to another human that matters to him. Steinbeck also adds that Crooks ‘reads a lot’. Steinbeck implies that even though Crooks is treated badly he could be the most educated worker on the ranch has a better understanding of things than most of the other men and is wiser because he is older and has seen more things. Also he has a ‘Californian Civil Code’ book, because he has this book and reads it often he knows a lot about the laws of discrimination in different areas. He is interested in is rights as a black man unfortunately, despite his knowledge Crooks is unable to change anything. Slim is the only man who treats Crooks sympathetically. He respects Crooks more and talks to him some times. Slim is ‘kind’ and ‘is a good listener’ but Slim and Crooks are the opposite- Slim is respected and has power whereas Crooks is disrespected and beaten by the men because of the colour of his skin. Slim is a ‘tall man’ who is ‘capable of killing a fly on the wheelers butt without touching the mule’ but Crooks was just a ‘stable buck, nigger with a ‘crooked back’. Through this contrast, Steinbeck provokes pathos about Crooks’ life. Ironically, even Slim is effected by the hardship on the ranch casually drowns four pups. Steinbeck depicts Crooks as the most physically damaged person on the ranch. One of the reasons for this is that the white men beat Crooks, just because he was black. The boss uses Crooks to let his anger out – ‘the boss gives him hell when he’s mad. ’ Even though the boss hired Crooks to do a job he beats him when he is angry, this shows Crooks is of a low status on the ranch and that he matters the least. The men are also very cruel to Crooks when they say ‘ Jesus we had fun. They are referring to a time when they beat Crooks. This is very cruel he had no way of defending himself by fighting back because he has a crooked back and is much weaker he also has no one on his side. What is more brutal is that they did it just for pleasure this suggests that the ranch is corrupting everyone. Steinbeck warns us of the consequences of brutality in the wider world. Furthermore the cruelty Crooks faces made him cruel to Lennie when he says – ‘I don’t blame the guy you travel with for keeping you outta sight. ’ and ‘what if he don’t come back. Crooks wants to frighten Lennie and is clearly jealous of the companionship he has with George. When ‘Crooks face lightened with pleasure in his torture’ it shows that Crooks has learnt from the other men how to be cruel. This is also another way he has been damaged emotionally by the ranch because most of the men become cruel and it is a violent world where only the fittest will survive. Crooks wishes that he could have what George and Lennie have so he gets dragged in to the dream against his better judgment – ‘Never a god dammed one of em gets it just like hea ven. Here is Crooks talks about men trying to get land for themselves. He does not believe in God because his life has been so bad that there cannot be a God but he still equates land with heaven. Crooks is lonely and has a room to himself on the ranch and in it there were ‘hung broken harness strips in process of being mended, strips of new leather. ’ Ironically ’Being a stable buck he was more permanent than other men’ His permanency does not give him status he is all alone and unlike the bunk house where games are played in the evenings his room is filled with work objects so he would not get much time to relax or rest. Also in his room is ‘a range of medicine bottles for himself and the horses. ’ This is another example of him being no more important that the animals and also part of the discrimination against him. Steinbeck depicts Crooks as a victim by the description of his physical appearance. – ‘His body was bent over to the left by his Crooked spine’ His lean face was lined with deep wrinkles, and he had thin, pain-tightened lips which were paler than his face. ’ His body is bent over because a horse has kicked him on the ranch so the ranch damages him physically. His lined face shows the evidence of the brutality of the ranch, he is older and weaker because of the hard work he has done and his thin, pain-tightened lips show the pain he is in. yet he still has to work everyday and he tries to soothe the pain by repeatedly applying liniment to his back. This reminds us of his pain – ‘he poured his liniment into his pink palmed hand. ’ Although Crooks is damaged by the ranch and has no status, he is a very proud, dignified man who wants people to respect the few rights he has, ‘you got no right to come in here’ he said to Lennie because his room was the only thing people has respect. He has read about black rights, he is interested in what rights he could have in other places. Although Crooks had the right to ban Candy and Lennie from his room the desire for company overrode this. He was happy to have the company of the two men, ‘well, why’n’t you kick ‘em out? ’ ‘I di’nt care much’. Steinbeck makes us sympathise with Crooks as he is presented as the biggest victim on the ranch because he is damaged mentally, physically and emotionally. Steinbeck also makes us sympathise with Crooks because he is lonely and how he is lonely from the isolation from the other men.

Outline and evaluate psychological explanations for OCD Essay Example for Free

Outline and evaluate psychological explanations for OCD Essay The cognitive approach assumes that OCD is a consequence of faulty and irrational ways of thinking taken to an extreme. Patients with OCD have different thinking patterns and more intrusive thoughts. The cognitive explanation stresses that everyone has unwanted thoughts from time to time, but OCD sufferers cannot ignore these thoughts and they are often misinterpreted, leading to self-blame and the obsessive symptoms of OCD. So that the negative thoughts and concerns associated with a particular anxiety do not come to pass, compulsions arise in an attempt to ‘neutralise’ the anxiety. The sufferer becomes more wary of having intrusive thoughts and their fear of them increases. As these ideas are constantly thought about, they become obsessive and a pattern of ritualistic, repetitive behaviour begins. A strength of this theory is that there is supporting evidence. For example, Wegner found that a group of students asked not to think of a white bear were more likely to do so than a group allowed to think about it. Salkoius found that when asking participants to suppress thoughts and on other days not to, the participants kept a diary of more intrusive thoughts when they had to be suppressed these findings support the idea that a deliberate attempt to suppress thoughts leads to an increase in these thoughts; supporting the main ideas of the approach. This is a strength because the two studies have found similar findings and are therefore externally reliable. This makes the cognitive approach reliable as a whole because it can be checked and verified and the theory has sound foundations for further research. However, a weakness of this theory is that there are problems with the evidence. For example, Salkoius used self-report methodologies in order to measure the thoughts of the participants. This means that the results may have been subjected to social desirability bias. For example, the amount of intrusive thoughts may not have all been recorded in the diaries in order to please the experimenter; they may not want them to know how bad their symptoms are due to feelings of embarrassment. This is an issue because it means the study lacks internal validity; the intrusive thoughts in the diary are not caused solely by supressing them, but there are other extraneous variables such as embarrassment. We therefore cannot prove cause and effect to show that suppressing thoughts lead to symptoms in OCD, so there are other factors the cognitive approach needs to consider in order to offer a causal explanation. However, although there are issues with self-report methodologies, they can provide a greater insight into the participant’s thoughts and a greater level of detail. They are allowing the participants to describe their own experiences rather than inferring this from observing participants. It therefore provides access to a high level of quantitative data.

Extracurricular Activities And Academic Success

Extracurricular Activities And Academic Success This research proposal is designed to determine if there is a correlation between extracurricular activities and academic success in college. It is hypothesized that there is a very strong positive correlation between involvement in extracurricular activities and academic success. School districts are worried that they are budgeting too much money for programs that do not directly influence academics. This study is important so that school districts will know where to adequately put money within their schools so that all people will benefit to the best of their ability. Activities and Academics 3 Is there a Correlation Between Extracurricular Activities and Academic Success in College? The purpose of this study is to measure the correlation between a college students involvement in extracurricular activities (i.e. sports, band, drama, cheerleading, and so on) and their grades compared to students who are not involved in any extracurricular activities. The main debate this association carries is whether extracurricular activities are actually beneficial or if they just force students to keep their academics up because of eligibility. Rachel Hollrah did a study in which she determined that extracurricular activities help students to receive better grades by teaching them character building lessons, teaching them lifelong skills, saving some at risk students who would possibly drop out of school, and helping students develop social skills. (Hollrah) All of these things are very vital to a human beings life and being able to function in the real world. One must have an education to be able to get a good job and make the money that is needed to support oneself or even a family. But as important as education, one also needs social skills and a very strong sense of character, morals, and ethics. Without these things, one can very quickly and easily lose sense of them and become someone they never were or wanted to be. One main thing that has been associated with success in general is self-esteem. When an individual succeeds, they usually automatically begin to feel Activities and Academics 4 better about their endeavors and about themselves as a person. Diana Grafford from the Department of Psychology at Missouri Western State University feels strongly about self-esteem associated with ones success. Self-esteem is affected by ones performance on the stage, on the football field, or by playing a musical instrument. A persons confidence in their ability to compete, perform, or satisfactorily complete a task can have a positive or negative effect, depending on the interpretation of success. (Grafford) Most individuals will begin to see themselves in a better light when they succeed and their self-esteem will begin to increase. This, then, will start to carry over into more parts of their life and help them to succeed in many other things rather than just one section. Some individuals, in contrast, view success in different ways and may not feel better about themselves but actually begin to feel worse. Some feel like they have to be at the top in everything they do or they are not successful at all. It all just depends on the particular person. Kimiko Fujita conducted a study in which he measured the correlation between academic success and extracurricular activities. Total extracurricular activity participation (TEAP), or participation in extracurricular activities in general, is associated with an improved grade point average, higher educational aspirations, increased college attendance, and reduced absenteeism. (Fujita) He also discovered that participation in some activities improves achievement, Activities and Academics 5 while participation in others diminishes achievement. (Fujita) The reason for the positive or negative change is different with each individual and it all just depends on each persons goals, character, determination, and willing to work as hard as they can to be successful. One important debate is whether colleges look at more than just grades and GPA when considering accepting someone into school. A lot of people think that a students involvement in extracurricular activities should also be considered when accepting students and handing out scholarships. Rank in class (RIC) in a study done by George Mason University (Podhajasky, 1997), was determined to be a strong predictor of success in college, but student environment was found to play a part in the eventual retention to graduation. It was found that students who became involved in extracurricular activities while in college enhanced their college experience and increased their future success. (Neal). Most research that I did had no emphasis on the difference between the involvement and the academic success between black students and white students. One study was done where they tested to see if there was any difference at all. The relationship between participation in extracurricular activities and academic achievement was examined. Black eighth graders and white eighth graders completed achievement tests and described school and nonschool activities. Amount of participation was positively related to academic Activities and Academics 6 achievement. The relationship was stronger for white students overall, and for school-related activities for both groups. (Gerber) One study showed that not only did extracurricular activities help students stay focused on academics but it also helped them to develop time management skills that were very crucial for later on in life. This study showed that the student is learns early how to juggle multiple tasks on a daily basis will be more prepared for adult life. These time management skills that are acquired keep the students organized and more able to get everything done within given time constraints. This ability, to organize time, is also very useful later in life. When students are done with school, they will be expected to juggle a job, a family, and many other things that require successful time management skills. Therefore, being involved with activities not only brings better grades, but it also promotes an easier transition into adult life. (Solinger) In most of the research I conducted, there was a clear consensus that there is a positive correlation between extracurricular activities and academic success. Usually students who stay involved and active have more motivation to hold their academics to a high standard for many reasons. Some of these reasons include eligibility, more time to devote to extracurricular activities, and both high academics and extracurricular activities look good when trying to get a job. There were a couple sources that showed no correlation between extracurricular activities and academic success but none that showed a negative Activities and Academics 7 correlation. The research that I conducted, for the most part, seemed to follow my assumptions. I have always believe that being involved and active definitely does help with academic success and helps students strive to do the best they can do when it comes to academics. Does ones participation in extracurricular activities (i.e. band, athletics, cheerleading, drama, and so on) have any effect on the students academic success? What would happen if a student who had been involved in extracurricular activities all of a sudden were not? Would more time devoted to schoolwork because of no extracurricular activities be a good thing for a students academics? In this study, the independent variable will be ones participation in extracurricular activities. The dependent variable we will name as a students academic success. It is hypothesized that there will be a very strong and positive correlation between extracurricular activities and academic success. Method The researcher plans to measure the correlation between extracurricular activities and academic success by using a questionnaire. The questionnaire will be handed out to an equal number of individuals involved in band, cheerleading, football, baseball, basketball, greek organizations, and drama. The questionnaire will also be given to the same amount of students who are not involved in anything other than classes. Activities and Academics 8 Analysis The researcher will use the correlation equation to analyze the data taken from the questionnaire.

Summary of Slaughter House Five :: Novels Literature Slaughter House Five Essays

Summary of Slaughter House Five Chapter One: The first chapter serves as an introduction in which Vonnegut directly addresses the reader, pointing out that the book is based on events that really occurred. He experienced first-hand the destruction of Dresden, during WWII, an event that he has never been able to put out of his mind. For twenty-three years, he has wanted to write about it. Vonnegut's attitude towards war becomes clear in this first chapter. He sees it as a totally futile occurrence, but he is resigned to the fact that war will always exist. He feels that wars have taught people insensitivity towards death. He cites the detached attitude of a woman writer as she relayed the news of a young veteran's dying. He finds such a nonchalant, uncaring attitude repulsive in any human being. Vonnegut then points out the irony in the fact that war tries to fight violence with more violence. He also questions the American government's treatment of violence as a "top secret" affair that is not to be discussed. I took this as interesting it’s just the first chapter and yet the author is pointing out and beating you with multifaceted issues that he will hopefully find solutions to towards the end of the novel. The character displayed as the author of the story tells of how he writes it and the events which lead to publication. In one instance he meets with a fellow veteran, Bernard O’Hare. When faced with his wife, Mary O'Hare's anger about war, Vonnegut assures her that his book will not glorify violence. Her main concern is the death of "babies" who will grow up and die in war. Along with his assurance to her, he also considers calling the book, "The Children's Crusade." The author has tried to pass on his knowledge of the futility of destruction to his children. He wants the younger generation to understand what the older ones have always failed to. Mary seems bizarre but I understand her purpose and that is to set out the mindset that the book wants the reader to adhere. There is a lot of precautions Vonnegut is making before he even preludes the story. Vonnegut revisits Dresden with O'Hare, and this, along with the completion of this book, is of great importance to him. With these two things he has managed to free himself of his obsession.

Diana Ross :: essays research papers

Diana Ross Diana Ross was born in 1944. Emerging from the housing projects in Detroit to become an international superstar, she gained prominence first as a member of the supremes, then as a solo artist. The mention of her name evokes the indelible image of the broadly smiling diva, the long hair, sequined gowns, etc. Ross first recorded on the small lupine label in 1959, as a member of the Primettes. The group signed to Motown in1961, and later changed their names to the supremes. In 1963, all the singles released by the supremes featured Diana Ross as the lead singer. That year they first hit the top 40 with â€Å"when the love light starts shining through his eyes†. In 1964 the supremes single â€Å" where did our love go† began a run of five consecutive #1 singles. Thereafter where a series of #1 hits such as, â€Å"the happenings†, â€Å"baby love†, â€Å" stop! in the name of love†, â€Å" you can’t hurry love†, and you keep me hanging on†. Someday well be together was Ross’ last hit with the supremes before going solo. Ross moved to California to launch her solo career. Her reworking of the Ashford and Simpson standard â€Å"ain’t no mountain high enough† became their first #1 hit as a solo artist. In 1971, Her first child Rhonda was born later announced as berry Gordy child (the founder of Motown). Ros married her first husband, Robert Ellis Siberstein, a union that produced two children, Tracee (from girlfriends) and Chudney Ellis. In 1972 Diana Ross made her first debut portraying the late jazz singer Billie holiday in â€Å" lady sings the blues†. The film was successful, and Ross was received an Oscar nomination for her performance.

Comparing Mood and Atmosphere of The Pity of Love, Broken Dreams, and T

Mood and Atmosphere of The Pity of Love, Broken Dreams, and The Fisherman The Pity of Love is a short, relatively simple poem, yet it still manages to create a feeling of anxiousness, of desperate worry. Yeats achieves this in only eight lines of average length by extremely careful and precise use of language and structure. The poem begins with the line "A pity beyond all telling†¢, immediately setting the general tone and basic point of the piece, elevating his despair to its highest levels and plunging the poem into the depths of depression and failure; before it has barely begun, Yeats is already admitting defeat, after a fashion, claiming that this pity is so terrible he is unable to properly describe it. The folk who are buying and selling, The clouds on their journey above, The cold wet winds ever blowing, And the shadowy hazel grove Where mouse-grey waters are flowing, These pastoral images are all part of an ordinary rural life, something for which Yeats always strived. However, unlike his usual praising of these elements of life, this time he presents them in a distinctly downbeat way, emphasising the negative aspects, and becoming darker and darker in tone with every successive example - the wind is "cold†¢ and "wet†¢; the clouds are assumed to be storm clouds from the juxtaposition of the description of the wind straight after the description of the clouds; the hazel grove is "shadowy†¢ and the water is "mouse-grey†¢. These are all very washed-out, colourless, cold adjectives that refect the depressed nature of the narrator. The image of somewhat frantic movement conveyed by the use of the words "buying and selling†¢, "journey above†¢, "ever blowing†¢ and "?owing†¢ represent the inner ... ...anza helps to contribute to the unplanned feeling, and the constantly shifting focus gives an almost ‘stream-of-consciousness' feel to the proceedings. As indicated by the title, this is a sombre poem, due to its subject matter, but it is not a bitter poem; in fact, in places, it is very romantic, particularly the third stanza: The certainty that I shall see that lady Leaning or standing or walking In the first loveliness of womanhood, And with the fervour of my youthful eyes, Has set me muttering like a fool. It is as if Yeats has finally accepted Gonne's rejection and is no longer tormented by it. He is much more at peace writing Broken Dreams than with his other Maud Gonne poems. Whilst he still finds his life understandably sad, he no longer expects her to change her mind and, accordingly, he does not write a depressingly bitter poem.

Introduction to K Means Analysis for Stock Portfolio Essay

1. Background[1] Investment decisions are about making choice. Investors need to decide what asset to be invested. This is an important decision because these assets are the means by which investors transfer today’s purchasing power to the future. In effect, investor must decide on a portfolio of asset to own. A portfolio is simply a combination of assets designed to serve as store of value. Poor management of these assets may destroy the portfolio’s value, and investor will then not achieve their financial goals. There are many assets like stocks, bonds, derivatives that investors may include in the portfolio. In Hong Kong, stock portfolio is the most common investment. But what stocks have higher return? What stocks are risky? What stocks in the portfolio that it has higher return? Many investors may use fundamental analysis to analysis financial data for answering above questions. In the last decade, some researches applied data mining techniques on financial market. Data mining is the process of automatically discovery useful information in large data repositories. It can be used to support a wide range of business intelligence applications such as customer profiling, targeted marketing, store layout. 2. Motivation In America, there are some research papers[2] about applying clustering technique on America financial market. For example, using Self-organizing map(SOM) to cluster stocks and financial ratio for fundamental analysis, using SOM to find the valuable stock. These all researches want to find the characteristic of the stocks. However, most these researches use SOM clustering technique, and focus on America financial market. It seems that few researches do similar thing in Hong Kong stock market. Moreover, these researches only want to find the characteristic of stocks. In real case, investors will not only purchase one stocks. They will construct a stock portfolio to eliminate the risk. So I want to apply similar approach on Hong Kong stock market and change the clustering technique to K-means, not SOM. And I not only want to cluster the stocks, but also the portfolio. I want to cluster many combinations of the portfolio as I can to find the characteristic of different combinations of the portfolio. I am interested in investment, and I study information technology in university. I want to combine two aspects for my final year project. And I believe this project is very useful for my future career. I have read relative books, papers for getting the basic idea and concept of portfolio and data mining. In this project, I use many technical skills, methods and knowledge learnt from City University of Hong Kong in the past three years. Java programming is used to do the data preprocessing like normalization, financial calculation. It is also used to generate the combination of the portfolio and the simulation of K-means. MYSQL database is used to store the data of stocks and portfolio. The simulation result is also stored in the database. 3. Objectives In this final year project, there are several objects: 1. To investigate the characteristic of stocks in Hong Kong stock market. 2. To investigate the characteristic of different stock portfolios in Hong Kong stock market. 3. To determine that different combination of stocks how to affect the performance of the portfolio. 4. To investigate the strength and weakness of applying K-means on financial data. 4. Report outline  There are total 6 chapters in this report. Following this Chapter 1 Introduction, Chapter 2 Literature Review refers to related theories applied on the simulation, result analysis and discussion. Chapter 3 Simulation presents the methodology, project flow chat of the simulation. Chapter 4 Result Analysis will do the data processing of the result from the simulation. Chapter 5 Further Development will discuss the further development and improvement of the project. At the end, Chapter 6 Conclusion will do the conclusion of the whole project. 5. Chapter Summary This chapter mentions the background of the project. It also presents the motivation of this project and give the objective, report outline to the readers for better understanding of the project.

Joe’s Fly-By-Night Oil Company Essay

†¢ Prepare a ratio analysis for the fiscal year ended Dec 31, 2012. Organize your analysis per the following outline: (1) Liquidity – Current ratio: 25,000/17,000=1.47% Quick ratio: 25,000-17,000/17,000=25,000 Comments on liquidity- The results cant really determine how well or bad the company is doing until you compare it to another company. This ratio helps show the ability to pay off short term obligations as they are due. (2) Asset management – Total Asset turnover: 10,000/40,000=.25 Average collection period (ACP): 10,000/365=27 3,000/27=111 days Comments on asset management- Each $1 of asset is producing .25 in sales. Using assest utilization shows why one firm turns over assests more rapied than another. Average collection period states that it’s taking the customer around 111days to pay off their bills. This indicates how long sales stay on companys books. (3) Debt management – Debt ratio: 20,000/40,000=50% Times interest earned: 3,000/200=15 times Comments on debt management- Times interest earned shows the number of times that income before interest and taxes covers the interest obligation . The higher the ration the stronger the interest paying ability of the firm . (4) Profitability – Net profit margin:1800/10,000= 18% -Return on Assets (ROA): 1800/40,000= 4.5% -Return on Equity (ROE): 1800/20,000= 9.0% Extended Du Pont equation: .25x.18-0.045(4.5%) Comments on profitability to include your comments on the sources of ROE revealed by the Du Pont equation These types of ratios indicate if the firm is making any money, and how much in relation to whats invested. They also give you an indication of how the firm is doing in controlling its costs. Net profit margin sales minus all expenses, including interest and taxes . So the net profit margin ratio measures the proportion of each sale dollar that remains after all expenses are paid for . Joes is at 18% . The ROA should be compared to past years ROA to determine wheather it is good or bad. The ROE is the bottome line which can be compared to other investments and see where they are. It evaluates the return the firm produces. The Du Point equation allows you to understand the source of return but it need to be compared to a similar industry to see truly where the company is. (5) Market value ratios – PE ratio: Market price of company stock /earnings per share of stock 50.00/1.80=27.7 – Market to book ratio: Share price of stock/book value per share To get the book value per share you take total equity /common shares outstanding 20,000/1,000=20 then you take share price /book value per share 1.80/20=.09 Comments on the market value ratios The M/B ratio gives you an indication of the value of a firm’s intangible non-listed assests. These numbers help you get an idea what it will cost you to get $1 of the firms assets. Stock’s market price represents how much investors are willing to pay today for that claim. I the M/B ratio is higher than 1.0 therefore , you can say that the value of the equity claim has gone up. If you look at the M/B ratio for Joe’s the equity claim has gone up since its at 27.2. For the purposes of this exercise, assume the following data for Joe’s Fly-By-Night Oil: Stock price on Dec 31, 2012†¦$50.00 Number of common shares outstanding on Dec 31, 2012†¦1,000

Compare Ch 1 & 2 of Hard Times to Ch 6 of Jane Eyre

Both authors Charlotte Bronte and Charles Dickens give determined attention to the bleak and hard aspects of life and, specifically, to the life of children. In the Chapters 1 & 2 of Hard Times to Chapter 6 of Jane Eyre, they vividly portray difficulties and hardship faced by many poor children at school. Thesis The chapters under analysis are based on similar settings and themes portraying educational system of the Victorian era, attitude towards children and their role in society.In the chapters under analysis, the authors portray school life of the protagonists and their grievances. ‘Fact and Figures’ dominate in the chapters underlining the role of cramming in education. In Hard Times, in the opening scene in ‘a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a schoolroom', the dominant adjectives are ‘square, hard, dry’, and the first paragraph of Chapter 2 emphasizes this theme by using many of the declaratory titles which Dickens had contemplated giving to thi s novel. T.Gradgrind teaches children:‘A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over† (Dickens). In Jane Eyre, girls follow strict rules during classes: â€Å"there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage and ship-money, which most of them appeared unable to answer† (Bronte). Another important detail is that girls should read the Bible every morning which dictated social norms and social order.In the chapters under analysis, the authors create a similar prototypes of teachers and educational systems typical for their times. As the first passage makes clear, the Gradgrind educational system and the ethos of the industrial town are at one in being designedly quite rightly if ‘The Gradgrind Philosophy' is accepted – monotonous, and in embodying an aridly limited sense of life's possibilities and priorities. But already one challenge to that ‘Ph ilo ¬sophy' has appeared the circus at which the Gradgrind children are caught peeping.The same philosophy is followed by Miss Scatcherd who supposes that a teacher should be severe and irreconcilable to pupils’ faults. Jane comments: â€Å"it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people† (Bronte). A doctrine of Christian endurance is similar in the chapters. Both authors pay a special attention to the process itself and organization of education. They underline that educational process should be based on daily activities and planning process.The chapters though starting in a schoolroom are concerned with more than education but growing up and new perception of the world. Success for the protagonists means fight in whatever direc ¬tion. To the attainment of any end worth living for, a symmetrical sacrifice of their nature is compulsory upon children. Jane comments: â€Å"I could not comprehend this doctrine of end urance; and still less could I understand or sympathize with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser† (Bronte).Pressure of schooling and severe attitude of their tutors forces the children to mature and understand the role of religion and schooling in their life. The children speak as mature adults which unveils their independent thinking and mature personalities. Readers quickly sense the inevitability of the children's movement towards savagery, though the authors relate the novels with such economy and intensity that its predictability does not become monotonous. In these chapters, both children assume leadership for their calm rationality.â€Å"Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes: among them Sissy Jupe† (Dickens). In the chapters, both authors use characters of children in opposition to the main characters. This technique helps them to underline the importance of liberation in the world of cruelty and misunderstanding. In sum, Charlotte Bronte and Charles Dickens portray that suffering is undergone in order to expand the human spirit, to delve into matters previously kept hidden, to grow through pain. They grow up into small adults emulating the ‘real' world they have left behind and to which eventually they return.

Plato and Justice with Today’s Perception Essay

Plato’s Justice for individuals and states, and the rule of law. In the Republic, Plato posits that justice is preferable to injustice. Thrasymachus claims that injustice without recourse or consequence is the most rewarding experience. Glaucon adds the analogy of the ring of Gyges, and Adeimantus describes how appearance is often more important than reality. Plato is then faced with the rebuttal of their arguments. To illuminate his logic, he utilizes several interrelated geometrical models that tie the virtue of the soul and the functions of individuals, classes, and states together. Through these models he illustrates the organic conservative argument whereby the individual is the microcosm of the soul, and the state is a macrocosm of the soul. Plato asserts that if justice is good for the state, and the individual is analogous to the state, then justice is good for the individual. Given that justice on the state level was a widely accepted concept in Athens, it was more efficient for Plato to utilize this particular syllogism to prove his point to Thrasymachus. Plato ?s argument is only valid if he can prove that justice is good for the society or state, and that the organic conservative argument is true. In type The Philosopher Kings hold the highest virtue in wisdom. To become wise they must gain knowledge of the ultimate good through the Forms. The Forms are objects of knowledge, which sit atop a geometric progression which must be traversed in a linear fashion. The first level of knowledge contains images, shadows, pictures, desires, and emotions. Belief exists in the visible realm, where perception of objects provides the basis for belief. Contemplation of simple mathematical Forms yields linear reasoning. The final stage is the comprehension of the Forms and the capacity within human nature to comprehend the true nature of reality. Here the philosopher kings become aquianted with the concepts of equality, beauty, truth, and the Form of the ultimate good. These rulers must apply their knowledge in best method of governing possible. In particular, they must promote utmost efficiency of every participating individual in the state, as well as maintaining justice. Plato best describes his argument here: As in a well-organized state, the justice of an individual human being emerges only from the interrelationship among its separate components (Republic 443d). The application of Plato?  ¦s model of government in the early Middle Ages was certainly lacking, The working of the separate components of the Christian state was far from fluid. The divine line of rulers rarely had any knowledge of the Form of the Good like Plato is philosopher kings. Knowledge of the Form of the Good is essential to the application of Plato’s republic. Thus the logical progression towards a rule of law method only leaves one asking why it took so long to make that change. Certainly the kings and the papacy were aware of the inflexibility of a Romanesque and Platonic rule of law, but this was still a vast improvement over the biases and inefficiencies of the early statesman like kings. I would argue that a tyrannical model of government offers the best true description of what was practiced by early Christian medieval governments in Europe. In early medieval politics, the republic method of rule by statesman was the preferred Form of governance. The royal families constituted the effectual guardian class. The power to rule was based on a perceived line of divinity, which often received validation from the Catholic Church and the Papacy. Pagan undertones and social structures in Germanic communities also contributed to an environment of superstition and strict adherence to the ideal of Christianity, particularly the divine lineage and rights to rule. This is evidenced in the reluctance in medieval times to look for a king outside of the divine line even when the line offered no suitable rule It has been objected that hypothetical agreements cannot bind people; only actual contracts or agreements can impose obligations and commitments (Dworkin, 1977, 150ff). In response, Rawls says that the OP is to be used â€Å"to help us work out what we now think† (CP, 402); â€Å"it incorporates conditions†¦we do in fact accept,† (TJ 587/514) and is a kind of â€Å"thought experiment. for the purpose of public- and self-clarification† (JF, 17). Hypothetical agreement in the original position does not then bind anyone to duties or commitments he/she does not already have. Its point rather is to explicate the requirements of moral concepts of justice and enable us to draw the consequences of considered certain moral convictions that we all presumably share. Whether we in turn consciously accept or agree to these consequences and the principles and duties they implicate once brought to our awareness is irrelevant to their justification. For surely it can matter little to the justification of moral principles whether or not existing people actually do accept or agree to them. The point rather of conjecturing the outcome of a hypothetical agreement is that, assuming that the premises underlying the original position correctly represent our most deeply held considered moral convictions, then we are committed to endorsing the resulting principles and duties whether or not we actually accept or agree to them. Not to do so implies a failure to live up to the consequences of our own moral convictions about justice. For example, suppose principles of justice were to impose a duty to practice impartial benevolence among all people, and thus a duty to show no greater concern for the welfare of ourselves and loved ones than we do towards billions of others. This principle demands too much of human nature and would not be feasible—people simply would reject its onerous demands. But Rawls’s stability requirement implies more than just ‘ought implies can. ’ It says that principles of justice and the scheme of social cooperation they describe should evince â€Å"stability for the right reasons† (PL, xliii; CP, 589). Recall here the higher-order interests of the parties in the exercise and development of their capacities for justice. A just society should be able to endure not simply as a modus vivendi, by coercive enforcement of its provisions and its promoting the majority of peoples’ interests. Stability â€Å"for the right reasons† requires that people support society for moral reasons of justice; society’s basic principles must respond to reasonable persons’ capacities for justice and engage their sense of justice. Rawls regards our moral capacities for justice as an integral part of our nature as sociable beings. He believes that one role of a conception of justice is to accommodate human capacities for sociability, the capacities for justice that enable us to be cooperative social beings. So not only should a conception of justice advance human interests, but it should also answer to our moral psychology by enabling us to knowingly and willingly exercise our moral capacities and sensibilities, which are among the moral powers to be reasonable. This is one way that Rawls’s conception of justice is â€Å"ideal-based† (CP 400-401 n. ): it is based in an ideal of human beings as free and equal moral persons and an ideal of their social relations as acceptable and justifiable to them (the ideal of a well-ordered society). This relates to the second ground for the stability condition, which can only be mentioned here: it is that principles of justice should be compatible with, and even conducive to, the human good. It speaks strongly in favor of a conception of justice that it is compatible with and promotes the human good. First, if a conception of justice requires of many reasonable people that they give up their pursuit of the particular interests that constitute their conception of the good (as Rawls argues against utilitarianism), this conception could not gain their support and would not be stable over long periods of time. Moreover, assuming that the exercise and development of the moral powers are fundamental interests of citizens, a conception of justice should enable citizens to adequately exercise and fully develop these capacities. It must then engage their sense of justice, and (ideally for Rawls) they should be able to find that acting on and from principles of justice is worth doing for its own sake.. For Rawls, it speaks strongly in favor of a conception of justice if acting for the sake of its principles is experienced by citizens as an activity that is good in itself. For then justice and exercise of the sense of justice are for those persons intrinsic goods and a precondition for their living a good life..

The Trade Relations Among Europe and Africa, Asia and America

Before 1500, Europeans had already established a trading network with Africa, Asia and America. The products that they traded during that time period included food clothing, weapons and other goods. Today their trading networks are very sophisticated and connect to every corner well to every other aspect of the planet. Trading became an essential part for our society to function and prosperous into what it has become today. Some might think that today’s trading landscape came from the Europeans around 1500, but they were just eager to establish trades with countries who were just as eager to purchase European goods. However, this statement is incorrect. The reality was that not every country was willing to purchase their products, but many of the Europeans were eager to buy products from other countries. In this paper, I will show how the above statement and its flaws. European countries have a rich civilization. For example, they have a wide variety of food, a huge collection of art work and a number of different customs inlcuding multiple languages. Their possession of these qualities made them become the modern civilization popular at that time. Therefore, if a country that was less civilized started using their products, that country might be modernized at a faster pace. Therefore, the Europeans were helping other countries when they traded with them. However, their good deeds were not accepted by other countries. Not every country was interested in European goods. For example, China resisted importing foreign goods to their country at that time. This was because the government did not want foreign culture to affect their already rich civilization, as China’s history could be traced back to 3000 years ago. Also, African countries, although they were not civilized at all, were not receptive at buying European goods. Tribes from Africa were scattered everywhere. Most of these tribes were self-sufficient as in their advanced ability to produce their own goods as oppose to trading products between tribes. As a result, the economy in Africa was very weak and none of these tribes could afford the European products in order to better their society. Another big misconception about European trade is that we always think other countries had to yield to the terms set forth by the Europeans. Although, Europeans had a powerful civilization and their weapons were more technology advance than many other nations, the term â€Å"trade† was not always in favor of the Europeans. For example, even though Portugal had a better naval and military technology, they had a very limited success when trading with China and Japan. Between 1521 and 1522, Portuguese had attempted to enforce trading with China. However, their aggressive movement ended with a decisive defeat of the Portuguese because they were unable to control all the maritime traffic in the region. As a result, Portugal was expelled from China in 1523. Another example was the Mughal Empire. Mughal Empire was founded in the early 16th century and located in the Middle East region. According to the class note, although this empire was relatively new, they already had a better gunpowder technology than the Europeans. Of course, we cannot conclude that the Mughal Empire had a stronger military than the Europeans based on this fact. However, the gunpowder technology would definitely give the Mughal people a superior defense upon an attack by the Europeans in case of a trading issue arose. As a result, we cannot conclude that a powerful civilization was a factor for the European to continue their trading network at around 1500. An underlying reason of the trade was that the Europeans wanted to be more superior. They wanted to spread their civilized cultures and religions to the â€Å"less civilized† countries in order to colonize them easier. The Americas was a great example to illustrate this influence. After Columbus discovered the new continent in 1400s, European powers began to flock and colonize the new world. Despite the natives were resisting, they were soon adapted to their new dominating power. This was because many of the products that they used were imported from the European nations, including tea, clothing, religion etc. The success of the dominating European power was due to the fact that they took advantage of the trading system and method was unsuccessful for the empires in the old world. It is because the â€Å"less civilized† old world countries had already established their own cultures and religions and were not ready to change. For example, Christianity did not find its way in China. Even in the mid 18th century, 200 years after the trading relationship began; only about 0. 08 percent of total Chinese population had converted from Buddhism to Christianity. Therefore, the explanation that trading system continued because of the European’s cohesive civilization was not well constructed, as it was true for the countries in the new world but not the old. Finally, European nations were ore interested in products made in other countries than those countries interested in their products. An example about the Chinese empire was illustrated in the previous paragraph. China refused the purchase foreign goods because they had already a rich culture by itself. In contrast, Europeans were very interested in silk, porcelains and food produced in China. In Africa, where people could not afford European products, European powers simply arrived, enslaved, and â€Å"trade† those indigent people. Therefore, Europeans after 1500s continued their networks with other countries were more because they wanted to purchase foreign products rather than so sell their products. In conclusion, Europeans established ongoing trade networks in Africa, Asia and the Americas after 1500 because they wanted to trade with countries just as eager to trade with them does not sufficiently entail the trading landscape at that time. Some countries were uninterested in their products and some others simply cannot afford them. As a result, the statement is false and should be revised.

Final Paper on Christian Stewardship and Sustainability Essay

Final Paper on Christian Stewardship and Sustainability - Essay Example The property that Christians handle includes their bodies, animals, plants, and the environment such as water and the air in the atmosphere (Lowenthal 29). The most recent concept of stewardship on matters of Christianity was on the issue of the responsibility human beings had especially when handling their environment or Earth itself as a whole (Albers 196). On ecological bases Christian stewardship takes up another definition. In this field, stewardship is referred to as the conviction that every grace or gift of nature comes from God and human beings are the stewards and trustees of the marvelous gifts (White 35). Christians are urged to appreciate and respect the theological importance of earth by practicing ecological stewardship deeds that are meant to protect both earth and the resources that it possesses. The unique gifts of creation were not created only for human use, but they also have their own integrity, value and dignity. The aspect of ecological stewardship dates way back to the creation story. In the story, God gave mankind dominion over all his creations (Mumford 65). Sadly human beings have misinterpreted the mandate and have incalculably abused and exploited nature. Sustainability on an ecological base refers to the response made to tackle the call made on ecological conversion (Marsh 30). The sustainability of ecological systems is achieved by informing the community and individuals on the significance of the environment. The actions of individuals should be mindful about matters of global equity and the generations that will succeed them (Marsh 36). The community should also portray attributes such as responsibility, care and respect when handling the environment .Sustainability of the ecology also requires evaluation of scientific developments and balanced judgments on the impact the environment may have in the future; especially on social matters as speculated by catholic teachings. Christian stewardship

Consumer behaviour 5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Consumer behaviour 5 - Essay Example This is true because most cultures that were exhibited in the last century are no longer practiced today as the new ones have replaced them. Nevertheless, Falk and Falk (2005) argue that a particular society may have more than one culture at any given time. At the same time, findings showed that youths are the most expressive when it comes to understanding the modern culture of a country or society (Moor, 2003). This makes me agree with the claim that to understand contemporary culture one needs to analyze the trends of its youth. To begin with, contemporary culture can be defined as the present culture exhibited by people of a given society as opposed inherited culture (Arvidsson, 2005). Some of the typical examples of contemporary culture include modern films, new arts, music, and literature among others. ‘Understanding culture,’ therefore, implies understanding the reasons behind the creation of these new cultures (Falk and Falk, 2005). Therefore, for us to understand culture, we must consider not only the obvious features expressed in the new culture but also the issues hidden in the new culture. A typical example can be drawn by looking at the new trends taking place in the music industry. Here, one can see clearly that the new trends being developed in the music industry has their origins from youths in society as noted by Arvidsson (2005). Take, for example, the hip-hop music, which has become a very common music among the youths of this generation. Certainly, hip-hop was not a type of music for the older generation rather has its roots from young people. As a result, one can conclude with certainty that contemporary culture reflects the trends of youths since they are created by youths. Arvidsson (2005) argues that young people are very flamboyant. As such, the beliefs and trends they follow are the most evident in society as opposed to that of the older generation. At the same time, evidence shows that when a given culture arises, it is th em who accepts it first and adopt it as opposed to the older generation, which tend to be more conservative. This is another reason that suggests that the trends of the youth is critical to undemanding the contemporary culture. The fact that youths are normally open-minded makes it easy for them to be influenced easily by new cultures. Take for examples globalization that has become part of the modern culture. Falk and Falk (2005) note that today globalization has permeated all aspects of social life, with its impacts being felt mostly among youths. A case in point is the increasing popularity of foreign language teachers and colleges’ couples with the growing number of multilingual youths who have embraced the culture of traveling from one country to another and coming across different cultures (Moor, 2003). Here, one can easily see the globalization elements of contemporary culture. This example shows that one can easily understand the culture of today by analyzing movement s of young people. A closer look at history also shows that most cultural revolutions originated from youth protests. The hippie movement of the 1960’s that began in the U.S. and later one spread to the rest of the world is a classical example of a cultural revolution, whose origin can be traced back to youth unrest according to Falk and Falk (2005). This movement is said to have been formed by youths due to frustrations they went through at the hands of the middle class who were increasingly focusing