Fool Chapter 19

NINETEEN SHALL A MADMAN RISE Gloucester was wandering around outside the castle, just beyond the drawbridge, coming dangerously close to tumbling into the moat. The storm was still raging and bloody rain streamed down the earl's face from his empty eye sockets. Drool caught the old man by the back of his cloak and lifted him like he was a kitten. Gloucester struggled and waved about in horror, as if he'd been snatched up by some great bird of prey instead of an enormous nitwit. â€Å"There, there,† said Drool, trying to calm the old man the way one might try to settle a frightened horse. â€Å"I gots you.† â€Å"Bring him away from the edge and set him down, Drool,† said I. â€Å"Lord Gloucester, this is Pocket, Lear's fool. We're going to take you to shelter and bandage your wounds. King Lear will be there, too. Just take Drool's hand.† â€Å"Get away,† said the earl. â€Å"Your comforts are in vain. I am lost. My sons are scoundrels, my estate is forfeit. Let me fall in the moat and drown.† Drool set the old man down and pointed him toward the moat. â€Å"Go on, then, milord.† â€Å"Grab him, Drool, you wooden-headed ninny!† â€Å"But he told me to let him drown, and he's an earl with a castle and the lot, and you're only a fool, Pocket, so I got to do what he says.† I strode forth, grabbed Gloucester and led him away from the edge. â€Å"He's not an earl anymore, lad. He has nothing but his cloak to protect him from the rain, like us.† â€Å"He's got nothing?† said Drool. â€Å"Can I teach him to juggle so he can be a fool?† â€Å"Let's get him to shelter and see that he doesn't bleed to death first, then you can give him fool lessons.† â€Å"We're going to make a fool of ye,† said Drool, clapping the old man on the back. â€Å"That'll be the dog's bollocks, won't it, milord?† â€Å"Drown me,† said Gloucester. â€Å"Being a fool is ever so much better than being an earl,† said Drool, far too cheery for a cold-dismal day of post-maiming. â€Å"You don't get a castle but you make people laugh and they give you apples and sometimes one of the wenches or the sheeps will have a laugh with you. It's the mutt's nuts,[42] it is.† I stopped and looked at my apprentice. â€Å"You've been having a laugh with sheep?† Drool rolled his eyes toward the slate sky. â€Å"No, I – we have pie sometimes, too, when Bubble makes it. You'll like Bubble. She's smashing.† Gloucester seemed to lose all his will then, and let me lead him through the walled town, taking weak, halting steps. As we passed a long, half-timbered building I took to be barracks I heard someone call my name. I looked to see Curan, Lear's captain, standing under an awning. He waved us over and we stood with our backs hard to the wall to try to escape the rain. â€Å"Is that the Earl of Gloucester?† asked Curan. â€Å"Aye,† said I. I told Curan what had transpired inside the castle and out on the heath since I'd last seen him. â€Å"God's blood, two wars. Cornwall dead. Who is master of our force, now?† â€Å"Mistress,† said I. â€Å"Stay with Regan. The plan is as before.† â€Å"No, it's not. We don't even know who her enemy is, Albany or France.† â€Å"Aye, but your action should be the same.† â€Å"I'd give a month's wages to be behind the blade that slays that bastard Edmund.† At the mention of his son, Gloucester started wailing again. â€Å"Drown me! I will suffer no more! Give me your sword that I may run upon it and end my shame and misery!† â€Å"Sorry,† I said to Curan. â€Å"He's been a bit of a weepy little Nancy to be around since they ripped his eyes out.† â€Å"Well, you might bandage him up. Bring him in. Hunter's still with us. He's right handy with a cauterizing iron.† â€Å"Let me end this suffering,† wailed Gloucester. â€Å"I can no longer endure the slings and arrows – â€Å" â€Å"My lord Gloucester, would you please, by the fire-charred balls of St. George, shut the fuck up!† â€Å"Bit harsh, innit?† said Curan. â€Å"What, I said ‘please.'† â€Å"Still.† â€Å"Sorry, Gloucester, old chap. Most excellent hat.† â€Å"He's not wearing a hat,† said Curan. â€Å"Well, he's blind, isn't he? If you hadn't said anything he might have enjoyed his bloody hat, mightn't he?† The earl started wailing again. â€Å"My sons are villains and I have no hat.† He made to go on, but Drool clamped his great paw over the old man's mouth. â€Å"Thanks, lad. Curan, do you have any food?† â€Å"Aye, Pocket, we can spare as much bread and cheese as you can carry, and one of the men can scare up a flask of wine, too, I'll wager. His lordship has been most generous in providing us with fare,† Curan said for the benefit of Gloucester. The old man began struggling against Drool's grip. â€Å"Oh, Curan, you've set him off again. Hurry, if you please. We've got to find Lear and head to Dover.† â€Å"Dover it is, then? You'll join with France?† â€Å"Aye, bloody King Jeff, great froggy, monkey-named, woman-stealing ponce that he is.† â€Å"You're fond of him, then?† â€Å"Oh do piss off, captain. Just see to it that whatever force Regan might send after us doesn't catch us. Don't mutiny, just make your way to Dover east, then south. I'll take Lear south, then east.† â€Å"Let me come with you, Pocket. The king needs more protection than two fools and a blind man.† â€Å"The old knight Caius is with the king. You will serve the king best by serving his plan here.† Not strictly true, but would he have done his duty if he thought his commander a fool? I think not. â€Å"Aye, then, I'll get your food,† said Curan. When we arrived at the hovel, Tom O'Bedlam stood outside, naked in the rain, barking. â€Å"That barking bloke is naked,† said Drool, for once not singing praise to St. Obvious, as we were actually traveling with a blind fellow. â€Å"Aye, but the question is, is he naked because he's barking, or is he barking because he's naked?† I asked. â€Å"I'm hungry,† said Drool, his mind overchallenged. â€Å"Poor Tom is cold and cursed,† said Tom between barking fits, and for the first time seeing him in daylight and mostly clean, I was taken aback. Without the coat of mud, Tom looked familiar. Very familiar. Tom O'Bedlam was, in fact, Edgar of Gloucester, the earl's legitimate son. â€Å"Tom, why are you out here?† â€Å"Poor Tom, that old knight Caius said he had to stand in the rain until he was clean and didn't stink anymore.† â€Å"And did he tell you to bark and talk about yourself in the third person?† â€Å"No, I thought up that bit on my own.† â€Å"Come inside, Tom. Help Drool with this old fellow.† Tom looked at Gloucester for the first time and his eyes went wide and he sank to his knees. â€Å"By the cruelty of the gods,† said he. â€Å"He's blind.† I put my hand on his shoulder and whispered, â€Å"Be steadfast, Edgar, your father needs your help.† In that moment a light came into his eye like a spark of sanity returning and he nodded and stood up, taking the earl's arm. Shall a madman rise to lead the blind. â€Å"Come, good sir,† said Edgar. â€Å"Tom is mad, but he is not beyond aiding a stranger in distress.† â€Å"Just let me die!† said Gloucester, trying to push Edgar away. â€Å"Give me a rope so I may stretch my neck until my breath is gone.† â€Å"He does that a lot,† I said. I opened the door, expecting to see Lear and Kent inside, but the hovel was empty, and the fire had died down to embers. â€Å"Tom, where is the king?† â€Å"He and his knight set out for Dover.† â€Å"Without me?† â€Å"The king was mad to be back in the storm. ‘Twas the old knight said to tell you they were headed for Dover.† â€Å"Here, here, bring the earl inside.† I stood aside and let Edgar coax his father into the cabin. â€Å"Drool, throw some wood on the fire. We can stay only long enough to eat and dry out. We must be after the king.† Drool ducked through the door and spotted Jones sitting on a bench by the fire where I had left him. â€Å"Jones! My friend,† said the dolt. He picked up the puppet stick and hugged it. Drool is somewhat unclear on the art of ventriloquism, and although I have explained to him that Jones speaks only through me, he has developed an attachment to the puppet. â€Å"Hello, Drool, you great sawdust-brained buffoon. Put me down and stoke the fire,† said Jones. Drool tucked the puppet stick in his belt and began breaking up kindling with a hatchet by the hearth while I portioned out the bread and cheese that Curan had given us. Edgar did his best to bandage Gloucester's eyes and the old man settled down enough to eat some cheese and drink a little wine. Unfortunately, the wine and the blood loss, no doubt, took the earl from inconsolable wailing grief to a soul-smothering, sable-colored melancholy. â€Å"My wife died thinking me a whoremonger, my father thought me damned for not following his faith, and my sons are both villains. I thought for a turn that Edmund might have redeemed his bastardy by being good and true, by fighting infidels in the Crusade, but he is more of a traitor than his legitimate brother.† â€Å"Edgar is no traitor,† I said to the old man. Even as I said it Edgar held a finger to his lips and signaled for me to speak no further. I nodded to show I knew his will and would not give his identity away. He could be Tom as long as he wished, or for as long as he needed, for all I cared, as long as he put on some bloody trousers. â€Å"Edgar was always true to you, my lord. His treachery was all devised for your eyes by the bastard Edmund. It was two sons' worth of evil done by one. Edgar may not be the sharpest arrow in the quiver, but he is no traitor.† Edgar raised an eyebrow to me in question. â€Å"You'll make no case for your intelligence sitting there naked and shivering when there's a fire and blankets you can fashion into warm robes, good Tom,† said I. He rose from his father's side and went over to the fire. â€Å"Then it is I who have betrayed Edgar,† said Gloucester. â€Å"Oh, the gods have seen fit to rain misery down on me for my unsteady heart. I have sent a good son into exile with hounds at his heels and left only the worms as heirs to my only estate: this withered blind body. Oh, we are but soft and squishy bags of mortality rolling in a bin of sharp circumstance, leaking life until we collapse, flaccid, into our own despair.† The old man began to wave his arms and beat at his brow, whipping himself into a frenzy, causing his bandages to unravel. Drool came over to the old man and wrapped his arms around him to hold him steady. â€Å"It's all right, milord,† said Drool. â€Å"You ain't leakin' hardly at all.† â€Å"Let me send this broken house to ruin and rot in death's eternal cold. Let me shuffle off this mortal coil – my sons betrayed, my king usurped, my estates seized – let me end this torture!† He really was making a very good argument. Then the earl grabbed Jones and tore him out of Drool's belt. â€Å"Give me your sword, good knight!† Edgar made to stop his father and I threw out an arm to hold him back – a toss of my head stopped Drool from interceding. The old man stood, put the stick end of Jones under his rib cage, then fell forward onto the dirt floor. The breath shot from his body and he wheezed in pain. My cup of wine had been warming by the fire and I threw it on Gloucester's chest. â€Å"I am slain,† croaked the earl, fighting for breath. â€Å"The lifeblood runs from me even now. Bury my body on the hill looking down upon Castle Gloucester. And beg forgiveness of my son Edgar. I have wronged him.† Edgar again tried to go to his father and I held him back. Drool was covering his mouth, trying not to laugh. â€Å"I grow cold, cold, but at least I take my wrong-doings to my grave.† â€Å"You know, milord,† I said. â€Å"The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones, or so I've heard.† â€Å"Edgar, my boy, wherever you are, forgive me, forgive me!† The old man rolled on the floor, and seemed somewhat surprised when the sword on which he thought himself impaled fell away. â€Å"Lear, forgive me that I did not serve you better!† â€Å"Look at that,† said I. â€Å"You can see his black soul rising from his body.† â€Å"Where?† said Drool. A frantic finger to my lips silenced the Natural. â€Å"Oh, great carrion birds are rending poor Gloucester's soul to tatters! Oh, Fate's revenge is upon him, he suffers!† â€Å"I suffer!† said Gloucester. â€Å"He is bound to the darkest depths of Hades! Never to rise again.† â€Å"Down the abyss I go. Forever a stranger to light and warmth.† â€Å"Oh, cold and lonely death has taken him,† said I. â€Å"And a right shit he was in life, likely he'll be buggered by a billion barb-dicked devils now.† â€Å"Cold and lonely Death has me,† said the earl. â€Å"No, it hasn't,† said I. â€Å"What?† â€Å"You're not dead.† â€Å"Soon, then. I've fallen on this cruel blade and my life runs wet and sticky between my fingers.† â€Å"You've fallen on a puppet,† said I. â€Å"No, I haven't. It's a sword. I took it from that soldier.† â€Å"You took my puppet stick from my apprentice. You've thrown yourself on a puppet.† â€Å"You knave, Pocket, you're not trustworthy and would jest at a man even as his life drains. Where is that naked madman who was helping me?† â€Å"You threw yourself on a puppet,† said Edgar. â€Å"So I'm not dead?† â€Å"Correct,† said I. â€Å"I threw myself on a puppet?† â€Å"That is what I've been saying.† â€Å"You are a wicked little man, Pocket.† â€Å"So, milord, how do you feel, now that you've returned from the dead.† The old man stood up and tasted the wine on his fingers. â€Å"Better,† said he. â€Å"Good. Then let me present Edgar of Gloucester, the erstwhile naked nutter, who shall see you to Dover and your king.† â€Å"Hello, Father,† said Edgar. They embraced. There was crying and begging for forgiveness and filial snogging and overall the whole business was somewhat nauseating. A moment of quiet sobbing by the two men passed before the earl resumed his wailing. â€Å"Oh, Edgar, I have wronged thee and no forgiveness from you can undo my wretchedness.† â€Å"Oh for fuck's sake,† said I. â€Å"Come, Drool, let us go find Lear and on to Dover and the sanctuary of the bloody fucking French.† â€Å"But the storm still rages,† said Edgar. â€Å"I've been wandering in this storm for days. I'm as wet and cold as I know how to get, and no doubt a fever will descend any hour now and crush my delicate form with heavy heat, but by the rug-munching balls of Sappho, I'll not spend another hour listening to a blind old nutter wail on about his wrong-doings when there's a stack of wrongs yet to be done. Carpe diem, Edgar. Carpe diem.† â€Å"Fish of the day?† said the rightful heir to the earldom of Gloucester. â€Å"Yes, that's it. I'm invoking the fish of the bloody day, you git. I liked you better when you were eating frogs and seeing demons and the lot. Drool, leave them half the food and wrap yourself as warm as you can. We're off to find the king. We'll see you lot in Dover.†

Importance of Risk Management

MGD426 Risk Management Overview A risk is, consequently, a hazard that can derail an organization from accomplishing a business process, project, or any activity that is vital to a company’s sustenance. There are different classifications of risks: financial, operational, infrastructure, human capital, and marketing risks. These risks embody subcategories of risks that can negatively affect the company. Leverage, receivables, and investments are risks can hinder the financial situations of a company. The decline of profits, increased losses, and negative impact on business processes are some of the costs in the failure to control risks.Similarly, operational risk includes many losses that are associated with â€Å"internal processes, people and systems or from external events† (The Basel Committee, 2004). By continually improving operations, firms are better able to gain competitive advantage. Operational risks occur from the execution of a company’s business pro cess. Although it is a relatively vague concept, it can be summed into a three-fold focus: processes, people, and systems. Internal fraud can be categorized into unauthorized activity, as well as theft and fraud; where as external fraud can be categorized with systems security, and theft and fraud.Importance of Assessment and Management In order for an organization to achieve certain objectives, coming across risks is almost inevitable. Organizations that are aware of such calamities are, more often than not, enabled to actively manage hazards and encompass potential opportunities for competitive advantage. This precisely means that contingency planning is important as uncontrollable risks (i. e. environmental factors) can occur at any time. While an organization cannot stop these hazards from occurring, they can mitigate the negative effects.By mitigating these risks with necessary responses, the company can aim their resources at improving or continuing their business processes. T herefore, the emphasis is, principally, on identifying and managing these hazards. Sustainable value is essential to the company and its activities; minimized uncertainty of goal achievement as well as maximized possibility of success. Competing in a dynamic environment leaves gap for uncertainty of the future. Briefly touched upon previously, this enables certain risks to not be accounted for.Risk management, as aforementioned, is a discipline that needs to be implemented by all companies. It is becoming increasingly important because of the dynamics of the environments in which an organization runs (technological, political, social, etc. ). For example, the effects of natural disasters can be mitigated but not stopped. Terrorism is a risk that cannot be calculated and accounted for prior to. All these questions and inquiries relay back to the umbrella question; why is risk management and/or risk assessment important to an organization?Risk assessment is a portion of Risk Managemen t; it is a formulated procedure for making sure that firms are not exposed to deplorable hazards. Taking into context the previously mentioned information, it is not of much use if the scale of the risk is not measured. Once measured, the organization would rally against how likely it is and what the organization can/should/will do to mitigate its effects. Contingency planning, as mentioned, is a risk management technique that comes about based on the assessment of the risk.Building on risk assessment, a risk that is not managed correctly will cause the firm to be affected negatively. These negative effects can be financial, operational, infrastructural, related to human capital or market: classifications of risk. Moreover, risk management is only effective if the assessment is done correctly. Both go hand in hand; the magnitude of the risk determines the management procedures. Reducing the risk of accidents to the company can allow the company to better relocate its resources towar ds its operational needs rather than additional risk management or risk recovery.Risk Response The response to a risk is done by the concept of the 4 T’s (terminate, tolerate, treat, and transfer). By terminating risks, you are, inherently, doing things in a different manner and, thus, removing the risk. Tolerate means that nothing can be done a reasonable cost to mitigate the risk or the likelihood and impact are at a reasonable level. Moreover, treating risks is taking certain actions to control a risk by, either, mitigating the likelihood of it emerging or limiting the effect it will have on the business process/project.Lastly, transfer of risks is primarily the underlying principle behind insurance transactions. Specifically, a risk, outline in the insurance or contract, can be passed from a party who does not want the risk to another party who will take it (either for free or a premium – insurance). Financial Risk Management Financial risk management is, primarily , concerned with the economic value of an organization and the effects to it. The management aspect deals with the exposure to risk, and the response to it.Two primary risks involved in financial sectors of firms are credit risks and market risks (while others include Forex (foreign exchange), volatility, liquidity, inflation, etc. ). Since financial risk is a factor in all organizations, it is important to respond to any volatility that may occur – as it would affect the firm negatively. These risks primarily mean that a firm who is unable to appropriately manage their financial operations will be subjugated by losses. As stated previously, credit risk, which is the inability for a business partner to compensate for a loan or satisfy other monetary contract, will, obviously, damage the company.This is apparent since the company will be at a loss since the firm who adheres to a loan contract is not able to pay back the moneys. Risk assessment for this particular risk includes a â€Å"risk and control self-assessment† (RCSA). This is a set of directives, which help avoid any financial detriment because of fraud, carelessness, and/or technological malfunction. As with any other risk assessment technique, classification of whether it is low, medium, or high level risk is determined based on the estimated loss.This type of risk assessment falls under the ‘treat’ classification of risk response as a certain action is implemented in order to control/mitigate the risk. As stated, in this brief example, the importance of risk assessment and management is vital to an organization. Works Cited â€Å"Briefing Paper H: Risk Management. † Governance and Social Development Resource Centre. N. p. , n. d. Web. . â€Å"Corporate Governance Risk Management Policy. † Isle of Man Government. N. p. , n. d. Web.

2 Cases Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

2 Cases - Essay Example In the year 2006, Del Monte transformed from inquiring from sales what they were going to sell and focused on market drivers. They brought to a halt their process of sales data collection at the item level through arduous spreadsheets and focused on sensing demand, comprehending drivers of a market as well as using the data to shape how they enter a market. The new procedures focus on the insights of a shopper: who the customers are, where, what and why they are buying. It aims at how best to shape demand in these areas (the accurate combination of assortment, promotion, price, trade deals, as well as sales incentives) to compel demand that is profitable. Del Monte established that the correct data to gather from sales was market drivers’ clarity: the quantity of new accounts that takes new products, competitive activity in the market, past promotions success, as well as retail channel insights. First, the whole organization gains from the benefits of the deployed system since it insists on process change. In addition, installing the ERP by Big bang approach might help the organization to get a faster return on the investment. Furthermore, ERP makes it easier to integrate and report, and no temporary interfaces are needed. Moreover, lower cost of running the systems as legacy systems are retired simultaneously. One of the disadvantages is high capital as well as a human resource investment. Secondly, any practical performance issues have an effect on the whole user population. In addition, ERP needs training of the whole user population. Adopting the new system is susceptible because of the restricted possibilities to maneuver, in addition to there being a lot of pressure since the deadline must be met. It is recommended that organizations should attack the implementation project in focused, short phases, working backward from aimed deadlines to generate a sense of

Cold War Era and the Threats to American Families Essay

Cold War Era and the Threats to American Families - Essay Example For instance, when Cuba fell to Fidel Castro in 1959, they immediately got aid and support from the U.S.S.R.[Shermen, 2004, p. 17]. Likewise with a wide range of nations. In general, the Cold War became a situation where both the US and the USSR continued to expand their interests internationally, and in turn, grew their military power. Included in the growth of the military, was the expansion of nuclear arms. A nuclear bomb was first used by the US on Japan in the Second World War, and its effectiveness became the catalyst for developing these types of bombs in both the US and the USSR. The Cold War was thus synonymous with the 'arms race' [Westad, 2000, p. 207], which would eventually bankrupt the USSR. Explain the specific threats to American citizens. The US lived under the threat of nuclear bombs. These were not just in the USSR, but during that era, were the cargo for bombers constantly circling the world and also, located in allies of the USSR like Cuba. Thus, the US was under threat of being bombed and to a lesser extent, they felt they were under an ideological threat. One of the aspects of the Cold War, was the general fear that communism was expanding and within the US too.

Knowldge Sharing case Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Knowldge Sharing case - Essay Example â€Å"A sufficient reason for KM is that right now a major and increasing part of the world’s wealth is being generated from represented objects, rather than objects themselves† (Gamboa, 1998). When a company implements the strategy of KM into the business the company is attempting to improve the culture of the business. Implementing a new strategy into a company can be a challenging experience as many companies that have implemented KM into the businesses they operate have discovered. Knowledge Management is not yet a style of management that is taught in schools. The Knowledge Management style of management is a fairly new style of management. â€Å"A knowledge-based system is an application that falls under the umbrella of a branch of computer science properly known as artificial intelligence† (Thomas, & Howells, 2000). When someone implements the strategies of KM they would implement them in different styles. Each form of Knowledge Management has a different strategy. This is why it is difficult to implement the strategies of Knowledge Management within a company. The company needs to choose what type of Knowledge Management practice to implement within the company and to implement the strategies accordingly.

Famous Indigenous person Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Famous Indigenous person - Essay Example Before he made his move to become a professional boxer, he had the opportunity of being the highest paid player in the  NRL (Australian Library, 2010, p. 34). His life as a teenager was characterized with him spending time in his fathers’ gym. It came to a time that he took part in some matches, though amateur, when he was at the age of 17. Being a talented basketball player, he played for a while before he came to notice rugby, a field that he excelled at. When he attained the age of 18, he made his debut in the rugby field, starting with the league rugby. After this, he came to be a member of the St. George-Illawarra Dragons (Marshall, 2008, p.34).  This was the Sydney franchise in the ‘National Rugby League’ (NRL) and was also the top professional organization for the sport based in Australia. In this team, he had the position of playing a position known as the five-eighth. This was also called the standoff and a person who holds this title serve as an addi tional center for a team's attacking line. Anthony Mundine is the son and takes after his father who is also a boxer; Tony Mundine. Anthony is also a member of the  Bundjalung people and is proud of this. He received a lot of attention when he converted to Islam religion (Hunter, 2008, p.45).  He converted to Islam in 1999. ... He is known as the most polarizing player in the sports history of Australia. In 2009, he was named the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person of the year and credited with winning the Deadly Award as the male sportsperson of the year back in 2010, 2009 and also in the year 2009 (Flood, 2009, p.89).  He is also the first professional boxer to have his fights broadcasted on television. Looking at his history, Anthony holds the title of being one of Australia's most celebrated and one of the most controversial athletes. Being a member of an indigenous Australian community, he started with voicing his opinion on the matter concerning racism at a time when he was a celebrated and recognized rugby player. Afterwards, he still continued to make his facts known even after he had left the field and joined professional boxing. He sometimes stated that people hated him for voicing his own opinions about racism and other factors that other indigenous people faced. He knew for a fact tha t he was hated and this did not discourage him. Being a fighter, he made himself known around the world and made efforts to maintain his titles (Ellis, 2009, p.302).   Antony’s particular impact on aborigines’ health and social life is that he gave them the courage to compete favorably with other communities in all fields. His success is evidence that any person can achieve a goal when he/she has set the mind on it. The health aspect was affected by Antony’s life since it he made the people aware on the advantages of taking care of one’s body. The social aspect was affected since Antony proved to the entire world that where an individual comes from does not matter, what is important is his mind. Discuss both the social and health impact on both indigenous and non-indigenous

Value at Risk framework and its utility in Risk Management Assignment

Value at Risk framework and its utility in Risk Management - Assignment Example filed bankruptcy due to failure on their part to manage risk during the financial disaster that occurred in 1990s. If there is not proper management or poor supervision, then billions of dollars may be lost when a financial disaster occurs. VaR is a technique of evaluating risk that employs standard statistical methodologies employed on regular levels in other technical fields. VaR reviews the worst financial loss over a target perspective that will not be surpassed with a given intensity of confidence. Footed on strong scientific groundwork, VaR offers its users with an outline evaluation of risk in market. â€Å"For example, a financial institution might inform that its VaR of its trading assortment on a daily basis is $10 million at the 98% buoyancy or â€Å"confidence level†. This mean, there is only 1 opportunity in a 100, under typical market scenario, for a financial loss higher than $50 million to happen. This single number recapitulates the bank’s vulnerabilit y not only to the prospect of an unfavourable move but also to market risk.† It evaluates the risk employing the analogues' units as the bank’s bottom-line dollars. ... As a result, it is truly a futuristic risk evaluation. VaR is applicable to all financial instruments though in the initial stage, it has been applied only to derivatives. (Jorion 2007: ix) 2- Background Every morning, in J.P Morgan Chase, the global head of Market risk receives a bulk report that summaries the value at risk (VaR) of the bank. JPMorgan Chase's bank’s global risk management system is generating this report during every night. Today, many brokerage firms, many banks, investment funds and even nonfinancial companies employ analogues methods to estimate their financial risk. Securities market regulators, private sector groups and banks have widely acknowledged statistical based risk management strategies like VaR. (Jorion2007:18). Till Guldimann can be said to be the father of the concept VaR while he functioned as the head of global research at J.P Morgan in the late 1980s. J P Morgan’s risk management group had to decide whether fully hedged meant making investment in long-maturity bonds, thus creating a fixed and stable revenues but oscillations in market value or investing in cash thus making the market value as fixed. The J P Morgan bank concluded that â€Å"value risks â€Å"were more significant than â€Å"earning risks† resulting from the invention of VaR. (Jorion2007:18). During that period, there were more concerns in the bank about managing the risk of derivatives. The Group of Thirty (G-30) which had a delegate from J P Morgan offered a way for deliberating best risk management techniques. Through the G-30 report which was published in July 1993, the term VaR term found its way. (Jorion2007:18). On June 26, 1974, the German authorities closed a troubled midsized bank namely

Equity Valuation in the Style of Warren Buffet Project Essay

Equity Valuation in the Style of Warren Buffet Project - Essay Example The strategy is proved to be effective over time and prevents investors from making costly and foolish investment losses. The investment strategy uses both quantitative and qualitative factors which finding a good stock. The company chosen for financial analysis is Apple Inc. (Ticker Symbol AAPL) which is a Fortune 500 company whose shares are publicly traded. Apple Inc. is a leading hardware and software company which has headquarters in Cupertino, California, U.S. The company has over 400 global retail stores spread in over 14 countries and it is listed in NASDAQ as a publicly traded company. The Four Filters Approach Filter 1 – Understanding of a company and its products The company sells its products globally through retail outlets, online stores and direct sales with the help of third party distribution networks. The company is best known for its innovative hardware products and next generation media including iPhone, iPad, iPod, Smart Phones, and so on. The companyâ€⠄¢s products and services also include MAC, iCloud, App stores, Apple TV, App Stores, MAC App Stores and iBookstores. Their software services include iOS operating system, OS X, iTunes, iWork and iLife production and creativity suites. The company’s customers are small and medium sized businesses, retail customers, enterprises, educational institutions, and government customers. Filter 2 – Competitive Advantage Apple Inc. is the second largest company in information technology sector in the world. In terms of revenues, only Samsung Electronics (leading Korean company and key competitor of Apple) exceeds the consolidated revenue of Apple. In the year 2008, Fortune magazine name the company as the most admired company in United States as well as globally. Filter 3 – Ability and Trustworthiness of Management The company delivers innovative products and services to customers that include software, hardware, peripheral, and applications. Apple is committed to providi ng best user experience by leveraging its ability of producing unique design. The company continuously invests in marketing, advertising, research and development in order to boost sales and produce innovative products and technologies. The company’s long term strategy includes expansion of distribution network for reaching more customers globally in developing countries and providing them with high quality sales and support experience. Filter 4 – Intrinsic Value Analysis Free-Cash Flows The free cash flows are used to measure the financial performance of the company and it is calculated by subtracting capital expenditures from operating revenues. The free cash-flow represents the company’s ability to generate money required for expanding asset base and hence they are important to identify opportunities that can enhance shareholders’ value. Cash is very important to invest in new products, make M&A, reduce debt and pay dividends. The FCF is calculated usi ng the following formula: In order to determine the

The Problem of Pain Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The Problem of Pain - Assignment Example Additionally, I employed cognitive behavior therapy. Through the therapy, I often busied my mind with other unrelated psychological activities and avoided discussion of the accident. This way, my mind avoided the pain thereby lessening the intensity (Main, Sullivan & Watson, 2008). A different culture would have approached the pain management differently. I remember my father encouraging me not to cry since male children should not always cry. Apparently, my culture viewed crying as a sign of weakness and men are not weak. I believe the effects of the pain could have been different if it were on my sister. She is younger than me, is a girl and often engages in numerous house chores alongside my mother. I believe she could have cried longer and could have found it difficult to engage her mind on other phenomena besides the traumatizing pain a feature that could have limited the success of cognitive behavior therapy (Hughes, 2008). Main, C. J., Sullivan, M. J. L., & Watson, P. J. (2008).  Pain management: Practical applications of the biopsychosocial perspective in clinical and occupational settings. Edinburgh: Churchill

From Data to Decision Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

From Data to Decision - Essay Example The data sets have been graphed accordingly as histograms in the graphs presented below. The graphs presented above clearly show that the best actors in the range between 0 and 30 are only 3 which represent only 3.8% of the entire data set. In contrasts the best actresses in this classification are 30 that represent 37.8% of the entire data set making it exceptionally high. Furthermore, as the classifications in the best actors categories proceeds the frequency increases most in the range between 31 and 60 with the greatest expansion in the range between 41 and 50 claiming a frequency of 31. In contrast, the best actresses graph tends to display the greatest frequencies between 0 and 41 with a total of 60. This is out of a total of 79 which in turn makes that best actresses graph skewed towards these age ranges. In contrast the best actor graph is somewhat centrally distributed around the 41 to 50

Morality & differentiate Essay Example for Free

Morality differentiate Essay Morality is defined as the ability to differentiate what is right and what is wrong. While the concept may seem simple enough, in reality however it is much more complex than that. The main question is how does one define right and wrong? If something is deemed as â€Å"right†for one person, does it automatically mean that it is the right one for another? This rather confusing view of morality is exemplified in the current saying that â€Å"one mans terrorist is another mans patriot. † Truly, morality is not that easy to define. Morality however it seems is more often than not defined by the society at large. A society is define as a group of individuals that have common interests as well as have their own culture. This concept of society and morality is highly apparent in the novel by Azar Nafisi title â€Å"Reading Lolita in Tehran, A Memoir in Books. † Nafisi is in Iranian scholar who emigrated in 1997 to the United States. The book mentioned in the title is the novel by Vladimir Nabokov which tells the story of a middle aged man who has sexual obsessions with a pre-teen girl, specifically a twelve-year old girl. Although Nafisis novel isnt just about this particular book, Lolita is however one of those books considered as controversial in Iran. Novels like One Thousand and One Nights, Invitation to a Beheading, The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice, are also included and their similarity to what is happening in Iran. It is Lolita however that gets a rather good exposure in the book. Nafisis novel however goes much deeper that what the title actually says. It gives a rather good view on what happens to the people when a society suddenly changes its view on things. Nafisis book gives a closer look to what happened in Iran when Ayatollah Khomeini gained power after the Islamic revolution. One of this was the decree requiring women of Iran to follow a dress code. Iranian women were now required to wear veils. An issue that Nafisis tackles a lot in her book. This simple decree caused a great deal of change in Iran. Prior to the decree, Iranian women did not wear veils. For most women, the decree was considered as a restriction to their freedom. Women who do not follow this rule are often detained. As a result, wearing the veil also restricted how people interacted with one another. One reason for this change in interaction is the differences in their reactions to the decree. While some stated that they â€Å"hated†it, others supported it saying it made them feel more â€Å"relaxed. † In general though, women who did not wear veils were considered immoral and even unchaste by the society at large. The decree requiring the veil also allowed for segregation and discrimination. The veil made women have a less status that the men. The veil did not only change the relationships that people had with each other but also on their individual roles and responsibilities. While women were still allowed to go to universities, these were still subjected to suppression by those in power. Segregation was not the only thing that was practiced in the universities but those who were found talking to the opposite sex were punished by the religious authorities. In fact, because the school where Nafisi taught was rather liberal, school officials were often asked if they believed the school was located in Switzerland, the word being connected with all things considered decadent and lax. The wearing of the veil also made women subservient to men who had to follow whatever was said to them. This change in culture actually continued despite Khomeinis death. According to Nafisi, Khomeinis real death would only come when women were not required to wear scarves in public anymore. By interjecting the novel Lolita in her book, Nafisi shows what the society truly is. A country doing its best to live in a fantasy world. In Lolita, the main protagonist Humbert Humbert, wishes to have the perfect Lolita. Implementing the decree on the wearing of the veil in reality reveals Khomeinis dream of having a truly perfect Koranic society. Nafisi argues that much like story, where Humberts pursuit eventually destroys Lolita, Iran may likely experience the same. Living in a fantasy world though may not be that bad. Nafisis book tells us that we all need to create a paradise to escape into. ( 281) She however immediately corrects this and say that â€Å"fiction was not a panacea, but it did not offer us a critical way of appraising and grasping the world not just our world but that other world that had become the object of our desires. † ( 282) Going back to Lolita and its relation with the Iranian society, Iran is much like Humbert who despite molesting the young Lolita, appears normal in other parts of his life. By implementing a standard on morality, the Iranian society was telling people that it was normal to do so in order to run the country better. And like Humbert, the Iranian society does not blame itself but others for what is wrong. Humbert wants Lolita to become what is perfect for him, no different from what the regime wants for its citizens. The Iranian regime blames the â€Å"dissidents† for what has happened to the country hence the imposition of the new rules or codes of morality. The new codes of morality while restricting activities of most of its citizens, have also made their lives more exciting. What was then ordinary activities where now being done as a secret mission. People who wanted to watch foreign films, eat ice cream, or even meet without wearing veils were doing so in secret. Thus while the citizens were openly showing their support for the rules, they were also secretly doing normal things that were now considered as taboo. The imposition of codes of morality this did not totally alter the responsibilities of the citizens and their roles but only on how they performed it. As mentioned earlier, the issue of morality is a very complex one. By imposing a standard on morality, the Iranian regime thus changed the way its citizens behaved. Women now found their freedom curtailed as they were required to wear veils and not allowed to talk to persons of the other sex. Activities that were regularly considered as norm where now being done in secret. While most people were still allowed to hold their jobs, they faced the constant scrutiny of the religious sector. While Iranian women and people around the world viewed these changes as something negative, the regime however defended its actions by stating that the change was needed. Thus even if the propagator, Khomeini, had died, the practice continued. Another effect that the rules had, specifically on Nafisi, was her having to quit the university and teaching a class and discussing books in secret. For Nafisi, the university was no longer a place where students can have honest discussion asking how could one teach when the main concern of university officials was not the quality of ones work but the color of ones lips, the subversive potential of a single strand of hair? (11) This activity leads to Nafisi bonding with her students since most of them feel that they have been made irrelevant by the new regime. The rule requiring women to wear veils becomes more oppressive when Nafisi reveals that when the students that decided to be with her came to the room, their removing the veils and scarves was an act that was not as simple as one imagines. According to Nafisi, â€Å"each one gained an outline and a shape, becoming her own inimitable self. † (5) Because of their continuous gathering, they begin to have hope. The students draw on the parallelism on what they are currently experiencing with what they are reading. Nafisi explicitly states in the book that â€Å"[h]ope for some means its loss for others; when the hopeless regain some hope, those in power the ones who had taken it away become afraid, more protective of their endangered interests, more repressive. † (276) What this tells us is that instead of just living their lives simply, getting jobs and having a family, Nafisi, her students, and maybe some other Iranians, now found a different purpose in life. They know that they have to be strong if they want their society to change. That even if hope is all that they have left, it is better than nothing. On reading the book, Heywoods point that morality is actually concerned with not only the ethical questions but also how right and wrong are different is made clearer. The question that arises is how can an individual survive if that person has a different perception on himself or herself which is different from what society says? The answer is not simply to become political and institute change. Although it can be considered that the personal is political, at the core of the fight for political rights is the desire to protect ourselves, to prevent the political from intruding on our individual lives. (273) Imagination or fantasy is the one that bridges the political and the personal. The regimes first task had been to blur the lines and boundaries between the personal and the political, thereby destroying them both. (273) In summary, we need to keep in mind what a society is. A group of individuals with something in common and that includes moral principles. When a society has different principles on morality, like what happened in Iran, nothing good can come out of it. This is most true when a society that has experienced freedom before is suddenly restricted. Some groups will feel oppressed and will fight it. Those in power meanwhile, will do what they to prevent that from happening. The one good thing about Nafisis novel is that it does not in provide any political analysis on the situation in Iran. Rather it is about what people can do despite the tyranny around them. That students can learn when they apply and feel what they have read. Morality will always be a very tricky issue. The debate on the concept of right and wrong will not end overnight. If there is one thing that Nafisis novel teaches us, it is that setting a standard for morality is not an answer.

Organisational Structure Of The Ikea Company Commerce Essay

Organisational Structure Of The Ikea Company Commerce Essay Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, as a child, started a profitable business selling matches to neighbours on his bicycle. In 1943, at just 17 using money he received as a gift from his father for doing well in school he formed IKEA which is an acronym made up of his initials and the first letters of Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the farm and village in Sweden where he grew up. In 1947, furniture was introduced for the first time in IKEAs product line in the form of armchairs. Local craftsmen made the furniture using wood from a nearby forest. IKEAs furniture became very popular and the line was extended to include more products. Its interesting at this point in the companies history because Kamprad was based in a very poor area of Sweden, and because of this, the people were naturally frugal and highly resourceful, in other words they had to maximise and be inventive with the limited resources available to themThe author believes that this is the setting and cornerstone for all of IKEAs subsequent success. IKEAs vision was To create a better everyday life for the many people. According to Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea; To design a desk which may cost $1,000 is easy for a furniture designer, but to design a functional and good desk which shall cost $50 can only be done by the very best. Expensive solutions to all kinds of problems are often signs of mediocrity. (Chandler, 1993: 12) Ikeas success is based on the relatively simple idea of keeping the cost between manufacturers and customers down. Costs are kept under control starting at the design level of the value-added chain. Following on from this the culture of the company emphasizes efficiency and low cost, which cannot be achieved at the expense of quality or service. Bureaucracy is fought at all levels in the organization. Kamprad believes that simplicity and common sense should characterize planning and strategic direction (Bartlett et Al, 1993: 78). Bartlett C.A. Ghoshal S. (1993) Transnational Management. Irwin Publishers Boston Massachusetts Symbolic policies, such as only flying economy class and staying at economical hotels, employing young executives and sponsoring university programs have made cost part of corporate culture and have further inspired the influx of entrepreneurship into the organization. Despite his vast wealth it is reported he used to only drive an eleven-year-old modest Volvo. By 1951, furniture sales dominated his sales inventory and he decided to specialize exclusively in low priced furniture. The author recognises here that he is playing to his market strengths and again this is a further cornerstone of his subsequent success. In the same year, the first IKEA furniture catalogue was published. IKEA opened its first furniture showroom in 1953, which allowed customers to check the quality and use the items they were buying. The author recognises that any company that is prepared to allow customers to use its products before buying them will likely ensure that the quality of the product is if anything substantially above its utility specification. People also like to handle and view a potential product before purchase, which is part of the reason, that ecommerce will always take on limited success. Today IKEA is actually a privately held company owned by Stichting INGKA Foundation, a non-profit registered in Leiden in the Netherlands that is controlled by the Kamprads three sons. The Dutch foundation is worth US$36 billion in 2006. IKEA Group with its headquarters in Denmark, is a multinational operator of a chain of stores for home furnishing and furniture. It is the worlds largest furniture retailer with a reputation for low cost, style and design. IKEAs annual home furnishing sales are 20 billion euros with more than 260 IKEA Group stores in 25 countries (Ohlsson, 2010). IKEA has about 40 distribution centres worldwide in 16 different countries, and implemented the automated Astro warehouse management system in 2005 (2005) in 15 of their Distribution Centres (DC) and Customer Distribution Centres (CDC). IKEA has approximately 1,220 suppliers from 55 different countries split more or less evenly between Europe and Asia, the top five of which are China 20%, Poland 18%, Italy 8%, Germany 6% and Sweden 5%. The company holds 3.5m stock keep units, with 10000 different product types amongst them, 10% of which are new every year. It is also a major global employer with 125000 employees in 40 different countries. Human resources The companys ethos was quite Christian in its values-their philosophy was to treat others as one would like to be treated oneself and their belief is akin to that shown by Japanese companies to their workers today that is to increase commitment and hence productivity from staff, one has to provide them with the belief of belonging to the company. For instance, all design teams enjoy complete autonomy in their work, but are expected to design new appealing products regularly. Ikeas employment philosophy is widely welcomed in the USA where historically moral amongst staff and working conditions and benefits are poor in the retail sector. This accounted for the fact that the sector had one of the highest turnover rates of all industries. Consequently, it also suffers from high human resource (HR) costs, as companies have to recruit and train replacements at frequent intervals. Definition: Management Information Systems (MIS) is the term given to the discipline focused on the integration of computer systems with the aims and objectives on an organisation. Information systems can be broadly divided into operational level for transaction processing, knowledge level for knowledge and office management, management level for decision and intelligent support and strategic level for executive support. The information systems support an information value chain for both business process-supply chain, enterprise, customer and knowledge management and management activities-planning, co-ordinating, controlling and modelling. Ultimately all the systems process data and provide feedback and for executive support for decision making planning, monitoring and implementation of strategy and the general workforce. Definition of an organisation -a stable formal structure that takes resources from the environment and processes them to produce outputs. An organisation can be said to be a formal structure with a standard operating procedure, politics and culture. Environmental factors affect their outputs -these maybe resources, government, competitors, financial, institutional culture, technology. Impact of information systems is seen in terms of a microeconomic model, transaction cost model, agency theory and behavioral theory. sociotechnical systems, redefining boundaries, recognising work flows, flattening, electronic market. Diagram Organisation Information technology mediating factors -environment culture structure standard procedures politics management decisions chance Information systems Information systems relate to the way in which Ikea is organized, its management and its technical layout. Information systems do not just consist of information technology (IT) and information transfer systems-the technical requirements should act as an adjunct to the business strategies of the enterprise rather than being a hostage to its fortune. Often business strategy requires the execution of complex processes of control and automation and the ability to quickly analyze and react to relevant data, not in an uncontrolled firefighting or reactive manner but with anticipation and forward planning based on likely demand and external changes in the business environment. Diagram showing interdependence between Business strategy, software, hardware, data management, telecommunications Organisational framework The problem is that in complex business organizations SBUs tend to design their information management needs according to their best interests rather than to the interest of the enterprise as a whole. This is termed the silo affect. To survive in an every more competitive environment, management must be strong enough to ensure that their strategy is implemented in the execution of cross-functional business processes and that information can be managed and shared across spatial, functional, geographic and segmental boundaries. Stakeholders interests e.g.are often ignored at the expense of damaging other parts of the supply chain, and the chain weakens. This maybe for several reasons, particularly because corporations are often intimidated by the thought of sharing competitive information with their suppliers. Their information security facilities often prohibits suppliers from gaining advantage by withholding from them key information e.g. manufacturing processes can benefit from effi cient production through accessing a real-time demand system. Companies therefore face a dilemma-do they share information to the extent that it allows their potential competitors access to their market information or do they with-hold information and become less competitive. In the end and on balance, a closeted attitude becomes self-defeating and exposes them to the risk of a more aggressive competitor. Ikea does not actually manufacture products, however it plays a very large design and innovative role in their production. By outsourcing manufacturing they can retain a competitive advantage -if one company fails to provide product as specified they will find another company that can and they do not suffer from set-up costs and ultimately ROI costs. One can immediately see the main problems relating to information management for IKEA. None more so than with a company whose strategy demands supply from a worldwide network and delivery to a worldwide customer base. One can easily understand that where there is a disparate group of suppliers, co-ordination between various supplier and DC is critical. A range of kitchen products e.g.may be produced by different manufacturers who have different supply times, manufacturing ability, geographical location, delivery times etc. On one hand one does not want idle inventory stock as this costs money, on the other one wants to ensure a constant supply which can meet fluctuations in demand-otherwise customers will become frustrated and will purchase elsewhere. In addition customer demand may vary between geographical location e.g. a country maybe has mainly city based stores where there would naturally be higher demand e.g. for space saving furniture which may be manufacturered in a country r ound the other side of the world. Ikea faces huge logistical problems, particularly as their ethos is to supply medium range quality product at low price. Supply planning is key to this strategy. One needs in this situation to forecast across the whole company and to organise its distribution centres into groups and hold one lot of a float of stock for a number of DCs. The capacity and geographical location of the CDCs become crucial to the companies strategic planning. Clearly a high capacity geographically distant CDC or a low capacity near CDC have redundancy issues because of the volume of product they hold and there impact on delivery time. Technology At operation level, Astro WMS (Group, 2010) is a modular WMS that IKEA adopted in 2010 and increases and improves efficiency in their distribution centre. Astro simplifies and streamlines the work process to provide total control of warehouse management with full tractability, accuracy, and on-line planning. In order to optimise capacity, handling equipment and storage spaces must be fully utilized. Astro is an automated warehouse management system that allows for ordering fulfilment automatically so reducing manual cost with automated re-ordering purchase orders being sent to suppliers when stock levels are low. Fully automatic double-aisle cranes from LTW Doppelmayr operate without any manual input as if robots have taken over the world leaving man redundant. In IKEA DC in New Jersey USA is running Astro WMS at full capacity with 175 warehouse employees. Ed Morris, Operations Manager at the site comments, We have seen that we are already back to picking 4,500 customer order lines per day and able to ship 34 trailers to the stores by the end of week one. I am confident that we will be exceeding our previous daily expectations in the very near future. Through the partnership we have built with the Consafe team, I am sure that both sides will take things away from this project and use them in the future. I really believe that this cutover was a success for both IKEA and Consafe. There will be space for 70.000 pallets in the 2 conventional modules and 100.000 pallets in the high-rack system. The warehouse capacity will be 270.000 pallets and therefore the largest IKEA Distribution Centre in the world. Taking a product to market involves many steps and information management is crucial to the products success. Ikea often designs and develops products from their inception to market. In order to do this they work from CAD drawings and have prototype machines model real products from their design drawings. But product manufacturing is more involved than just prototype production and testing. One must consider material source and process cost with the manufacturer as well as packaging development. IKEA is famous for its flat packs that were designed not just to fit into the customers car easily, but are mainly designed to maximize use of space during transport and warehousing so reducing costs storage and handling costs to a minimum. (Economist, 1994: 101). IKEA realized early on that space is often redundant during storage or transportation, yet costs money regardless of whether it is utilized or not. Hence the idea of a flat pack where storage and transport demand can be anticipated easily and utilized efficiently. In addition products have to market researched and tested and there has to be careful consideration in rollout, forecasting and financials. Neglecting one of these areas can cause immense damage to the company as a whole e.g. if a product reaches the shelf which is faulty may damage the brand of the company e.g. if the manufacturing process is too costly to set up it can place borrowing costs and liquidity capital under significant strain. The product must also be indexed, catalogued, labeled and displayed correctly. All of these represent part of the supply process, all of them require huge information analysis and appropriate information transfer. Order planning is therefore crucial to their operation and differences between expected demand and supply will affect their bottom line. In 2005 realising that these issues were becoming critical, the company decided to use an SAP based demand-planning tool solution with Manugistics and their goal was to reduce inventory levels in distribution centres by at least 10%. In its deployment the software must be able to identify critical resources such as people, equipment, storage, suppliers, finances, and be able to forecast with reasonable accuracy supply and demand fluctuations. Diagram-Forecast, stock, orders, material resource planning, requisition, quality, invoice, payment, structure of DC, CDC manufacturers. Production manager and finance officer. Management issues In modern corporate culture constant improvement has become a leading concept, and the technology has to keep up. Therefore the system needs to be flexible and adaptive, i.e. they need to be able to adapt changes in the flow. The limits of this flexibility are set at an early stage, by the choice of system and provider/supplier. As the company has such a vast range of stock there is also a tendency to be production-oriented, rather than customer focused which has made its supply chain more push than pull which naturally creates a supply-demand imbalance. The Supply Chain Council is an independent group of international supply chain industry executives and experts who developed the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model over a ten-year period using in-depth industry research and analysis. The models however are often based on forecasts and on theories, which are exact in them selves, but whose results maybe incorrect. The reason is that they require great quantities of data that are hard to gather and have to be estimated and calculations often have to be carried out for entire batches. One such example is the Wilson formula. The Wilson Formula The Wilson formula is a traditional method for determining production quantity where the total consumption during a period of time is known. The formula assumes that the only costs entailed are a warehousing cost per stock keeping unit and a one-time cost every time an order is placed, known as administrative re-ordering costs. The formula tries to find an optimal balance between the two costs to minimize the total cost, which is known as the economic order quantity (EOQ). In order for the Wilson formula to work, a number of conditions have to be met: Demand is constant and continuous The lead time for receiving ordered goods is constant Administrative re-ordering costs and warehousing costs are constant The order quantity does not need to be expressed as an integer The entire order quantity is delivered to the warehouse on the same occasion No shortages allowed The price/cost is independent of time requirements and ordered quantity Goods handling is ignored which is often a considerable cost e.g. the value of the article is often not proportional to the handling cost of the good. The administrative re-ordering cost is hard to determine. Price and demand also varies over time making judgement obsolete. Management by Objectives Ikea uses Opportunity Analyzer, which makes use of the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model. Best practices and key performance indicators are embedded in Opportunity Analyzer Management. Opportunity Analyzer recognizes important key performance indicators (KPIs) e.g. delivery performance. While MIS systems are extremely useful in generating statistical reports and data analysis they can also be of use as a Management by Objectives (MBO) tool. MBO is a management process by which managers and subordinates agree upon a series of objectives for the subordinate to attempt to achieve within a set time frame. Objectives are set using the SMART ratio: that is, objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Time-Specific. The success of any MBO objective depends upon the continuous tracking of progress. In tracking this performance it can be extremely useful to make use of an MIS system. Since all SMART objectives are by definition measurable they can be tracked through the generation of management reports to be analysed by decision-makers. http://www.supply-chain.org/resources/scormark/tutorial SCOR considers management processes and planning. Ikea has such a large range of products that one has to be able to benchmark supply chains against products in order to best assess the most profitable items. SCOR takes product and cross references them individually against customer sub-type then groups similar supply chain characteristics. It then applies performance matrices-those of agility, responsiveness, cost, assets and reliability and scores each group of supply chains accordingly creating a ranking of supply chains. The advantages are obvious in that the more efficient supply chains can be more heavily relied upon, to create profit, the weaker ones losing out from future reliance. However, the disadvantage is that supply chains may cut across market segments and unifying groups by supply chain efficiency rather than by market segment may destroy market uniformity. The executive team can select a relevant KPI for the particular target area. Today, companies connect into networks or chains, increasing the flow rate throughout the supply chain to satisfy an ever more demanding customer. Increased power is given over to the vendor to keep stock at the desired level. http://www.jda.com/company/display-collateral.html?did=636dcid=1 The demand supply chain software must also be able to provide key metrics in areas where demand exceeds supply and available capacity. This will improve order fill rates and network utilization and will free working capital tied to ineffective inventory. However, understanding the supply demand chain in its practical execution is not all that is required. The product, must also align with its financial evaluation in an integrated business plan. It must be able to identify any performance concerns and gaps at the lowest practical level across the strategic/business plans. The software must become a forecasting tool and be able to perform a what if scenario for management to make best estimate prediction on future capacity demands. It must be able to relate assumptions, risks and opportunities to specific hierarchy levels in the SOP plan. These are decision support systems. Like all good army strategy there must be a backup plan when all goes wrong with practical and well-worked altern atives e.g. its no good having a back up generator if its not properly serviced regularly. The information tool must also be able to track changes over time and carry out real-time review analysis of supply and highlight areas where inventory positions violate pre-defined tolerances. It must also be able to highlight critical resource constraints related to material, labor and other capacity variables. Clearly there is a position that optimizes resources, distribution, transportation, stock inventory, production and materials. http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/operations-supply/10574219-1.html Recommendations IKEA is undoubtedly a highly successful global firm. Like all firms they must ensure competitive advantage. In information transfer terms they have problems relating to the fact that their suppliers are multiple and demand can vary. It may be better for them to consider horizontal back integration and begin to act as suppliers to ensure consistant information flow-from factory to customer. They will undoubtedly sometime soon saturate their market and further market expansion may not be possible. They must look toward expansion elsewhere either by parallel related market considerations e.g. home or commercial furnishing design or by backward horizontal integration. Both would be ideal targets for integrated information design providing the company with synergistic information value and ultimately increasing their information value chain.

Is Sugar Addiction a Substance Use Disorder?

Is Sugar Addiction a Substance Use Disorder? An Examination of Sugar Addiction as a Substance Use Disorder Abstract In the last decade, many studies have supported the addictive nature of sugar. In this examination of sugar addiction, we explore the parallels with substance abuse disorder and highlight the effects on the brain and body as well as the psychological and biological risk factors that may make an individual vulnerable to sugar addiction. We theorize that defining sugar addiction as a substance abuse disorder in a future version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) will change policy to improve public health, and minimize the costs of metabolic disorders like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease on the economy. Keywords: sugar addiction, substance use disorder, dopamine, impulsivity, obesity Worldwide obesity rates are rapidly rising. In 2016, an estimated 30% of Americans over the age of 18, and almost 20% of young adults were overweight or obese, as defined by a body mass index (BMI) greater than 30 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016); and they are projected to increase to 80% by 2023 (Wang, Beydoun, Liang, Caballero, & Kumanyika, 2008). Between 29% and 47% of obese individuals meet the criteria for binge eating disorders (BED) (McCuen-Wurst, Ruggieri, & Allison, 2017). However, we suggest in this review of the literature that the food addiction model is a more appropriate mechanism when looking at correlates and causes of the development of eating disorders and metabolic disorders, including insulin resistance, diabetes, and obesity. The DSM-5 criteria for BED is limited in that it focuses largely on behavior, distress and shame caused by the eating disorder, and lacks acknowledgment of the neurobiological vulnerabilities and effects (American Psychiatric Association, 2013a). Alternatively, the food addiction model proposes that food, especially highly palatable, processed foods that are high in sugar, fat and/or salt are addictive (Davis & Carter, 2014), and therefore may be the underlying cause of BED and metabolic disorders, including obesity. For this examination, we mainly focus on the addictive nature of sugar, as the majority of food addiction studies have shown that sugar intake is more addictive than fat or salt, and highlight the numerous biological and psychological parallels to substance (Avena, Bocarsly, Rada, Kim, & Hoebel, 2008; Avena, Rada, & Hoebel, 2008; Davis, Loxton, Levitan, Kaplan, Carter, & Kennedy, 2013; Hoebel, Avena, Bocarsly, & Rada, 2009; Hone-Blanchet & Fecteau, 2014; Ifland, Preuss, Marcus, Rourke, Taylor, Burau, Jacobs, Kadish, & Manso, 2009; Page & Melrose, 2016; Tran & Westbrook, 2017; Wong, Dogra, & Reichelt, 2017). It is well known that addictive drugs activate the dopaminergic reward pathway. The mesocorticolimbic pathway, which includes the ventral tegmental area (VTA), nucleus accumbens (NAc) and the frontal cortex, is especially implicated in the reinforcement of the use of these substances. These areas release high levels of dopamine, which produce a euphoric state, and help form â€Å"liking† motivations and positive associations toward the addictive substances. However, as the drug is repeatedly consumed, tolerance builds in the body, and â€Å"liking† becomes â€Å"wanting,† resulting in reduced pleasure, and physiological dependence that necessitates increased consumption (Reeve, 2015). Food addiction studies have shown that while a variety of foods lead to the release of dopamine, sugar activates the dopaminergic pathway in a way that mirrors addictive substances, and leads to bingeing, tolerance, cravings, dependence, and subsequent withdrawal symptoms when deprived (American Psychiatric Association, 2013b; Avena et al., 2008; Davis & Carter, 2014; Davis et al., 2013). As sugar is over-consumed, tolerance grows and bingeing with increased amounts of sugar are needed to obtain the same pleasurable effect. This is suggested to be due to the down-regulation of dopamine receptors (Avena et al., 2008; Davis, Patte, Levitan, Reid, Tweed, & Curtis, 2007; Hoebel et al., 2009; Ifland et al., 2009, Loxton & Tipman, 2017). Thereafter, â€Å"wanting† or cravings are suggested to be due to the imbalance of hormone signals that results in high anticipation and high sensitivity to sugar when it is consumed. In a study conducted by Lindqvist, Baelemans, and Erlanson-Albertsson (2008), rats that were given a sugar solution showed a 40% increase in ghrelin, the hormone that triggers appetite; in contrast to a significant decrease in leptin and peptide YY, two hunger-suppressing hormones; and a significant down-regulation in mRNA expression of additional hunger-suppressing peptides. This imbalance of appetite hormones and gene expression were hypothesized to have resulted in bingeing and tolerance, as demonstrated by a doubling of the drink consumption compared to control-group rats given water. Lastly, animal studies on sugar addiction have shown that sugar withdrawal mimics opioid withdrawal, and presents with depression and anxiety when deprivation of sugar occurs (Avena et al., 2008; Avena, Rada, & Hoebel, 2008; Hoebel et al., 2009; Hone-Blanchet & Fecteau, 2014; Ifland et al., 2009). The numerous studies in sugar addiction that overlap with the different stages of substance use disorders provide strong biological support for sugar addiction to be classified as a substance use disorder. Further adding to the biological susceptibility of sugar addiction, Davis et al. (2013) found enhanced dopamine transmission was due to six genetic mutations linked to the dopamine reward pathway; and that association between increased dopamine signaling and multilocus genetic profile scores was significantly higher in participants with high reward sensitivity and high risk for food addiction. These neurological changes and genetic vulnerabilities support tolerance and dependence that may result from a frequent flooding of dopamine and a reduction of receptors as seen in substance use disorders. Likewise, psychological traits like impulsivity and poor emotional regulation, have been found in both substance use disorders and sugar addiction. Impulsivity, as it relates to immediate gratification and deficits in behavioral inhibition, was positively correlated with sugar addiction. However, sensation-seeking, as an impulsive personality trait, was negatively associated with sugar addiction, and theorized to be due to the lack of arousal and stimulation from eating food; â€Å"those who are risk seeking and reward-driven might seek out experiences involving greater levels of arousal and stimulation (Pivarunas & Connor, 2015; VanderBroek-Stice, Stojek, Beach, vanDellen, & MacKillop, 2017). Poor emotional regulation and low distress tolerance were also positively associated with sugar addiction, and the consumption of sugar was hypothesized to activate the pleasure center countering the negative emotional state and further reinforcing the reward of sugar intake behavior (Kozak & Fought, 2011; Pivarunas & Connor, 2015). Equally important in the comparison between sugar addiction and substance use disorders are the detrimental effects on the brain and body’s functions, such as cognitive impairment and metabolic disorders. Reversible cognitive impairments in decision-making, motivation, spatial or place-recognition memory were recently identified in studies with rats (Tran & Westbrook, 2017; Wong, Dogra, & Reichelt, 2017). However, in a study conducted by Page and Melrose (2016), high levels of circulating sugar and insulin levels dulled food cues, reducing hypothalamic activity, and negatively affecting neural food processing, which over time increased the risk for insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. A separate study found that the overconsumption of sugar increased levels of free fatty acids, triglycerides and cholesterol in the blood (Lindqvist, Baelemans, & Erlanson-Albertsson, 2008), which are confirmed risk factors for developing in heart disease and strokes in humans (National Institute of Health, 2005; American Heart Association, 2017). The relationship between sugar addiction’s detrimental effects and long-term illness are apparent in the literature, and is analogous to the relationship between substance use and disease. Current treatment options for food or sugar addiction are limited to exercise, which addresses biological pathways; and mindfulness, which emphasizes psychological processes. Exercise serves as a protective treatment against metabolic disorders and food addiction via increases in brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), a neurotransmitter that plays a major role in neuroplasticity, and in the regulation of food intake, physical activity, and glucose metabolism (Codella, Terruzzi, & Luzi, 2017). Whereas, mindfulness addresses the dual process model of health behavior, which states that there are interactive automatic (implicit) and controlled (explicit) psychological processes that result in addictive behavior. Implicit, automatic processes include intentions, approach and avoidance tendencies, and emotions, meanwhile explicit, controlled processes include reflective action (Hagger, Trost, Keech, Chan, & Hamilton, 2017; Tang, Posner, Rothbart, & Volkow, 2015). In 2017, Kakoschke, Kemps, & Tiggemann showed that a two-pronged approach-modification protocol successfully retrained participants to avoid unhealthy food by 1) reducing the approach bias toward unhealthy food, and 2) increasing the approach bias toward healthy food. Another study showed a high approach tendency for healthy food buffered against the stress of hunger and wanting for unhealthy food (Cheval, Audrin, Sarrazin, & Pelletier, 2017). Mindfulness was also found to regulate emotional reactivity to internal and external cues (Fisher, Mead, Lattimore, Malinowski, 2017). Unfortunately, available treatment options have low generalizable, replicable success as they fail to provide a streamlined approach to sugar addiction and/or address neurobiological vulnerabilities and negative effects. Neither sugar nor food addiction is currently defined in the DSM-5. The only consistent measure of food addiction is the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS), a survey developed in 2009, and it is used in studies reliably as its questions are based on DSM-IV addiction criteria (Gearhardt, Corbin, Brownell, 2009; Gearhardt, Corbin, Brownell, 2016). As mentioned earlier, food addiction and BED are not reciprocal disorders, therefore acknowledging sugar addiction as a substance use disorder in a future DSM may increase evidence-based research that strongly implicates genetic and brain pathways, which may lead to early prevention, reduced stigmatization and diverse treatment options that address the psychological as well as neurobiological vulnerabilities through medication, and even gene therapy. Further research and government regulation can also limit the pseudo-science funded by sugar and packaged goods companies. For example, in reviewing the literature, two studies were found that denied sugar and its addictive properties (Benton, 2010; Markus, Rogers, Brouns, & Schepers, 2017); they were funded by Coca-Cola and the World Sugar Research Organization. Similar to the studies conducted by the tobacco industry, the information countering sugar addiction can be confusing and deceptive to consumers. Government regulation of the sugar industry, like the tobacco industry can result in a decrease of sugar addiction and its harmful health effects. Lastly, there is also a large benefit to public health and the economic costs in treating sugar addiction like a substance use disorder. The costs to treat diabetes, a disease directly related to increased blood sugar levels and insulin resistance was $245 billion in 2012 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). These costs do not include comorbid diseases like obesity, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. Obesity alone is projected to cost upwards of $957 billion by 2030 (Wang et al., 2008). Therefore, prevention of these life-long metabolic disorders by addressing the addictive properties of sugar can potentially reduce the burden on global health and economic systems in a great way. References American Heart Association. (2017). Prevention and Treatment of High Cholesterol (Hyperlipidemia). Retrieved from http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/Cholesterol/PreventionTreatmentofHighCholesterol/Prevention-and-Treatment-of-High-Cholesterol-Hyperlipidemia_UCM_001215_Article.jsp#.WhoJdNy1uUl American Psychiatric Association. (2013a). Feeding and Eating Disorders. In Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5 (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596.dsm10 American Psychiatric Association. (2013b). Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders. In Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5 (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596.dsm16 Avena, N. M., Bocarsly, M. E., Rada, P., Kim, A., & Hoebel, B. G. (2008). After daily bingeing on a sucrose solution, food deprivation induces anxiety and accumbens dopamine/acetylcholine imbalance. Physiology & Behavior, 94, 309-315. doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2008.01.008 Avena, N. M., Rada, P., & Hoebel, B. G. (2008). Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 32, 20-39. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2007.04.019 Benton, D. (2010). The plausibility of sugar addiction and its role in obesity and eating disorders. Clinical Nutrition, 29, 288-303. doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2009.12.001 Cheval, B., Audrin, C., Sarrazin, P., & Pelletier, L. (2017). When hunger does (or doesn’t) increase unhealthy and healthy food consumption through food wanting: The distinctive role of impulsive approach tendencies toward healthy food. Appetite, 116, 99-107. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2017.04.028 Codella, R., Terruzzi, I., & Luzi, L. (2017). Sugars, exercise and health. Journal of Affective Disorders, 224, 76-86. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2016.10.035 Davis, C., & Carter, J. C. (2014). If certain foods are addictive, how might this change the treatment of compulsive overeating and obesity? Current Addiction Reports, 1, 89-95. doi:10.1007/s40429-014-0013-z Davis, C., Loxton, N. J., Levitan, R. D., Kaplan, A. S., Carter, J. C., & Kennedy, J. L. (2013). ‘Food addiction’ and its association with a dopaminergic multilocus genetic profile. Physiology & Behavior, 118, 63-69. doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2013.05.014 Fisher, N. R., Mead, B. R., Lattimore, P., & Malinowski, P. (2017). Dispositional mindfulness and reward motivated eating: The role of emotion regulation and mental habit. Appetite, 118, 41-48. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2017.07.019 Gearhardt, A. N., Corbin, W. R., & Brownell, K. D. (2009). Preliminary validation of the Yale Food Addiction Scale. Appetite, 52, 430-436. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2008.12.003 Gearhardt, A. N., Corbin, W. R., & Brownell, K. D. (2016). Development of the Yale Food Addiction Scale Version 2.0. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 30, 113-121. doi:10.1037/adb0000136 Hagger, M. S., Trost, N., Keech, J. J., Chan, D. K. C., & Hamilton, K. (2017). Predicting sugar consumption: Application of an integrated dual-process, dual-phase model. Appetite, 116, 147-156. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2017.04.032 Hoebel, B. G., Avena, N. M., Bocarsly, M. E., & Rada, P. (2009). A behavioral and circuit model based on sugar addiction in rats. Journal of Addiction Medicine, (3)1, 33-41. doi:10.1097/ADM.0b013e31819aa621 Hone-Blanchet, A., & Fecteau, S. (2014). Overlap of food addiction and substance use disorders definitions: Analysis of animal and human studies. Neuropharmacology, 85, 81-90. doi:10.1016/j.neuropharm.2014.05.019 Ifland, J. R., Preuss, H. G., Marcus, M. T., Rourke, K. M., Taylor, W. C., Burau, K., Jacobs, W. S., Kadish, W., & Manso, G. (2008). Refined food addiction: A classic substance use disorder. Medical Hypotheses, 72, 518-526. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2008.11.035 Kakoschke, N., Kemps, N., & Tiggemann, M. (2017). Impulsivity moderates the effect of approach bias modification on healthy food consumption. Appetite, 117, 117-125. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2017.06.019 Kozak, A. T., & Fought, A. (2011). Beyond alcohol and drug addiction. Does the negative trait of low distress tolerance have an association with overeating? Appetite, 57, 578-581. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2011.07.008 Lindqvist, A., Baelemans, A., & Erlanson-Albertsson, C. (2008). Effects of sucrose, glucose and fructose on peripheral and central appetite signals. Regulatory Peptides, 150, 26-32. doi:10.1016/j.regpep.2008.06.008 Markus, C. R., Rogers, P. J., Brouns, F., & Schepers, R. (2017). Eating dependence and weight gain; no human evidence for a ‘sugar-addiction’ model of overweight. Appetite, 114, 64-72. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2017.03.024 McCuen-Wurst, C., Ruggieri, M., & Allison, K. C. (2017). Disordered eating and obesity: Associations between binge-eating disorder, night-eating syndrome, and weight-related comorbities. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1-10. doi:10.1111/nyas.13467 Page, K. A., & Melrose, A. J. (2016). Brain, hormone and appetite responses to glucose versus fructose. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 9, 111-117. doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2016.03.002 Pivarunas, B., & Conner, B. T. (2015). Impulsivity and emotion dysregulation as predictors of food addiction. Eating Behaviors, 19, 9-14. doi:10.1016.j.eatbeh.2015.06.007 Reeve, J. M. (2015). The Motivated and Emotional Brain. In Understanding Motivation and Emotion (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Tang, Y., Posner, M. I., Rothbart, M. K., & Volkow, N. D. (2015). Circuitry of self-control and its role in reduction addiction. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(8), 439-444. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.06.007 Tran, D. M. D., & Westbrook, R. F. (2017). A high-fat high-sugar diet-induced impairment in place-recognition memory is reversible and training dependent. Appetite, 110, 61-71. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2016.12.010 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2017: Estimates of Diabetes and its Burden in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/statistics/national-diabetes-statistics-report.pdf U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2016). Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System: Percent of adults aged 18 and older who have obesity. Retrieved from https://chronicdata.cdc.gov/Nutrition-Physical-Activity-and-Obesity/Percent-of-adults-aged-18-and-older-who-have-obesi/cwdv-83mi U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2005). High blood cholesterol: What you need to know. (NIH Publication No. 05-3290). Retrieved from https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/resources/heart/heart-cholesterol-hbc-what-html VanderBroek-Stice, L., Stojek, M. K., Beach, S. R. H., vanDellen, M. R., & MacKillop, J. (2017). Multidimensional assessment of impulsivity in relation to obesity and food addiction. Appetite, 112, 59-68. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2017.01.009 Wang, Y., Beydoun, M. A., Liang, L., Caballero, B., & Kumanyika, S. K. (2008). Will all Americans become overweight or obese? Estimating the progression and cost of the U.S. obesity epidemic. Obesity, 15(10), 2323-2330. doi:10.1038/oby.2008.351 Wong, A., Dogra, V. R., & Reichelt, A. C. (2017). High-sucrose diets in male rats disrupt aspects of decision-making tasks, motivation and spatial memory, but not impulsivity measured by operant delay-discounting. Behavioural Brain Research, 327, 144-154. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2017.03.029

Jumbled Popcorn :: Essays Papers

Jumbled Popcorn In writing a paper I often start out full of ideas and methods of analysis about the topic or issue at hand. However, I find it tedious to have to connect those ideas; yet, I want my paper to be cohesive and organized. My rough draft paper often seems as if someone crumpled it up and threw it in a blender. I always know what I want to say and feel that I have a good development of ideas, but often struggle in drawing out my main points. The paper that I am revising is my analysis paper because it lacks an assertive thesis and an organized plan. These are important global revisions that need to be revised in order for my paper to truly be reader friendly. When I first got my analysis paper back I felt that the grade was justified because I thought that I had developed my ideas and analyzed them well while providing evidence and support for my claims. However, I also recognized immediately upon a quick glance over my paper that my claims were not clearly stated and therefore my readers were not sure what the point of my paper was. I was not sure how to go about fixing this problem until I heard the presentation in class about global revisions. The presenters talked about how important it is to make sure that your introduction and your conclusion are similar in that they discuss the same points because this means your paper stayed focused. Also, in order to keep my paper focused it should have a concise structure laid out and then followed. When it came down to it, my paper was lacking two major things: a thesis that incorporated and strongly stated what the purpose and main points of the paper were and a paragraph detai ling the structure of my paper so that the reader could easily follow my ideas. Knowing what I had to do I then sat down to revise my paper. Thinking I knew exactly what needed to be done I told myself it would take a half hour flat. An hour later I was still staring at the computer screen trying to rationalize to myself the long new bolded areas.

How To Pitch :: essays research papers

The most important part of being a good pitcher is throwing strikes. With out that you will not be able to get hitters out and you will walk everyone. To throw strikes you have to have a good wind up and delivery. After you have your fastball mastered you can begin to throw different pitches such as a curveball, change up, or slider. The first thing that you have to do in your wind up is to step back with your right foot behind the rubber. Second you have to swing you right foot up and balance on your left foot. Finally you have to push your left foot off of the mound while balancing and throw the ball towards the plate. After you throw the ball you have to be in a fielder’s position in case the ball is thrown hit back at you.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The most common off speed pitch is a curve ball because it has a lot of movement if it is thrown correctly. To throw this pitch you use the same wind up but when you get to the point of throwing the ball, instead of throwing it regularly you snap your wrist to make the ball spin. In order to get a lot of movement you have to throw the ball with a little bit less velocity. It is important to be able to throw a curve ball while pitching.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another good pitch is a change up. This pitch is simple to throw because it is similar to a fastball but it is only thrown slower. While throwing this pitch the wind up is the same but you throw the ball a little bit slower. This is to get the hitter off balance and not hit the ball on the barrel of the bat.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The third pitch is the slider. It is similar to a curve ball but it is thrown harder. It does not move as much but it does not allow the hitter to recognize the movement. How To Pitch :: essays research papers The most important part of being a good pitcher is throwing strikes. With out that you will not be able to get hitters out and you will walk everyone. To throw strikes you have to have a good wind up and delivery. After you have your fastball mastered you can begin to throw different pitches such as a curveball, change up, or slider. The first thing that you have to do in your wind up is to step back with your right foot behind the rubber. Second you have to swing you right foot up and balance on your left foot. Finally you have to push your left foot off of the mound while balancing and throw the ball towards the plate. After you throw the ball you have to be in a fielder’s position in case the ball is thrown hit back at you.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The most common off speed pitch is a curve ball because it has a lot of movement if it is thrown correctly. To throw this pitch you use the same wind up but when you get to the point of throwing the ball, instead of throwing it regularly you snap your wrist to make the ball spin. In order to get a lot of movement you have to throw the ball with a little bit less velocity. It is important to be able to throw a curve ball while pitching.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another good pitch is a change up. This pitch is simple to throw because it is similar to a fastball but it is only thrown slower. While throwing this pitch the wind up is the same but you throw the ball a little bit slower. This is to get the hitter off balance and not hit the ball on the barrel of the bat.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The third pitch is the slider. It is similar to a curve ball but it is thrown harder. It does not move as much but it does not allow the hitter to recognize the movement.

Go Ask Alice Essay -- essays research papers

Go Ask Alice! Alice is fifteen, white, middle, class. She diets, she dates. She loves Roger but the most time he doesn’t notice her. If she would ever sleep with a boy she would sleep with him. Alice hates her look. She wants to be pretty and slim. Lately she loses fascination about all things. School is boring and she doesn’t even go to parties. Her parents want to move. Her Dad is invited to become the Dean of the Political Science at - . Alice is happy and is not hard for her to leave the old school. But she misses her old house and her grandparents who she calls gramp and gran. Alice has a brother called Tim and a sister Alexandria. The two are younger than Alice. At her new school it is horrible for her. Nobody speaks to her the first days. but her brother and sister like the new school. Finally she finds a friend at school. Her name is Gerda, but Alice’s mother and father don’t like her. Alice doesn’t feel happy in her family. She hates his sister and her brother more than she loves them. Tim is intolerable and her mother is constantly Peking at her. Alice gets to know Beth Baum. Beth is Jewish and her father is a doctor. Her mother nags a lot. Alice’s parents like Beth, because she is pretty nice. In the holidays Beth goes on a summer camp for six weeks and Alice stays at her grans. One day she meets Jill Peters and she invites her for a party. Alice doesn’t like taking drugs. She wants to stop it...

Effective teachers Essay

The list of dispositions associated with effective teachers Once you are prepared, use the My Dispositions Target (Figure 2. 1) from your text to organize and record the initial analysis of your dispositions. This document should be placed as an attachment to your discussion response. To include the document as an attachment, locate the attachment feature in the bottom left-hand corner of the discussion response box. In your response: †¢Describe which of these dispositions (as well as those noted in Chapter 10) you already exhibit on a regular basis. When working with toddlers myself and my co-worker use several of these dispositions listed in Chapter 10. For instance †¢Based on the discussion of career options in Chapter 10, identify at least two possible careers that interest you and that are a â€Å"good fit† based on your personal disposition reflection. Explain why you would be a good fit for both of your chosen careers. †¢Discuss which dispositions are still emerging for you and how will you plan to develop them for both of your possible future career choices. Guided Response: Review several of your classmates’ posts and respond to at least two of your peers. In your responses, suggest some further ways your peers can develop their emerging dispositions. Estes, L. A. , & Krogh, S. (2012). Pathways to teaching young children: An introduction to early childhood education. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Table 2. 1: Dispositions of effective teachers DispositionDescriptor ApproachableDemonstrates desire to interact through words and actions CommunicatorExpresses self clearly both verbally and in writing CompetentIs able to skillfully perform tasks related to teaching ConfidentIs self-assured and aware of personal abilities and strengths EnergeticMoves around frequently; participates fully in activities EnthusiasticDemonstrates passion for teaching, learning, and subject matter FunHas a sense of humor; smiles and laughs frequently InnovativeShows creativity when approaching tasks and solving problems InteractiveParticipates with others; talks with and listens to others KnowledgeableDemonstrates understanding of subject matter and teaching NurturingShows concern and caring to others; respects others OptimisticIs upbeat; has positive expectations for outcomes OrganizedPlans and prepares in advance; arranges things logically PatientShows tolerance for others; varies pace to accommodate others ProfessionalIs professional in dress, actions, and language; is polite Research has identified certain dispositions frequently associated with effective teachers. Personal Learning Insight 2. 1: My Dispositions Figure 2. 1: My dispositionstarget Individuals in the midst of becomingteachers should develop self-awareness oftheir own dispositions. After reading through the list of dispositions associated with effective teachers, pause a fewmoments to consider your own traits. Which of these dispositions are already evident in your demeanor? Do you believe these characteristics are part of who you are by virtue of birth or of experience? Are some dispositions still emerging, or needing to emerge? Because of the strong connection between dispositions and teaching styles, it is desirable forindividuals in the midst of becoming teachers to reflect and develop self-awareness of their owndispositions (Wadlington & Wadlington, 2011). As you complete this course and continue withother education courses, think about targeting some of the desirable dispositions as goals for yourongoing professional development. Use the My Dispositions Target (Figure 2. 1) to record yourinitial analysis of your dispositions. Many factors, other than desirable dispositions, are associated with learning how to successfully teach young children. The general public’sbelief that no specialized training is necessary to work with young children is simply a misconception. Research data has supported the positionthat teachers with specialized training and education in early childhood education is one of the more important factors in determining programquality for young children (NAECTE, 2008). Experts in the field of early childhood education rely on professional organizations for leadership indetermining what novice early childhood teachers should know (knowledge) and be able to do (skills).