The recruitment process continued Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The recruitment process continued - Coursework Example It first offers the position to its existing employees who are interested to shift to those positions. If they are not interested then the job posting is done on the intranet, so as to welcome internal referrals and the also external candidates are welcomed through advertisements on job portals or Google. The company website is also utilized for job postings (Needham, & Dransfield, 1994, p. 552). A systematic procedure is followed for selecting external candidates, which also includes the online selection procedure. This saves the cost and valuable time of the management and the human resource department. Tesco has a policy to ensure that every candidate gets an opportunity to prove their efficiency and the reasons for being appropriate for the role. Those employees working in Tesco are given the opportunity first to apply for the vacant positions, so as to give them greater exposure and broaden their knowledge. The company also motivates its staffs to progress in their careers throu gh their process called talent planning. There are schemes in which the employees can apply for higher positions through their annual appraisal scheme. The current recruitment procedure of Tesco motives the employees to develop their skills in the field they wish to work in Tesco. The managers assist the employees in developing the competencies, technical skills and behavioral pattern required for such roles. This not only assists the employees, but also helps Tesco to achieve its objectives and the employees achieve their personal objectives. In the company 80 percent of the management positions are filled through internal recruitment. This means that there is high scope of good performance appraisal in Tesco. Recommendations to Senior Leaders In the recruitment process the major role is played by the human resource department and the top management, which also includes the senior leaders of the company, who are dedicated the authority of giving their final verdict regarding the ch oice of the final candidate (Prakashan, 2007, p. 7.6-7.7). So even though Tesco follows a transparent and systematic recruitment procedure, they must keep on experimenting and introducing newer and better processes to make the recruitment process more efficient and should encourage greater diversity for faster growth and development of the firm. Now certain recommendations can be suggested for the senior leaders of Tesco to encourage a smooth recruitment process and highly diversified workforce in the company. A five step planning process would be suggested in such cases: Design a perfect human resource management system: Recruitment process cannot be undertaken without human resource department and well defined human resource system. The human resource goals should be aligned with the organizational goals, then only right recruitment can be done, and this is the task of the senior leaders to monitor that this objectives are being followed or not. Analyzing the Environment: The inte rnal and external environmental factors includes the industry, technology, competitors, regulations of the labor market, sex ratio in the organization and the long-term goals of the company. This is analyzed by the senior leaders first before proceeding for recruitment process. Not only skills but many other factors also need to be kept in mind. Human Resource Demand Forecast: The function of forecasting is done by the senior lea

Personal Statement Essay Example for Free

Personal Statement Essay The drive and initiative to change has always been my motivation to improve and develop. I use it as a tool towards acquiring new skills and competencies that can cultivate and enhance my professional background. Equipped with my relevant goals and objectives, I wish to point out my intention to apply for a Management, Marketing and Society Masters programme in Stockholm University. It has always been my passion to be educated and learn about things and issues that continue to move and lead men and society to various paths. These societal factors in turn shape us in distinct ways and help us understand the trends happening in our environment. Now, with the introduction of globalization, the concept of borders is slowly deteriorating as people realize the connections and relatedness amidst diversity. My background and understudy of politics and international relations in both University of Leeds and Middle East Technical University has given me the leverage to decipher models and assumptions from both the local and international realm. These alongside my experiences in both governmental and international organization (AISEC) can cultivate better appreciation of what this programme has to offer. Likewise, my projects and individual studies have encouraged me to diversify my career and dwell on personal and professional development. Examples of these training and seminars revolve around the realms of marketing and management. In the end, with your acceptance I feel that it can help encourage and satisfy my desire to learn. It can help widen my understanding and comprehension of different factors that continuously shape both our local and global environments. At the same time, by focusing on management and marketing frameworks, I can specialize on issues and ideas that are prevalent in different market-oriented economies. This in turn can make me vibrant and adaptive to the changes happening in our continuous globalizing and expanding society.

Metacognitive Awareness Of Reading Strategies And Critical Reading

Metacognitive Awareness Of Reading Strategies And Critical Reading Researchers believe that awareness and monitoring of ones comprehension processes are critically important for skilled reading. Such awareness and monitoring processes are often referred to as metacognition. Recent researches show that metacognitive strategies differentiate between effective and ineffective learners i.e. the more a student knows about how he learns, the better he will learn. This study was designed to investigate the relationship between metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and critical reading ability of the students. To this end, 113 third/forth year Iranian college students majoring in English translation/literature, aged around 21-36 were selected to participate in this study. They took part in a Nelson test of proficiency, and a critical reading comprehension test. They also completed a questionnaire, namely Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI). Data analysis through Pearson Correlation Coefficient formula showed that there is a significant relationship between the students metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and their critical reading ability. The findings can have implications for EFL learners and teachers in developing an authentic, interactive and learner- centered environment in their reading classes. Key words: Learning strategies, Metacognition, Metacognitive awareness of reading strategies, Critical reading 1. Introduction The recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in developing critical thinking skills of students in order to improve their thinking and learning abilities and help them to succeed in their educational goals. Improving students critical thinking skills will help students: a) improve their thinking about their course work b) use sound thinking on tests, assignments, and projects in their courses c) have the strategic, analytical, problem solving, and decision-making skills they need when they are at college d) have the strategic, analytical, problem solving, and decision-making skills they need when they move to the workplace. The term critical thinking when used by educators has varied meanings in different contexts-whether in formal logic courses, where it has a precise meaning; when applied to arguments or in casual discussions in a faculty lounge about students struggles to grasp the course content, where the term is used more loosely to simply mean good thinking (Pierce, 2005). Before proceeding any further, an account will be provided as how critical thinking has been defined in literature: As stated by Thomson (1996), the critical thinking tradition, which derives from both philosophy and education, originates in the USA. Some of its foremost American proponents were John Dewey, Edward Glaser, and Steven Norris; in Britain, the name most closely associated with critical thinking is that of Alec Fisher. In Learning to Think: Disciplinary Perspectives (2002), Janet Donald (quoted in Keller 2008) presents a variety of approaches to thinking based on the work of different academic disciplines. She provides a working model of thinking processes in higher education in which she describes a perspective on different methods of inquiry. The working model offers a set of procedures followed by most disciplines, including: description, selection, representation, inference, synthesis, and verification. Under each topic on this inventory, then, she lists subtopics indicating their relation to the diverse inquiry methods she previously connected to academic areas. In a later summary of the most important thinking processes used generally across disciplines, she lists separately Identify the context and State assumptions, then reduces her previous set of common procedures to those of selection, representation, and synthesis. In Maclellan and Soden (2001, quoted in Keller 2008), we see the following set of critical thinking skills: a) unpacking concepts-ability to unpack or break down ideas, concepts or theories; b) recognizing contradictions-differentiating between viewpoints and counterarguments; c) development-explaining a phenomenon, joining ideas together to form lines of arguments; d) providing evidence-supporting or justifying assertions; e) examining implications of evidence-generating hypotheses about consequences or examining the relationships between key factors; f) alternative interpretation-questioning or challenging an interpretation of the evidence and offering an alternative. After the above review on what critical thinking is, now we turn to critical reading. A major issue in education today is the concern about students ability to read critically and to evaluate the material. Critical reading is taught as a sub-skill of comprehension with appropriate exercises. Critical reading enjoys several features which make it appear rooted in critical thinking. Among the features we can mention the followings listed by students counseling service of Salisbury University: a. previewing: Learning about a text before really reading it. b. contextualizing: Placing a text in its historical, biographical, and cultural contexts. c. questioning to understand and remember: Asking questions about the content. d. reflecting on challenges to your beliefs and values: Examining your personal responses. e. outlining and summarizing: Identifying the main ideas and restating them in your own words. f. evaluating an argument: Testing the logic of a text as well as its credibility and emotional impact. g. comparing and contrasting related readings: Exploring likenesses and differences between texts to understand them better. Furthermore, Burmeister (1986, qtd in Cherney 1986) defines critical-creative reading and thinking as requiring the skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. He adds that such cognitive abilities require readers or thinkers to reason using techniques of formal logic or at least to be consciously aware of the thought processes they are using. Analysis, according to Burmeister, requires the examination of parts of the whole; synthesis is the act of combining or unifying elements into a coherent whole and evaluation requires the establishment of standards and also a judgment as to the goodness of fit of the idea. Burmeister considers evaluation to be the highest level of the cognitive domain. (p.256) The researchers assume that metacognitive strategies are among the strategies which can foster critical thinking and hence reading. However, it sounds reasonable to ask why such a relationship is felt. To answer this question an attempt will be made to clarify metacognitive strategies. Sheorey and Mokhtari (2001) state that many studies recognize the role of meta-cognitive awareness in reading comprehension, whether one is reading in the native language or a second language. Indeed, the consensus view is that strategic awareness and monitoring of the comprehension process are critically important aspects of skilled reading. Such awareness and monitoring is often referred to in the literature as meta-cognition, which can be thought of as the knowledge of the readers cognition relative to the reading process and the self-control mechanisms they use to monitor and enhance comprehension. Auerbach and Paxton (1997) and Carrell et al. (1989), for example, consider meta-cognitive awareness-planning and consciously executing appropriate actions to achieve a particular goal-to be a critical element of proficient, strategic reading. Such meta-cognition, according to Auerbach and Paxton (1997), entails knowledge of strategies for processing texts, the ability to monitor compr ehension, and the ability to adjust strategies as needed (pp. 240-41). Furthermore, Taylor (1999) defines meta-cognition as an appreciation of what one already knows, together with a correct apprehension of the learning task and what knowledge and skills it requires, combined with the ability to make correct inferences about how to apply ones strategic knowledge to a particular situation, and to do so efficiently and reliably. (p.126) To increase their metacognitive abilities, students need to possess and be aware of three kinds of content knowledge: declarative, procedural, and conditional. Declarative knowledge is the factual information that one knows; it can be declared-spoken or written. An example is to know the formula for calculating momentum in a physics class (momentum = mass times velocity). Procedural knowledge is knowledge of how to do something, of how to perform the steps in a process; for example, knowing the mass of an object and its rate of speed and how to do the calculation. Conditional knowledge is knowledge about when to use a procedure, skill, or strategy and when not to use it; why a procedure works and under what conditions; and why one procedure is better than another. For example, students need to recognize that an exam word problem requires the calculation of momentum as part of its solution. (Paris, Cross and Lipson, 1984. qtd. in Pressley 2002). This notion of three kinds of knowledge applies to learning strategies as well as course content. When they study, students need the declarative knowledge that (1) all reading assignments are not alike; for example, that a history textbook chapter deals with factual information differs from a primary historical document, which is different from an article interpreting or analyzing that document. They need to know that stories and novels differ from arguments. Furthermore, they need to know that there are different kinds of note taking strategies useful for annotating these different types of texts. And (2) students need to know how to actually write different kinds of notes (procedural knowledge), and (3) they need to know when to apply these kinds of notes when they study (conditional knowledge). Knowledge of study strategies is among the kinds of meta-cognitive knowledge, and it too requires awareness of all three kinds of knowledge (Pierce, 2003). Many of the current studies recognize the role of awareness in reading comprehension. Reading strategies are of interest for the way readers use them to manage their interaction with the written text and how these strategies are related to text comprehension (Rigney, 1978). Reading in second language reading suggests that strategies improve reading comprehension. Reading strategies indicate how readers conceive a task, how they make sense of what they read and what they do when reading comprehension is difficult (Singhal, 2001). Indeed researchers agree that strategic awareness and monitoring of the comprehension process are critically important aspects of skilled reading. Such awareness and monitoring is often referred to in the literature as metacognition, which is used to monitor and enhance reading comprehension (Pressley and Afflerbach, 1995; Alexander and Jetton, 2000; Pressley, 2000). Recent researchers (Cohen, 1998, Anderson, 2002, Santana, 2003) show that the strategies that mark the true differences between effective and ineffective learners are the metacognitive strategies. In spite of the fact that many of the previous studies have obtained information about learners strategies and reading process, few of them have examined readers metacognitive awareness of reading strategies ( Singhal, 2001). Considering the important role of metacognitive reading strategies in reading comprehension with suspicious eye, this study is designed to investigate the relationship between metacognitive awareness reading strategies and critical reading ability and to view the notions of meta-cognitive awareness strategies and critical reading in the same horizon. For this purpose, we also need to have references to critical thinking because, as was mentioned above, critical reading roots in critical thinking. 1. 1. Statement of the problem For the improvement of critical reading, instructors should teach a variety of strategies that research has shown to be effective, like: generating questions and answering them, writing summaries, writing elaborations and using organizing strategies. The preceding strategies already seem to have been taken into account by Iranian teachers and learners. However, a potential problem in applying the mentioned strategies in reading comprehension can be the absence of meta-cognitive awareness about them. Hence, the researcher assumes that a set of meta-cognitive strategies can strengthen the above line of activity and foster the progress of critical reading. 1. 2. Research Question Is there any significant relationship between metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and critical reading ability? 3. Statement of the hypothesis The null hypothesis underlying this proposal is that there is not any significant relationship between meta-cognitive awareness of reading strategies and critical reading ability. 2. Method 2. 1. Participants A community sample of 130 male and female participated in this study in the second semester of 2010 majoring in English language literature and translation in Qom Islamic Azad University. They were all in their third and forth year. These students were asked if they would volunteer to participate in the study. Out of 130 participants who completed the questionnaires and tests, about 113 participants were accepted to participate in the study. 2. 2. Measure and Procedure The researchers visited the classes to administer one questionnaire and two tests. A total of 130 students were instructed to answer the proficiency test in one session and to the critical reading test and MARSI questionnaire at a later session. Students rated the items of MARSI, using a 5-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (I never do this) to 5 (I always do this). From this population, some students were eliminated because they had not properly completed their questionnaires. The general proficiency test (Nelson test, 300 B) comprised 50 multiple-choice and vocabulary items. The total score of the test was 50 and one point was assigned to each correct answer. The critical reading comprehension test consisted of four passages with 4 or 5 multiple-choice items for each passage. So the 20 items were scored by one point for each correct answer. Then the score for all items were added and an ultimate score was calculated. The range of scores for this test was between 9 to 18. For scoring the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory, the procedure proposed by Mokhtari Richad (2002) was used. A score was assigned to each answer which ranged from 1 to 5: never or almost never=1, occasionally=2, sometimes=3, usually=4, always=5. Then the scores for all items were added up and an ultimate score was calculated. The range of scores for this scale was between 46 to 146. 3. Data analysis To carry out the statistical analysis of the study, several statistical techniques were utilized: to calculate the reliability of the Nelson test, the Cronbach alpha (a) formula was utilized. In order to estimate the reliability of the critical reading comprehension test, the Cronbach alpha (a) formula was utilized. Considering the point that the participants will be assigned interval scores both for their meta-cognitive awareness and critical reading ability, the statistical analysis was Pearsons product Moment Coefficient of Correlation. Also, the reliability index of the translated version of MARSI was assessed by applying Cronbach alpha (a) formula. After administrating the instruments with the main subjects of the study and correcting the papers, the ultimate scores on critical reading comprehension test and MARSI were calculated and entered into SPSS. 3. Results In order to be certain of the homogeneity of the participants of the study in terms of language proficiency, a general language proficiency test (Nelson test) was utilized. The test was extracted from Nelson English language tests by W.S. Flower and Norman Goe (1976). It composed of 50 multiple choice grammar and vocabulary items. Through the pilot study, the reliability of the Nelson test was estimated and the following result was achieved: Table of reliability statisticsof the Language Proficiency Test (Nelson) Cronbachs Alpha N of Items .899 50 As it is noticed, the reliability of the Nelson test was estimated as .89 through the pilot study among 42 students, so the test enjoyed the acceptable reliability. The present study, also used a new self report measure, the Meta cognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) (Mokhtari Richard, 2002), which is designed to assess adolescent and adult readers awareness and perceived use of reading strategies while reading materials. According to the author of MARSI, the major purposes of developing of this inventory were to devise an instrument that would permit one to assess the degree to which a student is or is not aware of the various processes involved in reading and to make it possible to learn about the goals and intentions he or she holds with coping with reading tasks. As a result of employing this inventory, the second statistical procedure was to estimate the reliability of the translated version of Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) administered to the subjects in the pilot study. Table of reliability statistics of the translated version of MARSI Cronbachs Alpha N of Items .799 30 According to table 4. 2., the reliability index of the students answers to the MARSI, assessed by applying the Cronbach alpha (a) formula, was 0.79. In order to assess the participants ability in reading critically, a test of reading comprehension, extracted from a model TOEFL, was applied. The reliability of this test administered to the subjects in the pilot study was estimated to be: Table of reliability statistics of critical reading comprehension test Cronbachs Alpha N of Items .748 18 It is necessary to add that in order to validate the critical reading comprehension test, basically four steps were taken such as checking the content validity, face validity, criterion related validity, and construct validity. The procedure for each step can be found in the following in details. The test was compiled according to the recommendation of Alderson and Urquhart (1984). Four different texts were selected. The texts were found from among the materials suggested for preparation of language learners for TOEFL test. Of course it was evident that not any passage could qualify: the passages had to be of an independent entity and understandable without a larger context. However, the main principle in text selection was to find text types that Iranian students of English were likely to read critically. I also consulted my supervisor to ensure the content validity of the passages and also to get confident that the questions could not be answered without reading the passages critically. The texts found were also sent to my advisor to make sure if there were any specific issues to be reconsidered. At the end of each passage, four or five questions were asked. Answering to the questions would be almost impossible without reading the test critically. The text chosen represente d the following text types: a scientific text from a field relevant to Chemistry; a text containing materials about body language and communication; a passage about the sinking of the luxurious ship, Titanic ; a biographical passage about an influential citizen of the United States, John Muir. In addition to improving the test items through item analysis (item facility, item discrimination and choice distribution), the face validity of the test was examined in qualitative terms. The students in the pilot study were asked to state their reasons for estimating the reading test as being critical or not. The comments (40 students) were rather divided. Some disliked the test but many of them liked it. Those who liked it wrote that it required imagination, and cleverness and a few compared taking the reading test with doing philosophical reasoning. Those who disliked the test mostly argued that it required to test other abilities besides language proficiency (e. g. imagination). Some complained that the test was too difficult and that they could mainly perceive the structure of the sentences. For criterion related validity, the researcher followed the same procedure as Assar (2008). With the help of the Nelson language proficiency test and by running correlation between these sc ores and those obtained from the improved reading test, among 32 students who participated in the pilot study, the concurrent validity of the test was established with an index of 0.71. Finally the critical reading test was construct-validated. To this end, the researcher took a process oriented approach following the picture depicted by Hirano (2008) and devised a questionnaire based on the discussed issues found in the literature on critical thinking and reading. The questionnaire was piloted among 40 students. First, they took the critical reading comprehension test, and immediately after they were asked to answer the questions in the questionnaire. Through a frequency count, it was discovered that the test had led to a critical reading successfully. The following table shows the result of the students answers to the fifteen questions in the devised questionnaire by the researcher based on the discussed issues found in the literature on critical thinking and reading. The results in the Mean column show the average score for each of the fifteen questions calculated based on a liker scale for each question ranging from 0 to 3. Table of reliability statistics for the reliability of critical reading questionnaire Cronbachs Alpha N of Items .624 15 It is necessary to mention that after the reliability of the questionnaire for process validation of the reading comprehension test was calculated, the researcher tried to revise some of the questions. It is, therefore, hoped that further studies through the revised questionnaire will provide more reliable results. Finally we come to the research question, which was concerned with relationship between metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and critical reading ability of the students. To investigate this question, the Pearson product correlation coefficient was run. The result of statistics is presented in the following table: According to the above table, correlation is significant at the 0.01 level. By using Pearson product correlation coefficient formula, the correlation between the two variables was estimated as .70. That is, there is a significant relationship between metacognitive awareness of reading strategies (MARSI) and critical reading ability. The results have been illustrated in the following scatter plot graph: Graph/Scatter plot for Correlation coefficient between critical reading ability and meta-cognitive awareness of reading strategies The above scatter plot illustrates the correlation coefficient between critical reading ability and meta-cognitive awareness of reading strategies including 113 subjects. Variable 1 (Y axis) is related to meta-cognitive awareness of reading strategies in an interval scale up to 130; variable 2 (X axis) is related to critical reading ability in an interval scale from zero up to 20. 4. Discussion This study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between metacognitive awareness of reading strategies (MARSI) and critical reading ability of Iranian students majoring in fields of English translation and literature. The statistical results proved that there is a significant relationship between the two variables of metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and critical reading ability. So the present study has found evidence that good and poor students are significantly different in their awareness and perceived use of metacognitive strategies. That is, the more a student knows about how he learns, the better learner he will be. Therefore, helping students to be more aware of their metacognitive reading strategies plays an important role in not only developing their critical reading ability but also in their general reading comprehension ability. The results of this study can be compared and contrasted with those of other researchers. For instance, findings of the present study are in congruity with the study conducted by Parson (2002) whose major purpose of his study was to investigate the strength of the relationship between the use of metacognitive strategies and critical reading ability of the students. It was conducted, specifically, to test the effectiveness of a teaching procedure designed to improve critical reading ability by training students in metacognintive strategies. He discovered that the students who were instructed with this metacognitive training package (questioning, summarizing, predicting and speculating on the authors intended tone and purpose) should become more aware of their own mental processes and will demonstrate not only increased critical reading ability, but also increased general comprehension ability. Also, qualitative improvement noted in subjects strategy use provided sufficient evidence fo r further study into the effectiveness of this training procedure. Furthermore, the findings could indirectly support Icmezs (2009) findings who suggests that in a critical reading course, developing a competence in critical reading skills evokes curiosity and the novelty essential for students with high levels of proficiency. Finally, we can conclude that our findings here is in line with what Ajideh (2009) suggests, that poor readers in general lack effective metacognitive strategies and have little awareness on how to approach to reading. They also have deficiencies in the use of metacognitive strategies to monitor for their understanding of texts. In contrast, successful L2 readers know how to use appropriate strategies to enhance text comprehension. 5. Conclusion As mentioned previously, among the tools that students use to learn a second language, learning strategies have been given a crucial role in all academic studies. Language learning strategies have been known as a factor that differentiates successful language learning from unsuccessful language learning. In recent years, there has been an increasing awareness of the necessity to examine human personality in order to find solutions to the perplexing problems in language learning. It is evident that a student uses language learning strategies while he is under the influence of many linguistic, cognitive, and affective factors. Thus, such an intertwined network can provide an answer to the wide individual differences within the classroom. Also, the ability to critically analyze written materials has long been recognized as being crucial to the educational process. In this study, it has been tried to explore the relationship between metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and critical reading ability of the students. With respect to the research question, it was found that when the students show more metacognitive awareness of strategies, they can read more critically and therefore it is more probable that they score higher on reading comprehension test. Based on the results, it can be concluded that there is a meaningful relationship between the students metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and their performance on critical reading comprehension test. Therefore, metacognitive strategies could provide the missing link between cognitive processes and critical reading ability. Metacognition refers to ones awareness of and control over his/her own mental processes (Brown, 2007). Consequently, it is worth mentioning that the relationship demonstrated here is only part of a complex picture, which reveals just some of the factors operating in mind of our students that warrant investigation. It should be mentioned that language learners strategies and their effect in the process of learning is a highly complex issue. Therefore, metacognitive strategy awareness may not be just the only aspect of this achievement in learning; rather, we need to investigate other types of language learning strategies and look at what helps the students to increase their ability in achieving the best results. 6. Implications The present study has found evidence which supports previous research findings that demonstrated that good and poor students are significantly different in their awareness and perceived use of metacognitive strategies. That is, the more a student knows about how he learns, the better learner he will be. Therefore, helping students to be more aware of their metacognitive reading strategies plays an important role in not only developing their critical reading ability but also in their general reading comprehension ability. So based on the above results, the finding of the study can have implications for teachers in reading classes. To be more specific, training good readers means more than just improving their knowledge about language structure and general study skills, and it needs raising their awareness of metacognitive strategies for critical reading. Also the results in this study may have implications for reading comprehension assessment. As mentioned before, critical reading skills are essential for the students with high level of proficiency. That is the higher the level of proficiency, the higher the ability for critical reading. Therefore, one of the factors to be included in the assessment of language proficiency can be the ability to read critically especially at higher level of proficiency.

Experiences of Youth in Nazi Germany 1933-1945 Essay -- World War 2 WW

Young people in Nazi Germany during the period between 1933 and 1945 had many different experiences according to the category of society in which they fell. This was determined by Nazi ideology regarding the supreme importance of maintaining the purity of the Aryan master race. All other ethnic groups were regarded as inferior, and this policy was pursued through force, propaganda and education. Jewish children, Hitler Youth, Swing Kids, and the disabled had very diverse treatment under Hitler's rule. They all had differing experiences due to Hitler's belief in the master race. The reason for these different experiences is Nazi ideology. Hitler's entire philosophy was based on a racist view of humanity. He believed that the Aryans must struggle against the Jews and defeat them, or be destroyed themselves, ?Those who want to live, let them fight and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.? Some youth groups fitted Hitler?s ideal German, but some did not, and that is the reason why they suffered such brutal experiences. Jewish youth in Nazi Germany suffered greatly after January 1933 when the Nazis came into power. Some rich Jewish families could afford to leave Germany but many could not. Hitler had made plain his hatred for Jews in Mein Kampf, ?If you cut even cautiously into such a sore, you find like a maggot in a rotting body, often dazzled by the sudden light ? a Jew.? Hitler blamed Jews for all the misfortunes that had fallen Germany. Children at schools were taught specifically anti-Semitic ideas. Jewish students were openly ridiculed by teachers and the bullying of Jews in the playground went unpunished. Hitler believed that if the Jewish children responded by not wanting ... ...asures against them included cutting their hair, sending their leaders to concentration camps and sending them back to school under close supervision. In 1942 Himmler wrote to Heydrich telling him to get stricter with the ringleaders of the Swing movement. Soon after, clubs were raided and participants were taken to camps. Himmler said, ?I cannot but see that we have taken only half measures. All ringleaders are into a concentration camp to be re-educated?detention must be 2-3 years.? In conclusion, most of the Hitler Youth fit into the category of Hitler?s ideal German. They were kept in high regard except they were worked to the extreme and if they were not good enough, they were killed off. However, the swing kids, the Jews and the disabled did not. Hitler loathed these groups and did what he could to exterminate them. This was all due to Hitler?s Nazi ideology.

Physics Unit Notes

Single disturbance is called a pulse A series of pulses is called a wave In the case of the impatient student, his disturbance was parallel to the direction of the wave itself. Also called a Longitudinal Wave WAVES Waves can transmit two things O Can transmit energy 0 Ex. Light waves from the sun heat the earth O Can transmit information 0 Ex. Radio wave When the motion of the particles is perpendicular to the motion of the wave, it is called a traverse wave Pointing down Acceleration downWave We see the motion of the medium Soundwaves air Lightwaves = electromagnetic waves Stadium waves people Water waves -> water Light waves no medium Pointing up Acceleration up Without tension, there can be no traverse waves in a medium. -> Do not occur inside liquids and gases can occur on surface of water though Inner core of earth has a liquid core, because traverse waves do not got through Earthquakes can produce traverse, longitudinal, or a combination of the two. ongitudinal = compression, t ravel fast, primary (happen first) traverse = aves†, secondary (happen second) -> longer delay between S and P waves, means greater distance from the epicenter B) C) D) Crest Trough Amplitude Wavelenght Cycle one complete wavelength Amplitude half the distance from crest and trough Wavelength -> distance of one complete cycle (Sl units = meters) Period (T) time for one wavelength to pass (Sl Units = seconds) Frequency (f) number of cycles that pass by per time interval = Cycles per second = 1 Hertz (Hz) and Ex. f=2 Hz = T=. 5 seconds Swing?Applied force at a regular interval, causes you to go higher, high amplitude All object will vibrate of oscillate at a certain frequency called the natural frequency A pendulum (or swing) will swing back and forth at a natural frequency that depends only on it's lenght When a system is driven at it's natural frequency (forces applied in rhythm with the natural frequency), Physics Unit 4 Page 1 The shorter the stick, the higher the Natural fr equency. natural frequency), the oscillations will get bigger. This s termed resonance. If two things have the same natural frequency, And you hit one, the second will also begin to vibrate Energy Transfer

Boundaryless Organizations

In deciding issues such a distribution of authority, reporting relationships, span of control and centralization/decentralization, the structure of the organization will result. It is worth noting that the current tendency is to move to flatter organization having fewer hierarchical levels and more flexible reporting arrangements. This is what a boundaryless organization is about. As a different view of organizational structure, it is not defined by, or limited to, the boundaries imposed by a predefined structure. Boundaries in this context can be external and internal in nature.Internal boundaries are horizontal boundaries imposed by work specialization and departmentalization and vertical boundaries that separate employees into organizational levels and hierarchies. The external boundaries are those that separate the organization from its customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. The boundaryless organization breaks down the artificial boundaries created by a design such as dep artmentalization and hierarchies, and the external boundaries separating the organization from its suppliers, customers and other stakeholders.General Electric’s former chairman, Jack Welch, coined the term boundaryless organization to describe is idea of what he wanted GE to become (Ashkenas, Ulrich, Jick and Kerr (1995). It has been called by different names since: the 21st century network organization, modular corporation, the new corporate model, the new corporate architecture or virtual corporation, to name a few. And because it relies heavily on information technology, some have turned to calling this structure the T-form (or technology-based) organization.Industries and Organizations Suitable for a Boundaryless Organizational Structure From its foundation, more than one hundred years ago, the learning of organizations has rested on a single conjecture: that there is and/or should be a sole ‘right’ structure of organization. This ‘one-size-fits-allâ⠂¬â„¢ thought still keeps on until today. What is offered as the ‘one right’ business structure has altered on more than one occasion, but the exploration for the one-size-fitting-all organizations continues these days.Probably the most suitable organization for a boundaryless organizational structure is manufacturing companies which operate on a global scale. However, it may be noted that no one structure meets all the business requirements under all conditions. It is always important to periodically evaluate the organization structure to determine whether it is still appropriate to the changing needs. The decision maker should list the strengths and weaknesses of each structural alternative and also develop business priorities for attributes such as cycle-time reduction or scale/scope of manufacturing, etc.Then the choice of structure can be made to meet the top priorities. Advantages In recent years, many organizations have attempted to become more boundaryless by ma intaining flatter structures and allowing a more free flow of communication and influence with customers and suppliers. As an example, a boundaryless organization might encourage the contracting of services across functional or product-line boundaries. With such contracting comes closer contact and natural development of customer-supplier relationships between previously separated groups.One specific example increasingly common in recent years involves the contracting of human resource services between an HR department and other units of an organization. The boundaryless organization aims to do away with pecking order, have unlimited span of control, and substitute units with empowered teams. The breaking down of boundaries between an organization and its external customers has also caused those customers to take a more active role toward the organization and its management.For example, in service settings that have adopted boundaryless orientations, external customers increasingly become more involved in the design and delivery of the company’s HRM practices. By taking away vertical boundaries, the management evens out the chain of command. Status and rank are minimized and becomes flexible and responsive. Another advantage is that it dissolves temporal, geographical, hierarchical, legal and economic boundaries.The extent to which an organization has attempted to reshape its boundaries structurally toward boundarylessness coincides with the appropriateness of 360 ° degree feedback. For example, a flatter structure would increase the need for upward appraisals and feedback, as managers attempt to gauge the effectiveness of their leadership behaviors. Disadvantages Any discussion of the benefits or transcendence of the boundaryless organization should, however, consider the limitations and disadvantages of this new structure.These may include lack of control due to the increase in its span, communication difficulties due to personality and cultural dif ferences, stifling of innovation, ambiguities in the nature of relationships, asymmetric commitment, conflict in control, loss of autonomy and security, time lags, managing complexity, structural constraints, narrow managerial perspectives, manipulation and ulterior motives, mismatched or incomplete knowledge and competence, increased dependencies and so on. Also, the fact that people are motivated by different things and in different ways is something that managers are constantly conscious of.Thus, there are times when delayering and the flattening of hierarchies can create insecurity and lower staff morale (Peters, 1992). During the process, employees usually feel that they are being stripped off their responsibilities, interpreting it as lack of trust on the part of the management. Creating a Boundaryless Organization Picot, Reichwald and Wigand (2008) observed that there have been copious cases of businesses delayering their organizational structures in recent years. According t o advocates of the structure, one of the most effective ways of building responsiveness into organizations is to eliminate layers of management.The benefits gained from delayering could be fully realized only through a number of significant accompanying organizational changes. Looking more into internal training to meet the firms’ needs, citing cost pressures to cut back on spending for occupational training and outsourcing, which pushes the costs of training lower down the supply chain, often onto small and medium size enterprises which are in no position to finance such training are a number of ways to overcoming any problems that the delayering process creates.The managers’ and leaders’ role into this process, since they are the management people coming in closest contact with the employees, is to communicate, consult and plan on the measures that need to be taken in order for the delayering process to become beneficial to the organization as a whole.Cross-hi erarchical teams (which includes top executives, middle managers, supervisors and operative employees), participative decision-making practices, and the use of 360-degrees performance appraisals (in which peers and others above and below the employee evaluate his or her performance) are examples of what a boundaryless organization should be doing to break down vertical boundaries. Conclusion Many factors have contributed to the rise of the boundaryless organization. One is the need to respond to rapidly changing, highly competitive global markets.Another factor is new technology, such as computers and telecommunications that permits organizations to work more effectively. Employees then have a vast amount of information at their fingertips through an intranet. This idea may sound odd, yet many of today’s most successful organizations are finding that they can operate more effectively in today’s environment by remaining flexible and unstructured: that the ideal structur e for them is not having a rigid, predefined structure.WORKS CITED Ashkenas, R. , Ulrich, D. , Jick, T. & Kerr, S. (1995). The Boundaryless Organization: Breaking the Chains of Organizational Structure. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Peters, T. (1992). Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties. London: Macmillan Picot, A. , Reichwald, R. & Wigand, R. (2008). Information, Organization and Management. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

The Pros and Cons if “Sonny’s Blues” has a Different Ending Essay Example

The Pros and Cons if â€Å"Sonny’s Blues† has a Different Ending Essay Example The Pros and Cons if â€Å"Sonny’s Blues† has a Different Ending Paper The Pros and Cons if â€Å"Sonny’s Blues† has a Different Ending Paper Essay Topic: Pros and Cons The Sonny’s Blues novel of James Baldwin has a very fundamental and decisive ending. The scene of the ending is in the jazz club where Sonny, brother of the undisclosed narrator in the story, is one of the musicians. The narrator agreed to with his brother to the club which he prejudged as full of darkness not beneficial and favorable to his brother. Sonny has an addiction to heroin which made him more distant to his brother because the narrator wants his brother to have a good life. This good life he is speaking of is like his life where he sees all things under idealistic view. But in this ending, the narrator learned to â€Å"listen† to his brother about his addiction. If the ending could have been different, one of the pros behind is that the message of the story could have been different. The symbolisms and the idioms within the story will relate different notions to different readers. There is also the possibility that the impact of this novel to the literature world could have been different as well. It may lead to a more famous James Baldwin if it turned out better or an average Baldwin because this novel has been the beginning of James Baldwin recognition in the literature world. There is also the possibility that the scope of readers it covers is wider aside from the depressed and anguished. The impact could have been better if the ending is revised in a different way as long as the continuity of thoughts of the story must not be disintegrated or disengaged. The original ending is very â€Å"pro† in relation to the whole story because it reveals and bares the degree of changes in the narrator’s life and view. This is further emphasized through a flashback of the narrator’s last conversation with his mother where his mother warned and requested him to hold onto his brother and to not let him fall no matter what is happening to his brother and no matter how evil he gets to his brother. She told the narrator that he might get evil to his brother many times but he must not forget what his mother told and requested him (Baldwin, 2002). Without thinking, the narrator made a promise to his mother that he will not allow anything to happen to Sonny. Her dying mother smiled because she was amused of the innocence behind that promise. Through the ending in the jazz club where Sonny was on stage playing and the narrator met his brother’s friends, fellow musicians, and patrons, he saw the appreciation they had to Sonny in a way the narrator is never was to his brother. The narrator starts to appreciate, recognize, and realize the importance of jazz and blues music to Sonny. Instead of aiming and forcing Sonny to fit and adapt to his world, the other way around, he was in Sonny’s world or rather his kingdom were he grasp that n this world flows a royal blood in Sonny’s vein compared to his. The narrator analyzed that jazz music was his brother’s and other artists’ way to express their agony, suffering, and fear instead of being addicted to heroin. What then plays in Sonny’s music was his life along with other artists’ lives. The misery and distress of the brothers from the beginning of the story and how they struggled to handle these problems made them different. The narrator handled it through keeping it within himself like an ice that made it all hard for him. Thus, he even considered Sonny’s struggles as his own that made him cautious anytime if Sonn y’s addiction will come back. Compared to Sonny, he is strong enough to face the reality of his problems and faced them through his music to release it. This final scene further exemplifies the tragedies that befell his parents, the death of the narrator’s daughter of polio, and sorrow of his wife which are the other highlights of the story as well. The narrator was touched with the music and felt its power that let him faced his pain right then. On the other hand, one of the cons if the ending could have been different is the possibility that the impact to the readers of the novel might be towards the negative side. There is also the possibility of discontinuity of thoughts of the story. If the style of the ending would be changed too, the impact of the story and its purpose is diverted or changed. But with the prowess of Baldwin in writing, even with a different ending this might not occur.

Free Essays on Store Layout

Store Layout The store layout of all our stores is based on one of the following architectures: Grid layout - layout that displays merchandise in straight, parallel lines, with secondary aisles at ninety-degree angle. A classical style that leaves enough mobility and store visibility even for the most critical customer. Free-flow layout - an asymmetrical arrangement of merchandise that encourages unstructured traffic movement. Ideally suited for stores that display mixed assortments of diverse products with asymmetric space requirements. Loop or Boutique Layout - a layout that divides merchandise into shops within the store. Ideally suitable for a store displaying strong individual categories or brands. watch out the inside story of our stores having a mixture blend of all the layouts, meant for the customer convenience In supermarkets, fixtures are arranged in grid patterns beginning at the checkout. These grids that extend to the rear of the store allow customers to walk through and around classifications for easy shopping and orderly merchandise location. Merchandise classifications in supermarkets are normally presented in order of sales volume. Store locations with high traffic and visibility are better than those with low traffic and low visibility. The latter are areas with low sellers. The former are for strong sellers. Not all space can yield high volume because of customer demand. Close to the supermarket entrance are the high-volume produce department, which requires fixtures that provide light, cooling services, and water, are deep enough to hold quantities of produce. Impulse items are located in the first grocery aisle. Along the back wall meats progress to the adjacent wall where frozen and dairy products such as milk and yogurt are generally presented. Because diets are changing, product location in supermarkets should be reviewed frequently. Hot items that drew customers t... Free Essays on Store Layout Free Essays on Store Layout Store Layout The store layout of all our stores is based on one of the following architectures: Grid layout - layout that displays merchandise in straight, parallel lines, with secondary aisles at ninety-degree angle. A classical style that leaves enough mobility and store visibility even for the most critical customer. Free-flow layout - an asymmetrical arrangement of merchandise that encourages unstructured traffic movement. Ideally suited for stores that display mixed assortments of diverse products with asymmetric space requirements. Loop or Boutique Layout - a layout that divides merchandise into shops within the store. Ideally suitable for a store displaying strong individual categories or brands. watch out the inside story of our stores having a mixture blend of all the layouts, meant for the customer convenience In supermarkets, fixtures are arranged in grid patterns beginning at the checkout. These grids that extend to the rear of the store allow customers to walk through and around classifications for easy shopping and orderly merchandise location. Merchandise classifications in supermarkets are normally presented in order of sales volume. Store locations with high traffic and visibility are better than those with low traffic and low visibility. The latter are areas with low sellers. The former are for strong sellers. Not all space can yield high volume because of customer demand. Close to the supermarket entrance are the high-volume produce department, which requires fixtures that provide light, cooling services, and water, are deep enough to hold quantities of produce. Impulse items are located in the first grocery aisle. Along the back wall meats progress to the adjacent wall where frozen and dairy products such as milk and yogurt are generally presented. Because diets are changing, product location in supermarkets should be reviewed frequently. Hot items that drew customers t...

Parents, Make the Most Out of College Tours With Your Teen

The college admissions process isn’t just difficult for the teens who endure it themselves. It’s difficult for their parents, too, and some of us might even argue that we’re up at night just as often as they are, silently stressing about the process. If you’re like many parents going through the college admissions process, you might struggle to find the balance between supportive cheerleader and overbearing taskmaster. This can be particularly true during parts of the process that you undertake together, such as college visits. You may feel that you have a financial and personal interest in your child’s college search and as such, it can be difficult to take a backseat. Rest assured, though, that you can still support and encourage your child before, during, and after college visits without making the visit more about your interests than your child’s. In this post, we’ll discuss how you can help your teen to prepare for a college visit, how you can support your teen during a college tour, and how you can help your teen to process his or her impressions afterwards. To learn more about how to make the most of college tours with your teen, keep reading. Before the tour itself, make sure that your teen understands that college tours aren’t a passive process. He or she should be prepared to ask valuable, insightful questions to help guide his or her experience. Encourage your child to research the school in advance, learning about departments or programs that might be of interest and compiling a list of genuine questions, the answers to which might be valuable when it comes time to apply to colleges. Also help your teen to make a list of â€Å"not-to-be-missed† sites, both on and off campus. It’s impossible for a college tour to include every little place on campus, and most include very little or even nothing of the surrounding area. Your student might be interested in seeing all of the freshman housing options, the athletic fields, or the chemistry lab, but these may or may not be featured during the formal tour. Don’t be afraid to seek them out together after the tour finishes up. Similarly, there might be some off-campus spots of interest, too. Maybe there is a coffee shop around the corner, renowned for being a popular study spot, or a walking trail popular among locals. Maybe your teen is interested in pursuing a job off campus or finding volunteer opportunities. Check these places out now together so that your teen knows what to expect later. Doing some homework ahead of time can mean that college visits are more efficient and effective, leaving fewer questions open when the time comes to send commitment letters. Your teen is probably blushing in advance at the prospect of your overbearing excitement and excessive enthusiasm during a college tour. While it’s natural to be excited and to try to get your child excited too, the tour is the time to dial back your own reactions in order to allow your teen to take the lead and shine. One way to ensure that your student really takes ownership of the experience is by delegating yourself to the spectator role. Allow your teen the opportunity to be the one asking questions and guiding his or her own experience. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you need a gag and blindfold, though. You can take some casual notes and pictures without attracting too much attention. Try to record details that you think your student might find valuable later on. For example, if your child is into acting, taking a brief video of the tour as it passes by the theater might be of interest for your child to review later. This is a simple and unobtrusive way to lend a hand, while your student is busy watching and listening. Our Early Advising Program helps students in 9th and 10th grade discover their passions and build strong academic and extracurricular profiles to succeed in high school. Afterwards, while the college tour is still fresh in your minds, have a thoughtful conversation with your teen about it. Sit down over a cup of coffee or a snack and encourage your student to reflect on the pros and cons that he or she perceived. Be careful not to offer too much of your own perspective at first. It’s important to hear your teen’s unfiltered perspective first. If you feel there are important things that he or she is forgetting, casually mentioning them is one way to steer the conversation without providing too much of your own opinion. Remember, your teen needs to be at the helm for this experience. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can’t lend your insights. Once your teen has given some feedback, feel free to give yours, too. Try to frame things in a way that is productive for your student. For example, instead of telling your teen that you’re worried he or she won’t be able to get around without a car and limited public transportation options, ask your teen if he or she noticed any bus stations nearby. If your student doesn’t remember, you may suggest that he or she investigates transportation options more in the future. It can also be helpful to remind your student to write down his or her initial impressions along with a pro/con list as soon as possible after the tour. This will serve as a valuable record later in the college decision process. File it someplace accessible, preferably in the college files that your student has already started. Visiting colleges can sometimes be a stressful experience for parents and teens alike. Approach the visit as a team, allowing your child to guide the experience, and think of yourself as a sounding board. Lend your insights once you’ve heard your child’s, and remember that this visit can be a time to bond together for a successful and productive college tour. If you feel your teen could use some more insight from an outside source, consider the benefits of the Near Peer Mentorship Program , which provides access to practical advice on topics from college admissions to career aspirations, all from successful college students. To learn more about the parent’s role in the college admissions process, check out these posts:

Reexamining illegal Immigration under the labelling theory Research Paper

Reexamining illegal Immigration under the labelling theory - Research Paper Example This is the current situation at hand. Conservative Americans say that the government has coddled illegal immigrants far too long, and given the current bleak state of the US economy, this is prejudicial to ordinary Americans citizens. Those of immigrant heritage, on the other hand, particularly the Latinos, call for less stringent immigration measures, and continue to go to the US to escape the poverty and desperation in their home countries. Immigration policies are hotly contested and draw divisive lines across the nation. The past quarter has seen the administration of Barack Obama extend a hand to immigrants and counter the anti-immigration wave in the United States. In a news report dated August 19, 2011 by the Los Angeles Times (2011, Internet), the Obama administration was reported to make a commitment to review the cases of 300,000 illegal immigrants who are on deportation trials, and determining what was labeled as â€Å"low-priority† offenders. This includes the eld erly, victims of crimes, and generally those who would otherwise make contributions to American society as upstanding citizens. The review was announced by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. This was widely seen as an effort by Obama to reach out to Latinos who helped him in his candidacy. It is also to be noted that Obama had deported â€Å"393,000 people in the 2010 fiscal year, with an overall deportation record that far exceeds his predecessor, George Bush.† (Foley, 2011, Internet). In another immigrant-friendly move, the Obama administration was also reported to have filed a lawsuit to block Alabama’s immigration law, said to be the toughest anti-illegal immigration set of policies... The study notifies that President Obama has been subjected to a lot of criticism as a result of his gestures towards illegal immigrants. This is because the general perception against the illegal immigrant population remains to be negative. They are perceived to be deviants. Certainly, they are going against their law by virtue of the fact that they are in a country when it is not legally permissible for them to be in it. However, the manner with which they have been portrayed or caricaturized by media and by the public at large goes beyond violation of the law. Indeed, stereotypes and labels are attached to them. But how did the labeling of illegal immigrants happen? It is important to note that the process of labeling begins at the behest of a ‘moral entrepreneur’, who makes a claim that some behavior or action is wrong and then makes new rules or code of conduct in order to stop that behavior or action, and punish the actor. They package their efforts as a moral crusa de, but what really happens is that â€Å"they add to the power they derive from the legitimacy of their moral position the power they derive from their superior position in society". In illegal immigration in the United States, the moral entrepreneurs were those who expressed objections to the unfettered entry of Mexicans into American soil, a phenomenon made complicated by the fact that many of the wealthy and powerful took advantage of the cheap labor provided by these immigrants. Bustamante presented a fascinating description of the beginnings or root of this labeling of illegal immigrants:

Identifying Characteristics of Gifted Children Essay

Identifying Characteristics of Gifted Children - Essay Example There has been a debate regarding nurturing and dealing with gifted children with normal children, and one can observe mix responses of experts and nonprofessionals. Still, experts believe that it is very imperative that parents identify particular characteristics in their gifted children, as their ignorance or avoidance may result in adverse outcomes, and in other words, it is very important that gifted children should receive proper guidance or path to utilize their skills, an absence of a platform may result in inappropriate usage. Analysis has indicated that gifted children usually have the ability to carry out any creative task like a professional artist, for instance, they can create paintings at the age of eight without any professional training. There have been few instances of gifted children reading professionally at the age of three or four. Particularly, experts believe, â€Å"Gifted children interpret life differently from others† (Distin, pp. 22-23). In this rega rd, it is essential that parents and teachers play a significant role in identifying different perceptions and skills of gifted children, and at the same time, they appreciate their different skills and perspectives (Distin, pp. 22-23). ... l that is very uncommon in gifted children, there is a possibility that the same child will be doing something exceptional at home or somewhere else, and here, one requires efforts of parents and teachers to identify their skills and extraordinary talent. In addition, a majority of studies have recognized higher retaining power of gifted children that is one of the major reasons for their exceptional achievements on academic, as well as non-academic levels. On one hand, gifted children have a higher IQ level; on the other hand, experts and psychologists have always found gifted children to be highly sensitive, and thus, parents and teachers should stay ready to expect adult behavior at one time and a little crying child at the next minute. In this regard, one can go for dealing with gifted children along with normal children; however, once again it will be a tiring experience and will require a huge amount of efforts. Moreover, gifted children’s needs would not be in any diffe rent from that of normal children; however, case studies have identified a few problems and issues with the gifted children. For instance, gifted children will need a higher amount of care and consideration in terms of their emotional development (Distin, pp. 157). In addition, most of the gifted children show impatient characteristics, as they are always full of ideas. However, they expect same abilities from others and when they do not get similar responses; it results in impatience and irresistible behaviors at times that can be troublesome. Another important thing to consider while dealing with gifted children is their resistance against directions.

Correctional Sex Offender Programs Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Correctional Sex Offender Programs - Assignment Example Although the Washington Department of Correction’s program is not the first of its kind, it is the first of its kind that has exhibited such a high level of success and has carefully laid out the methods by which such successful results have been obtained. As such, it will be the purpose of this brief analysis to analyze the Washington Department of Correction’s unique program in order to draw inference on the many ways in which offenders are conditioned and taught to release the negative risk factors that initially encouraged them to commit crime it the first place. Additionally, inference will be drawn based on whether or not the program should be implemented in other prison communities around the United States (McAlinden, 2007). It is interesting to note that the Washington Department of Correction’s program (also known as the Monroe Program) emphasizes a system of acknowledgement and action that is not dissimilar from that of patently successful programs such as AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and others (Leon, 2011). As a function of this, the first steps that are taken revolve around impressing upon the participating individual that they are responsible for their actions (Ward, 2003). Consequently, the program focuses on teaching the offenders to understand and target those patterns that initially spurred them to criminal behavior. Once this information has been learned and accepted (again acceptance of responsibility and a commitment to work to learn attitudes, thinking skills, behaviors that can assist this practice is a fundamental concept of this re-orientation) the program then moves on to the familiar ground that many rehabilitation programs cover; that of teaching new trades/crafts/or skills to the inmate (Osborn, 2007). Furthermore, the Monroe Program additionally offers group therapy sessions that are concentric around the topics of responsibility, patterns that work to regulate the behavior, relapse prevention, community re-integr ation approaches, as well as skills and workforce training (Briggs, 2006). Likewise, with many offender rehabilitation programs, the Monroe Program does not offer its treatments wholesale to sex offenders (Marshall, 2006). There are a list of criterion that must be met prior to the course being offered. These include: the offender must have been convicted of a sex offense for his/her current or previous term of incarceration, the offender must agree to monitor themselves and their environment to detect changes indicating that their risk to reoffend is increasing, the offender must agree to work to develop the skills necessary to intervene, manager, and reduce risky behavior, and the offender must volunteer of their own free will under the belief that the program can work to ameliorate their risk as it relates to committing crimes of a sexual nature (MacKenzie, 2006). However, the results of the program speak for themselves. Whereas many prison rehabilitation programs have low re-off ense rates, currently and past literature on the issue has often indicated that sexual offenders are somehow beyond reclamation (Noles, 2008). This is however not what the results of Washington Department of Corrections Monroe Program exhibits. According to the Washington Depart

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

Tesco - Research Paper Example In 1997, Tesco set out a strategy to expand its core business. This later resulted in the establishment of online marketing initiative. It also set out to diversify its products and services, in existing and new markets. This strategy helped Tesco to penetrate the newer UK markets successfully, as well as Europe, Asia, and recently, the United States of America. One of Tesco’s business strategies today is to expand its UK market. This is its biggest business and there are more growth opportunities here. From back in 1997, Tesco has wanted to be the most successful international retailer. In 1997, the international business generated 1.8% of Tesco’s profits. This later increased to 25%. If their business plans succeed in the UK, it is probable that the same will even apply to other markets. It is however worrying how the shoppers in UK have lost trust in Tesco and instead prefer to shop from their competitors. If Tesco does not win back trust in their markets, then it ri sks, more major loses, as UK has been its largest market (Duff, 2006). Tesco needs new management, marketing, and business strategies, in order to revive its UK market. The fall of UK market has been growing gradually over the last five years, probably due to the founding of newer markets in the US and parts of China. In an Economist article, an anonymous author feels that, for Tesco to compensate the costs of running the new markets, it had to readjust their business operations in the UK. This involved reducing employee numbers, and lowering prices in order to attract more shoppers. The UK market was neglected as all efforts and attention were drawn on establishing the new overseas markets. Diversification is another problem that Tesco needs to address in order to regain root in UK. Apart from running food-and-drinks stores, it runs a law firm, a bank, among others. Therefore, Tesco

Brazilian Music and Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Brazilian Music and Culture - Essay Example Accessibility of music is thus a complex phenomenon that encompasses these features and others that will be explored by this paper with specific reference to the Brazilian carnival and how it relates to the social conditions of the country. Eisentraut asserts that to understand music, it can be categorized into physical, personal and participatory classes1. Accordingly, this paper will start the scrutiny commencing with a draft description of the Brazilian culture and music for the period of the carnival. Globalization has led to more contact with music and in particular to spread of the allure of the carnival across very many nations, with as much 500,000 guest attending the Rio de Janeiro carnival in the year 2013. Historical Background of the Carnival Brazil usually host some of the most vivacious and exuberant carnival celebrations in the world, though other countries most notably china also host carnival celebrations. The carnival celebrations in Brazil can be traced back to Cat holic countries in Europe, these were parties hosted before the Lent (these were the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness). The celebrations were customarily concluded on Ash Wednesday during which people appreciated the phase of non-indulgence for forty days. The term ‘carnival’ is said to have been derived from the Latin word carne levare, which means ‘to remove meat’, during the Lent eating of meat by Catholics is forbidden. The carnival has since moved from the religious nature of the party to a more of a street party composed of lots of music, dancing and elegant displays of costumes. It has retained the celebrations, as they take place before the Ash Wednesday that is between Saturday and Tuesday. The world’s most famous and arguably, the biggest street carnival is the Rio de Janeiro one, Salvador does also host a comparatively big street carnival. Street celebrations do take an array of styles throughout the country, different towns and ci ties across the country have street carnivals where live bands march along the streets playing sambas and marchas, and they are then followed by very many carnival enthusiasts. Music component in the carnival Music genres played during the festival varies across the country with each region’s style an indication of European, African and Indo-American influence2. The genres reveal significant differences in the styles and music played between the North Eastern region and that of the South Eastern region. The music performed in the North Eastern areas is generally samba, samba-reggae and axe. This music style derives a lot of influence from the African music more specifically from the Yoruba slaves brought from West Africa; they composed and performed their song in a bid to show union amongst themselves and to denounce slavery3. As early as in the late 1800s the black population in this region began commemorating the festival with their own unique style. In the streets of Olind a and Recife, the music played during the carnival is mostly the local favourite genre the frevo, in addition to this genre maracatu, samba, samba reggae, axe amongst others are also played. In the state of Bahia, during the carnival it is common to spot trio electricos- these are long Lorries full of musicians playing loud and deafening music

Correctional Sex Offender Programs Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Correctional Sex Offender Programs - Assignment Example Although the Washington Department of Correction’s program is not the first of its kind, it is the first of its kind that has exhibited such a high level of success and has carefully laid out the methods by which such successful results have been obtained. As such, it will be the purpose of this brief analysis to analyze the Washington Department of Correction’s unique program in order to draw inference on the many ways in which offenders are conditioned and taught to release the negative risk factors that initially encouraged them to commit crime it the first place. Additionally, inference will be drawn based on whether or not the program should be implemented in other prison communities around the United States (McAlinden, 2007). It is interesting to note that the Washington Department of Correction’s program (also known as the Monroe Program) emphasizes a system of acknowledgement and action that is not dissimilar from that of patently successful programs such as AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and others (Leon, 2011). As a function of this, the first steps that are taken revolve around impressing upon the participating individual that they are responsible for their actions (Ward, 2003). Consequently, the program focuses on teaching the offenders to understand and target those patterns that initially spurred them to criminal behavior. Once this information has been learned and accepted (again acceptance of responsibility and a commitment to work to learn attitudes, thinking skills, behaviors that can assist this practice is a fundamental concept of this re-orientation) the program then moves on to the familiar ground that many rehabilitation programs cover; that of teaching new trades/crafts/or skills to the inmate (Osborn, 2007). Furthermore, the Monroe Program additionally offers group therapy sessions that are concentric around the topics of responsibility, patterns that work to regulate the behavior, relapse prevention, community re-integr ation approaches, as well as skills and workforce training (Briggs, 2006). Likewise, with many offender rehabilitation programs, the Monroe Program does not offer its treatments wholesale to sex offenders (Marshall, 2006). There are a list of criterion that must be met prior to the course being offered. These include: the offender must have been convicted of a sex offense for his/her current or previous term of incarceration, the offender must agree to monitor themselves and their environment to detect changes indicating that their risk to reoffend is increasing, the offender must agree to work to develop the skills necessary to intervene, manager, and reduce risky behavior, and the offender must volunteer of their own free will under the belief that the program can work to ameliorate their risk as it relates to committing crimes of a sexual nature (MacKenzie, 2006). However, the results of the program speak for themselves. Whereas many prison rehabilitation programs have low re-off ense rates, currently and past literature on the issue has often indicated that sexual offenders are somehow beyond reclamation (Noles, 2008). This is however not what the results of Washington Department of Corrections Monroe Program exhibits. According to the Washington Depart

Brazilian Music and Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Brazilian Music and Culture - Essay Example Accessibility of music is thus a complex phenomenon that encompasses these features and others that will be explored by this paper with specific reference to the Brazilian carnival and how it relates to the social conditions of the country. Eisentraut asserts that to understand music, it can be categorized into physical, personal and participatory classes1. Accordingly, this paper will start the scrutiny commencing with a draft description of the Brazilian culture and music for the period of the carnival. Globalization has led to more contact with music and in particular to spread of the allure of the carnival across very many nations, with as much 500,000 guest attending the Rio de Janeiro carnival in the year 2013. Historical Background of the Carnival Brazil usually host some of the most vivacious and exuberant carnival celebrations in the world, though other countries most notably china also host carnival celebrations. The carnival celebrations in Brazil can be traced back to Cat holic countries in Europe, these were parties hosted before the Lent (these were the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness). The celebrations were customarily concluded on Ash Wednesday during which people appreciated the phase of non-indulgence for forty days. The term ‘carnival’ is said to have been derived from the Latin word carne levare, which means ‘to remove meat’, during the Lent eating of meat by Catholics is forbidden. The carnival has since moved from the religious nature of the party to a more of a street party composed of lots of music, dancing and elegant displays of costumes. It has retained the celebrations, as they take place before the Ash Wednesday that is between Saturday and Tuesday. The world’s most famous and arguably, the biggest street carnival is the Rio de Janeiro one, Salvador does also host a comparatively big street carnival. Street celebrations do take an array of styles throughout the country, different towns and ci ties across the country have street carnivals where live bands march along the streets playing sambas and marchas, and they are then followed by very many carnival enthusiasts. Music component in the carnival Music genres played during the festival varies across the country with each region’s style an indication of European, African and Indo-American influence2. The genres reveal significant differences in the styles and music played between the North Eastern region and that of the South Eastern region. The music performed in the North Eastern areas is generally samba, samba-reggae and axe. This music style derives a lot of influence from the African music more specifically from the Yoruba slaves brought from West Africa; they composed and performed their song in a bid to show union amongst themselves and to denounce slavery3. As early as in the late 1800s the black population in this region began commemorating the festival with their own unique style. In the streets of Olind a and Recife, the music played during the carnival is mostly the local favourite genre the frevo, in addition to this genre maracatu, samba, samba reggae, axe amongst others are also played. In the state of Bahia, during the carnival it is common to spot trio electricos- these are long Lorries full of musicians playing loud and deafening music

USA Today December 8, 2008 Essay Example for Free

USA Today December 8, 2008 Essay The first article â€Å"Toxic Air and America’s School† talks about how the air that we breathe has been increasingly becoming toxic, which puts children studying in schools that are near areas that emit toxic substances to the air. Because of the growing concern, USA Today together with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and the University of Maryland in College Park, conducted a study to determine just how toxic the air that school children breathe when inside the campus. The study showed there were seven schools that had high readings of toxic chemicals and â€Å"the concentrations of chemicals were high enough that they could cause serious illnesses or increase the risk of cancer if people were exposed to those levels for a long time† (USA Today, 2008). The most possible solution for air toxicity, especially in areas where children are constantly present, is for the local government and other concerned agencies to put a stop to those companies that produce the harmful substances. It should be suggested that these companies be relocated to other areas where there are little population so that it does not affect not only the health of children but also of everybody. Another article from USA Today entitled â€Å"Schools can be hit by chemicals from several industries† talks about just how much school children are exposed to harmful substances everyday in school due to the presence of not just one but several chemical industries in the vicinity. Although there are many factors that can affect the dispersion of the chemical substances produced by the companies, the school within the vicinity cannot escape from their harmful effects because there are other factories that can pollute the air and contribute to the overall toxicity of the air. Children are in danger of developing serious health problems because they are exposed in this kind of air throughout the day since they spend the whole day inside the school. As with the first solution, it is recommended that factories that are proved to be emitting high levels of toxic substances in the air should be relocated to places where there are not much people who can get affected. However, it would be a better solution if these companies could lower their toxicity levels such that they do not cause harm to the people and the environment whether they are near schools or in rural areas where the population is fewer. The government and concerned agencies should be stricter when it comes to making sure that these companies do not exceed the levels of the chemical substances so that they do not cause any harm. References USA Today. Schools can be hit by chemicals from several industries. Retrieved December 10, 2008, from http://content. usatoday. com/news/nation/environment/smokestack/interactive/5 USA Today. What USA TODAY monitors found. Retrieved December 10, 2008, from http://www. usatoday. com/news/nation/environment/school-air-snapshotchart. htm

Environment And Strategy: Hong Kong Ocean Park

Environment And Strategy: Hong Kong Ocean Park This report is about Ocean Park of Hong Kong one of the largest amusement ocean park in the Orient and even in the world. Situated in financial center of Southeast China this park add some info about park!! In this report we are going to cover such topic as strategy concepts of Ocean Park, external and internal environment of organisation and its corporate, business-level and international strategy. On base of data collected well give our recommendation and advice to CEO and Board of Ocean Park of Hong Kong about Parks strategy to the next 10 years (from 2005 to 2015). The main aim of this report is to provide in-depth strategic analysis to CEO and Board members. Thus, this work is focused on challenges, opportunities and threats of organisation, its culture and economic aspects, strengths and weaknesses of organisation, core competency of ocean park in order to help to improve it in anticipation of arrival of Hong Kong Disneyland. Strategy concepts and vocabulary -Mission (Strategic purpose, not specified) Ocean Park provides all guests with memorable experiences that combine entertainment and education, while inspiring life long learning and conservation advocacy. Our aim is to maintain a healthy financial status, while striving to deliver the highest standards of safety, animal care, products and guest service. http://www.oceanpark.com.hk/html/en/footer/corporate-information/vision.html -create all activities for perfect family holiday -increase involvements of visitors in environmental issues and lives of animals -Goals and objectives to fulfill its mission Boost the number of annual visitors from four million in 2004 to five million by 2010 To make a 0,5 per cent contribution to Hong Kongs gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010 (page 7) -Vision (More specified) http://www.oceanpark.com.hk/html/en/footer/corporate-information/vision.html Ocean Park aspires to be a world leader in providing excellent guest experiences in a theme park environment connecting people with nature Become number one marine-based park for each family not only from Hong-Kong but also from mainland China. To be main attraction for all tourists, who visit Hong-Kong -What performance measures would you use to determine the success of Ocean Park? -It is the hometown favorite. It had been a long-time favorite of several generations ((its been operated for more 28 years). Many local people were sympathetic to Ocean Park. People who had visited the park as children were now bringing their own children to visit the park. Its reputation even extended into mainland China. It had become a fixture of Hong Kongs cultural heritage. (p.5) -The number of visitors in 2004 is 4 m of people (with daily maximum capacity 35,000 people). -Total revenue in 2004 was 536, 2 HK$ m comparing to 428,3 HK$ m in 2003, surplus for 2004 year was 95,7 HK$ m comparing to deficit 4,1 HK$ m in 2003. recognizability of new brand (Whiskers became a household name in Hong Kong) -Who are the various stakeholders in Ocean Park organization (how might they impact on its purpose and mission)? Stakeholders, who help to achieve parks purpose and mission: Hong Kong government, Home Affairs Bureau and the Tourism Board, employees of Ocean Park corporation, its visitors (customers). Interfere with achieving parks purpose and mission: Activist groups (certain environmental groups and animal rights activists) forbid of buying and transportation exotic animals to park, trade associations and unions (bus companies and taxi drivers) forbid in building a mass transit railway (MTR), competitors regain market share. External Environment -Conduct a PESTEL analysis for Ocean Park, identify the key driving forces for change facing Ocean Park; Rank key driving forces based on their predictability and potential impact on Ocean Park, then develop some scenarios and identify implications of these scenarios for Ocean Park. PESTEL: Political: Government support Improving relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland China Promotion of tourism the easiness of the restrictions and promotion of the free travel of China in 2003 that helped to inject a new life to the tourism industry of Hong Kong environmental law Economic: Growth and development of the global amusement park industry Disneylands arrival Increasing number of mainland visitors Increasing standards of living in midland China Raise and spend HK$5.55 billion Social: Major events and activities (peak seasons and holiday themes: Chinese New Year, Easter Holiday, Summer Holiday, Halloween and Christmas) Media, advertisement and publicity, required for these special events Change of demographic (Population growth rate, age distribution, size of families) Increasing the cost of labor and more guarantees for employees Negative affect of Outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outcome Technological: Development of the amusement machinery industry Increasing popularity of new technologies for consumers (internet, mobile, digital camera) Amortization of park equipment Developing of new transport system (for example, a mass transit railway (MTR)) Research and development activities (creating of new park amusement) Environmental: Opposition from certain environmental groups about the importation of wild animals to Ocean Park Expenses on maintenance of exotic animals Protests of animal rights activists against relocation of animals Climate change (rain season in spring, hot in summer, typhoons in summer) Legal: Approval of Town Planning Board for hotel, Legislative Council for MTR station. Restrictions on mergers Employment laws Key driving forces and their ranking : 1)Global changing in tourism for Hong-Kong and Asia-Pacific region (development of tourism in region) 2)Raise and spend HK$5.55 billion from private and government loans to revamp parks well-worn product line (approval of development plan) 3)Disneylands arrival worldwide success of main competitor-Disneyland, coming to Hong Kong (Disneys success or failure) Binary table of scenarios for Ocean Parks key drivers (in decreasing order of their impact on park): Development of tourism in region Approval of development plan Disneys failure Scenario + + + Successful scenario + + + + Middle scenario + + + + + Failure scenario -Define Ocean Parks industry and conduct a five forces analysis: Which are the dominant forces in the industry? How may the five forces change? What are the underlying dynamics which are driving these five forces, and how may the five forces change? What are the impacts on key competitors and on Ocean Park? What can be done to influence the impact of the five forces? Five forces analysis for amusement park industry: 1) Threat of New Entry In terms of the amusement park industry, the entry barrier is high due to the need to invest large amount of financial resources (for park equipment, human resources maintenance), a lot of time required for parks planning, construction, development and launching, a lot of licenses and legalization required (safety, sanitary, security etc.). In addition to the amusement park required land for a full scale development. This factor is important because Hong Kong has a high land price real estate market. Re-write in own words!!!!! 2) Threat of Rivalry: It is important to consider that with lack of differentiation, visitors choice will greatly over the price and service, thus causes pressure for the intense price and service competition. Due to high threat of rivalry, Ocean Park is implementing different plans and activities such as redevelopment and introduction of new attractions in order to catch the attention of the visitors and differentiate themselves from rivals. There are no rivals with exactly the same range of products. Disneys arrival is only expected. Re-write in own words!!!!! 3) Threat of Substitution: (where this information from I like this point!)) The main threat of substitution is Hong Kong Disneyland Wetland Park, a new international theme park and an educational park (Appendix 2) Apart from this, there are other forms of substitution. From the education side, Hong Kong residents can switch to go to Cultural Centre, Mai Po Wetland, Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Garden. For entertainment purpose, they can visit the Karaoke, Cinema, Game Centre, or have a day trip to China. 4) Bargaining power of buyers (visitors): (where this information from I like this point!) -Tourists Tourists have a low bargaining power as long as must see image successfully built-up and the Park cannot be replaced by other substitutes. Therefore, Ocean Park focuses to build up this image especially in Asia. Local residents The buying power of local resident is high since they have many choices as mentioned above. The switching cost is relatively low. Also, Hong Kong people like new experience and their loyalty to the product are generally low. The Park, therefore, launched difference programs like Big Five events with difference theme each year to bring new excitement and experience to them. Besides, special discount in low season and year pass intent to attract 5) The power of suppliers. Suppliers have quite high power. Thus, construction elements of amusement rides are huge and complicated, thats why park is highly tied with supplier. Otherwise, this market is developed and the choice of suppliers is become greater now. While constructing buildings (hotels, etc) with particular contractor park cant easily change to another contractor because of high switching cost). The situation with the exotic animals is such as Ocean Park can buy in particular country only. Which are the dominant forces in the industry? The dominant forces in the industry are: rivalry, buyers and substitutes. How may the five forces change? Looking forward, the five forces will change in this way: -Rivalry will increase with Disneys arrival; -Buyer power will increase slightly; -Substitute threat will also increase; -Entry threat decrease dramatically; -Supplier power will also decrease. (Exhibit 2.5 p.72) What are the underlying dynamics which are driving these five forces? Aftermath of economic crises and increasing in number of suppliers will decrease supplier power. Disneys arrival decrease entry threat in entertainment park industry. Developing of new technologies will affect rising of substitutes. Also competitors with new technologies will gain (in this aspect Disney has an advantage) Disneys arrival increase demands in diversification of Ocean Parks products. Ticket price advantages (185 HK$ for adult ticket at Ocean Park compared to 295HK$ for the same ticket at Disney). The main rival (Disney) is also same market oriented (families with children). What are the impacts on key competitors and on Ocean Park? Five forces much more affect Wetland park Ocean Parks key competitor, located at the northern part of Tin Shui Wai, in Yuen Long than Ocean Park itself, because Wetland parks products are less differentiated. It has a 10,000m2 visitor centre, Wetland Interactive World, and a 60-hectare Wetland Reserve. (http://www.wetlandpark.com/en/aboutus/overview.asp). Arrival of other competitor Disney and its substitutes doesnt affect much Ocean Park because it has its its own niche. What can be done to influence the impact of the five forces? More differentiation of new products, directed mainly to Chinese native culture will affect rivalry, substitutes and buyers. Unique high-quality products and services also will influence buyers. For seeking suppliers big impact will have Internet and special web-sites with best quality of service, characteristics, recommendations and prices. Conduct a strategic group/space analysis for Ocean Park There are 2 key competitors for Ocean Park: First one is mentioned above Hong Kong Wetland Park. It is a conservation, education and tourism facility, consisted of large visitor centre, Wetland Interactive World and a Wetland Reserve. This park provided visitors with opportunities to observe wildlife, awareness and understanding the values of wetlands throughout the East Asian Region and beyond, wetlands conservation. So, its mainly about wetlands. The Hong Kong Wetland Park is also going to be a world-class ecotourism facility to serve both local residents and overseas tourists.(ttp://www.wetlandpark.com/en/aboutus/mission.asp) Compare to Disneyland and Ocean Park, Hong Kong Wetland Park has different facilities and product range (such as themed exhibition galleries, a theatre, a souvenir shop, an indoor play area), provide different services and thus, like Disney and Ocean Park, has its own niche. The range of facilities provided is the narrowest among 3 parks. Thus, Wetland Park cant meet demand of those visitors, who are looking for excitements and extreme pleasure, which can be found on a rides at 2 other parks. Who are the main visitors? Is it local or global? Is it has the lowest range of facilities than Ocean Park and Disney? Much lower prices. The second one arriving in a nearest future The Hong Kong Disneyland. After 28 years of operating as a near monopoly, Ocean Park would soon have to compete with one of the biggest names in the entertainment and theme park industry. Moreover, Disneyland targets the same group of parks customers families with children. It has well-known brand and reputation. Its the world leader in terms of entertainment. Several of Disneys characters (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh) were household names all over the world, including in Hong Kong. Thus, Ocean Parks mascot, Whiskeys, appear lackluster by comparison. Image, which Disney company holds almost for a century (The Walt Disney Company was founded in 1923) and Disneyland itself (first park was opened in 1955) for half a century (compared to 28 years of Ocean park) helps to attract visitors not only from Hong Kong and midland China, but also from different part of the globe, especially those who are from the USA and Europe. Among other advantages of Disneyland are: location: it could be reached in just 10 minutes from Hong Kongs airport and less than 30 minutes from downtown Hong Kong. -at least 5.6 million people were expected to visit the Hong Kong Disneyland during its first year of operation (compared to 4 million of Ocean Park expected visitors). -the price claimed to be the least expensive among the five Disney amusement parks throughout the world. -the area of Disneyland is 310 acres compared to 215 acres of Ocean Park. -5 times greater investment than for Ocean Park. -Expected economic effectiveness is 3 billion more. -world-renowned innovation -high customer service standards Strategic groups within the entertainment and theme park industry in Hong Kong Broad Ocean Park Geographical Scope Global Product range Disneyland Narrow Wetland Park Local Conduct a market segment analysis for Ocean Park: How is the market segmented? How could it be segmented? Where would you position Ocean Parks products and services? Where would you position the competitors products? Ocean Park is a part of entertainment and theme industry. Its market is families with children. Disneyland future competitor applies to the same market. Despite this, Ocean Park has its own niche visitor from midland China. Internal Environment -What resources and capabilities does Ocean Park have? Resources (what a firm has): 1)Tangible: -financial suppliers of money (private and government loans) expected HK$5,6 billion investment; HK$145 billion economic effectiveness; surplus from operations in 2004 was HK$182,2 million on revenues of HK$536,2 million ; -physical Sea World, marine life and real animals:35 rides and attractions; 3 hotels; favorable and convenient location on the southern side of Hong Kong Island; wide range of new activities, such as the Abyss Turbo Drop thrill ride, seasonal and special events, popular water-related activities, interactive activities with animals, edutainment programs, successful Sea Jelly Spectacular and so on. 2)Intangible: long-time reputation of park with government, customers, -new brand sea lion named Whiskers; -cultural heritage of Hong Kong -great number of repeated visitors 3)Human: -37,100 employees, their skills and knowledge; -Thomas Mehrmann, new CEO of Ocean Park, and his previous experience at US-based Six Flags Corporation; Natural and wild life focus (Interactive activities with animals) Recreation and education Capabilities (what a firm can do) -New products, facilities and services development capability continually adding new features and attractions (such as: a new roller coaster, a subzero Ice Palace, 7.6 million liter aquarium with an underwater restaurant, extra 33 animals species, the number of rides doubled to 70), so, become a nearest future one of the best marine-based theme park with strong connection with nature; -Keeping park attractions fresh, novel and exciting, while minimizing costs; research and development, marketing and sales capabilities: plan to refurbish and rename Ocean Parks 2 major areas (the Lowland and the Highland), new hotels to be developed, including a five-star boutique, spa-type hotel this redevelopment plan would be completed in 2012!! recommendation part too!!, plan to open offices in the major urban areas of Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai to enhance promotional activities in Hong Kong and attract more mainland visitors -new incentive compensation, that linked employee compensation to the financial performance of park -What might be the competence of Ocean Park? Core competences resources and competences which are both valuable to customers and difficult to imitate -distinctive work culture, with its own norms and practices -local market loyalty -unique SmartFun Annual Pass program -cultural aspect (cultural heritage of Hong Kong), orientation on specific market segment-mainland Chinese visitors, -long-term reputation, distinct Chinese characteristics -powerful brand -customer trust -primary focus of OP on real nature and wildlife in contrast to Disneys strengths in cartoon characters, castles, virtual reality and fantasy -focused on education and the live animal attractions one of the key elements that will differentiate it from Hong Kong Disneyland when it opens in 2005. (from Echos articles) -cost and differentiation of product (continually adding new features and attractions as well as price advantage over Disney encouraged visitors to return to the park) -The aerial tram that takes visitors from the entrance side of the park over a hill to the rest of the attractions has become a Hong Kong tourism icon-is it still true (from Echos articles) Competitive advantage is explained by the distinctiveness of its resources and capabilities, by offering customers greater value by means of lower prices or greater benefits and service Competitive Advantages of Ocean Park over Disney: -long-time reputation, -hometown favorite, -cultural heritage of Hong Kong, orientation mostly on visitors from midland China -first-mover advantages -no need to engage in high-profile advertising and publicity, rely more on word-of-mouth -more diverse and wide range of products (including Sea World, marine life, real animals plus 35 rides and attractions) price advantage: the admission price for Disneyland is expected more than twice higher for child and one and a half higher for adult than price of Ocean park. And visitors from mainland China are very price sensitive. SmartFun Annual Pass program with unlimited admission to the park for its holders within a year, and discounted prices for food, souvenirs -Infrastructure 3 hotels had been constructed comparing to 2 at Disney. -orientation not only on entertainment, but also on education of visitors, differentiating by focusing on ecology and conservation issues -recognizable brand -In addition to all the American fun at the park, traditional Chinese holidays are still observed (Chinese New Year) -Disney has its characters, but we have flexibility to mix and match and bring in other entertainment (from Echos articles) -Does Ocean Park build its strategy on its resources, capabilities and competences? Yes. Importation of more species Water/Sea-related construction Hotel-better recreation -Are they sustainable? How can they be developed? Sustainable to some extent, but with some limitation. For example, it may face the opposition from environmental group. They cant relay only on resources, capabilities and competences-they need to be developed, innovated and refreshed, because they may begin to look dated and shabby for their visitors. SWOT Analysis Positive impact Negative impact Internal environment Strengths -Diversified and wide range of amusements (thrills, animals, seasonal and special events) -product line revamp -Highly linked with culture of mainland Chinese visitors, knows their demands and behavior -the main, oldest and most famous amusement park in the country (long-time reputation, hometown favorite), -cultural heritage of Hong Kong, -28 years of operating as a near monopoly -no need to engage in high-profile advertising and publicity, rely more on word-of-mouth -strong business connection to the local government (support from the government of Hong Kong and mainland China) -renovation of the parks brand image -mascot as a brand -previous experience of Thomas Mehrmann (new CEO of Ocean Park) in theme park industry (at US-based Six Flags Corporation) -local market loyalty -positive image of park Weaknesses -Located on a hills-hard to get to some riders-thats why visitors experienced rides only once. -different facilities are old and un-attractive and need renovation -a lot of activities depend on weather-ask Echo about it -no substantial capital investment External environment Opportunities -focusing on delivering mainland Chinas visitors as well as foreign visitors -development of new transportation South Island Line (when-check case-and ask Echo about it) that would cause convenience and fast access direct to the Park for the foreign and local visitors. -plan to build a mass transit railway (MTR) station to connect OP to the subway grid -the development and improvement of the amusement machinery can impact the services and features of the organization and its relationship to their foreign visitors. raise the standards of park with Disneyland arrival fostering sponsorships plan for building new hotels (boutique and spa-type) orientation on luxury tourism new market segment Threats -economical instability (such as the Asian financial crisis of 1999-2001, lasted for 3 difficult years for OP ), outbreak of different diseases, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 (Both these factors can affect number of visitors and their buying behavior, worsening the park financial situation) -arrival of Disneyland Hong Kong -OP was situated on valuable real estate: it could be shut down and its land could be sold off for other recreational or commercial purposes. Recommendation p.6-7!!! (recommend to use this business connection for future purposes, such as building a subway line for the visitors (itll happen in 2007). Say, in 3 years Build a mass transit railway (MTR) station for connection to the subway grid. Till 2015) (recommend to start innovation process, it will take about 6 years). Say, in 5 years Wireless communications | Analysis Wireless communications | Analysis Introduction Without any doubt Wireless communications can be considered as the fastest growing segment in the communications industry. Due to, it has captured the interest of the media and the interest for most of the people all over the world. Wireless technology has a huge impact on our lives today more than ever before. In addition, Methods of communication have evolved along many years ago starting from the first attempts to communicate verbal and even to manage the modern technology for the advancement of the ability to communicate effectively with each other. Every time you make a phone call, using the television or the computer is leading to activate the role of wireless technology and benefit from its positive sides. The principle of wireless communication as a process of transferring a piece of information from one place to another by electronic technology is only the use of electronic systems to connect with life which is changing constantly. Furthermore, the ability to communicate with people has evolved significantly since Guglielmo Marconi was the first who established the radios ability to provide continuous contact with the ships sailing on the English Channel in 1897, and since that time new wireless communications services have been adopted by people throughout the whole world. Finally, a brief history of the evolution of the wireless communications throughout the world could be useful in order to appreciate the enormous impact that communication Services will have on all population over the next several centuries. It is also useful for a new user to the wireless communication systems field to understand the huge impact that people is making in the development of new communications systems, services, and technologies. Literature review The goal of many experts and communications technology people was to find some way to transfer messages over long distances without the need for wires, this dream became true in 1901 when Juliimo Marconi and two of his colleagues on a hilltop in Newfoundland listening in to a reception, and they have heard Morse code, which represents barely letter X, moved the reference to a distance of 1700 miles from Cornwall in England, and represented the first successful transition to wireless. The success of this called the establishment of Marconi technology for wireless communication. However, wireless did not generate a high return from a commercial point after the ship Titanic disaster in 1912, While the ship was sinking, the radio operator sent a distress signal on the ship through Tlgrafha wireless Carpithia captured ship that was nearby, and these signals had saved the life of the last 700 of the passengers on Titanics 2200, and after this disaster, shortly called the need for all institutions to provide the large vessels marine radios, and this experience has led to the invention of Marconi radio. By 1922 the number of radio stations that provide broadcast live on 564 stations, today transmitted to us thousands of radio stations and multiple programs. Moreover, wireless communications are based on modern technology and the computer is one of the main elements of this technology. Nowadays, the vast majority of schools usually equipped with computer labs to teach computer skills to their students, it is no longer unfamiliar to the student in first grade to have some knowledge of basic background about the computer. With the computers within a few seconds you can access information anywhere around the world. Today services come with opportunities to learn new information and new data for homes through wireless communications. Definitions of Wireless Communications â€Å"Wireless technology is a truly revolutionary paradigm shift, enabling multimedia communications between people and devices for many locations.† By Andrea Goldsmith â€Å"Wireless communications is a broad and dynamic field that has spurred tremendous excitement and technological advances over the last few decades.† By Andrea Goldsmith Wireless Communications Protocols in Wi-Fi Wireless It is known that the process of wires and wireless communications in computer networks are subject to specific rules to control the reception of information properly and without any loss or time delay during the exchange of that information. For example, the internet is working through a set of protocols known as TCP/IP and wireless networks to connect to specific protocols and particularly a collection of protocols of 802.11 and a Bluetooth protocols which is the most known of them . 802.11g Protocol is latest version of the protocol 802.11b, it also work on the 2.4 GHz frequency, the speed of transferring the data in this protocols is 54Mbps, and the devices that work through that protocols can work through the previous 802.11b protocol as well. However, it is preferable to link the wireless network by more than one protocol. 802.11a Protocol work through 5 GHz frequency which makes it less vulnerable to interference from the LNB or any other devices, but the cost of this is greater than any other systems. The Bluetooth Protocol is transmits data at low speed at 1Mbps and within no more than 10 meters. Also, it works through the left 2.4 GHz. 802.11n Protocol is the protocol`s future, which has not been approved so far. It is expected to achieve the speed of data transfer within a distance of 100Mbps, Wireless networks Wireless local area networks have supplemented or replace the wired networks in many places. For example, homes, business or campuses. Many new applications including wireless sensor networks, smart homes, and remote telemedicine are emerging from research ideas to actual systems. The explosive expansion of wireless systems has come with the proliferation of laptop and palmtop computers and this suggest a bright future for wireless networks. Technical issues To enable wireless applications in the future, many technical challenges must be addressed and these challenges have been developed across all aspects of system design. Wireless local area networks LANs support high speed data transmissions with in a small region for example, campus or small building as users moves from place to place. Wireless devices that access these LANs are typically stationary or moving at pedestrian speeds. Wireless LANs can have either a star architecture, with wireless access points or hubs placed throughout the coverage region, or a peer-to-peer architecture, where the wireless terminals self-configure into a network. Dozens of wireless LANs companies and products appeared in the early 1990s to capitalize on the â€Å"pent-up demand† for high speed wireless data. These first generation wireless LANs were based on propriety and incompatible protocols. Wide Area Wireless Data Services To high percentage of mobility users, this could provide many wireless data over a large coverage area. A geographical region in these systems is usually serviced by base stations placed on the top of towers, rooftops or mountains. The base stations can be connected to a back-bone wired network or from a multi-hop and hoc wireless network. Broadband Wireless Access It gives a high-rate in wireless communications between a specific access point and multiple stations. These systems were initially proposed to help interactive video service to the home; however the application then shifted to providing high speed data networks for both homes and business. Satellite Networks Commercial satellite systems are another major component of the wireless communications infrastructure. Narda Satellite Networks could be a good example. It is a manufacturer of high-quality military and commercial satellite communications equipment. Low-cost, low-power Radios: Bluetooth and ZigBee It becomes feasible to embed radios into more types of electronic devices, because they have decreases their cost and power consumption which can be used to create smart homes, sensor networks, and many other applications. Two radios have emerged to help and support this trend: Bluetooth and ZigBee. 1-Bluetooth radios give short range of connections between wireless network devices and basic networking capabilities. The Bluetooth normally based on a tiny microchip inside a radio transceiver which is built into some digital devices. Bluetooth is mainly for short-range communication. Take an example, from a laptop to nearby printer or from a cell phone to a wireless headset which is common used by many people nowadays. 2- ZigBee â€Å"The ZigBee radio specification is designed for lower cost and power consumption than Bluetooth its specification is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 Standard†. I.Poole 2004 Finally, the main benefit of using the ZigBee is to provide radio operation for months or years without the need to recharging it. Ad Hoc Wireless Networks It can be defined as a collection of wireless mobile nodes that self-configure to form a network without the aid of any established infrastructure as show in the figure below The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists two relevant definitions for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks:†formed or used for specific or immediate problems†, and â€Å"fashioned from whatever is immediately available†. These definitions show us main benefits of ad hoc wireless networks. Firstly, they can be adapted to specific applications; second, they can be produced from any networks nodes that could be available. Ad Hoc wireless networks have another important benefit as well. They can avoid the installation, cost and maintenance of network infrastructure. An overview of the basic application for ad hoc wireless networks, as applications it usually look for many of the requirements of the design. I will concentrate on the following applications: data networks, home networks and device networks. 1- Data network Ad hoc wireless data networks basically helps in exchanging the data between laptop computers, palmtops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other information devices. These data networks generally divided into three main categories based on the coverage area: LANs, MANs, and WANs (for â€Å"local†, â€Å"metropolitan†, and â€Å"wide† area networks. 2- Home networks Home networks is basically help to support communication between many devices like PCs, laptops, PDAs card-less phones, security and monitoring systems and entertainment systems anywhere in and around the home etc. Home networks could enable smart rooms that sense people movement and adjust light and heating consequently, as well as â€Å"aware homes† this feature network sensors and computers is for assistant living for elderly people or those with disabilities. 3- Device networks It provides a short-range wireless connections between devices, such networks are primarily intended to replace problematic cabled connections with wireless connections. â€Å"The main technology derivers for such networks are low-cost low-power radios with networking capabilities such as Bluetooth, ZigBee and ultra wide-band or UWB; the radios are integrated into commercial electronic devices to provide networking capabilities between devices†. J.Haartsen 2000. Conclusion and Discussion A new wireless communication technology has been presented. Some People might argued that