Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Globalization is a Result of Neoliberal Polices Essay

Globalization is a Result of Neoliberal Polices - Essay Example This research is being carried out to evaluate and present the concepts of neo-liberalism and globalization with proper definitions. On the surface, globalization has been understood as a process of compression of time and space which has enables business enterprises to concentrate more on production and achieving localization benefit. But it should be noted that the definition of globalization is broader and aggregated in terms of socio-economic levels. Globalization is basically an economic change which has taken place in every part of the world with a wider reach to heterogeneous audiences. The spread of globalization is mainly a spread of capitalism which has been in active since late 19th century. The spectrum of globalization has been understood as a very helpful concern because it helped enterprises to save a great deal of time and capital in order to transport products and services. This also saved the cost to communicate with better and effective transference than before. Th e view of globalization has been taken and welcomed in the international business including all major business institutions. It was merely because the dream of reaching to the areas which were once considered as remote. There is no part of the world which has not been reached in terms of economic activity. The credit for this massive increase of business activates al around the world goes to the phenomenon of globalization. The aim of business enterprises is to make profit by making sure that the member of societies (consumers) is able to get all the comforts for sustaining a better lifestyle. This is due to the faster and diverse means of trading and financial transactions. Seemingly, the political control over the activities of business being undertaken cross-border is just another aspect that has declined now. In other words, it could be said that the control of political institution on business enterprises to go cross-border seems to be less influential than before (Baldwin 2012 ). It should also be noted that the quicker and diverse impact of globalization could not be possible on its own. There are some of the factors that have influenced globalization to take place all around the world. These factors are rationalism, capitalism, technological innovation and regulation. Taking these four elements into account, it becomes easy to understand as to why globalization has taken such a diverse reach in the business world. The technological innovation such as easy transport of products and services through air routes and sea routes was has become faster because of the easy and diverse communication networks. The financial institutions which were limited to the domestic business are now complying with international financial systems allowing better visibility of shares for foreign markets for investment purpose (Pambazuka News 2010). The phenomenon of globalization is somewhat similar to that of neo-liberalism. It is due to the nature of neo-liberalism which is d efendant of free trade and a liberal view of economy to promote equal and diverse platform of markets.

Monday, October 28, 2019

The Sherlock Holmes Essay Example for Free

The Sherlock Holmes Essay The other story being The Red Headed League where Holmes and Watson were on the hunt for finding the mysterious Duncan Ross, who had formed the Red-Headed League, who disappeared a few weeks after Jabez Wilson had spent his days there writing encyclopaedias, in the end turning out that Ross was digging a tunnel from Wilsons shop and , disguised as John Clay , broke into the bank but was caught by Holmes Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar Its no use John Clay, said Holmes blandly; you have no chance at all. I think the Detective Fiction writers use themes like deceit or greed because it connects to everybody in the worlds life because we all lie to our friends or family, or we can relate to greed because we all use it one time or another in life. To sum up the themes that you can notice in Conan Doyles stories can be classed as nothing above what we all see and know in the Detective Genre, and Conan Doyle doesnt use the themes to make Sherlock Holmes stand out from what we read today but instead uses it to connect to the roots of detective fiction. In the Detective Genre the characters are one of the most important things, if the character is unique and stands out so will the story. But if all the characters in one story has the same attitude, intelligence or even the way they speak, the story would lose interest to the reader because their would probably be no motive for anything to happen in the story. In the stories Conan Doyle wrote the characters were always original in personality and features, and how he uses them tends to differ in the way he uses them than other detective stories, for example the villain is used differently in every story a lot more ways than any other writer does. An example of this is Dr. Roylott from The Speckled Band being a large, rough man thats almost obnoxious and talks like See that you keep yourself out of my grip. Also with a close opposite to Holmes attitude, as in this quote You are Holmes the meddler. My friend smiled. Holmes the busybody. His smile broadened. Holmes the Scotland Yard jack-in-office. From this we can tell that Holmes mocks Roylott for his opposite and aggressive behaviour. Another quote that shows Roylotts rage is He stepped swiftly forward, seized the poker, and bent it into a curve with his huge hands. This shows that Dr. Roylott results to his anger and strength to sort problems. From this we can also see the difference between his aggressive natures to Professor Moriartys more mature and relaxed nature in the way he was described in The Final Problem. I think the characteristics in the Detective Genre is vital to the plot and how it unfolds, and in the case of Sherlock Holmes and the way that the villains separate from the clients or the way the clients behave in different ways to each other, these are the way that Conan Doyle created that makes Sherlock Holmes unique and the reason why his stories are so popular today. In the Detective Genre the narrative is always important, and the best always depends on where the narrative comes from. For the story to be surprising and for the reader to keep interest, you need the narrative to come from a character in the story with a roughly close intelligence to the average reader, otherwise if the narrating character was too stupid it would be impossible to get to get the plot of the story, however if the narrator was too clever, then their ideas would be explained to us and cause confusion with the plot or spoil the end all together. Thats why in Sherlock Holmes, Watson is the perfect host for a narration because for most for the time he is with Holmes and the action, but since he is as smart as the average reader, and he doesnt give the plot away and leaves our minds and imagination to figure it out for our selves. However not all narratives have to come from a persons point-of-view, but in His Last Bow the narrative wasnt from a person but instead had a free roam of the whole scene between Von Bark and a disguised Sherlock Holmes, which I thought was a better effect than the others because unlike a story in the Detective Genre, we didnt get any clues and because we werent listening to Watsons thoughts we was able to see Holmes skills when he is in disguise. It is common for the detective to speak intelligently and have the brains to match in Detective Fiction, and is also common in this genre for the detective to pay attention to tiny detail, an example of this is when Holmes observes Helen Stoner in The Speckled Band when he says No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove which, as any other detective, he uses in his conclusion of her journey here. You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you arrived at the station. From this you can tell the overall intelligence Conan Doyle had whist writing his stories and the mind he had progressed onto Holmes and the stories really show how wise he is, and this, in most ways this makes him stand out even more than the other theories I have that separate him from the Detective Genre. In conclusion to the paragraphs, the Sherlock Holmes stories to typify the Detective Genre, but it is the fact that Conan Doyle had a mind far greater than the other detective writers, he dared to go beyond than any other detective writer did and disobey the commandments of a Detective Genre story, because of this the Sherlock Holmes novels were made more powerful whether due to the descriptive settings, the original but far fetched characters, even its completely powerful narrative, they all are the reasons why the stories Conan Doyle wrote are classed far beyond the average story in any genre and placed in the worlds most loved novels of all times. To what extent do the Sherlock Holmes stories youve studied typify the genre of Detective Fiction? 1 By Matthew Lomax Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Arthur Conan Doyle section.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

State of Play by David Edgar Essay -- masculinity, power, gay men

David Edgar, in his book State of Play: Playwrights on Playwriting (1999) highlights the fact that in the mid 90’s there seemed to be an â€Å"over-arching theme† (edgar, 1999, p27) in contemporary British play that looked at ideas of masculinity. â€Å"Gay plays like Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing†¦ lad’s plays like Jez Butterworths Mojo†¦ [and] girls-in-a-boys’ gang plays like Irving Welsh’s Trainspotting†¦ address masculinity and its discontents’ (ibid, p.27). In this essay I will look at what ideas of masculinity are, and how these discontents have been addressed in contemporary theatre (and the idea of the â€Å"decline of the dominant role of men†(edgar, 1999, p.28)) and how the crisis of masculinity(ref) has been staged. I will do this by looking at performances from Ron Athey, Franko B, and Gregory Burkes’ Black Watch. Firstly however, I will look at a definition of what masculinity is, in order to discuss what representations of this idea are being performed in the selected pieces of work. Perhaps one of the main reasons as to why there is thought to be a ‘crisis’ of masculinity, is because the term itself is so hard to define, in a sociological sense. Jack Kahn in his book ‘An Introduction to Masculinities’ states that â€Å"masculinity is a hypothetical construct because, in and of itself, it cannot be directly observed and measured† (2009, p.3). This is because â€Å"masculinities and male behavious are not the simple product of genetic codings or biological predispositions† (Whitehead and Barrett, 2001, p.16), it is instead a conceptual idea that is used to explain a collection of behaviors, attitudes, thoughts and emotions that make up a specific identity. masculinity is not just one idea, nor is it specifically a male thing, it is an inte... ...h it had some recognisable substantive basis† (Whitehead and Barrett, 2001, p.53) Works Cited Brittan, A. 1989. Masculinity and power. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell. Burke, G. 2007. Black Watch. London: Faber and Faber. Edgar, D. 1999. State of play. London: Faber and Faber. Kahn, J. S. 2009. An introduction to masculinities. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell. Petersen, A. R. 1998. Unmasking the masculine. London: Sage Publications. Phelan, P. 1993. Unmarked. London: Routledge. Reeser, T. W. 2010. Masculinities in theory. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Richards, M. 2003. Ron Athey, AIDS and the politics of pain. Body, Space and Technology, 3 (2). Sierz, A. 2011. Rewriting the nation. London: Methuen Drama. Walsh, F. 2010. Male trouble. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Whitehead, S. and Barrett, F. J. 2001. The masculinities reader. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Achieve dramatic effect Essay

Act three is the boiling point of the crucible. How does Arthur Miller create tension and suspense to achieve dramatic effect?  The crucible was written in 1953 to highlight the atrocities of ‘McCarthyism’, the modern parallel to the Salem witch-hunts. Senator Joseph McCarthy was as determined to hunt out communists, as the Salem judges had been to hunt out witches. Like the Salem judges he sought to extract first confessions and then named of alleged associates. Refusal to denounce others in both communities could be punished as contempt of the committee or court therefore many were forced into self-preservation and started to blame others to save themselves. Most of the crucible is centered on the court and theocracy. It was these strong religious beliefs that made the ‘town’ of Salem, Massachusetts, particularly disrupted by the rumour of witchcraft. Salem was an intensely Puritan village whose religion frowned upon fun; Christmas festivities were forbidden and holidays only meant that they must focus even more time upon prayer and the church. This strict upbringing, without any fun, was partly to blame for the children’s ‘crying out’. The boredom they must have suffered led to their accusations so that they may be at the centre of attention. The puritan religion at that time throve on fear of the devil and had an obsession with sin and damnation. Therefore any other justification for the girls’ behaviour was seen as contempt of the court. It wasn’t until much later that mass-hysteria was considered and concluded to be the explanation if the girls’ behaviour. The cause of Mass-hysteria in this case was the group of children’s boredom; the reason for this is twofold. Firstly it led to dancing and ‘conjuring’ of spirits in the wood and secondly Abigail William’s boredom gave her a need for attention. Abigail’s accusing of several ‘witches’ caused Betty to believe she saw the Devil and a baseless belief, such as this, is often the cause of Mass-hysteria; it begins small with one person in hysteria (Abigail) but travels and inflicts more people and more people. Abigail Williams, a teenage girl, is the most powerful character in The Crucible. During the play she manages to gain control over all but one of the community. However, this person, John Proctor, subjected to Abigail’s power in the past as we find out later on and is the cause of much irony in act three. Abigail is Reverend Parris’ niece, his beliefs and his views of witchcraft change as the play progresses. He goes from being totally against witchcraft and tries in to avoid the subject to trying to convict many witches and those who try to stop the accusations in act three. I think that Parris does this is mainly for self-preservation. The first act of self-preservation in the play was made by Abigail, she accused Tituba, Parris’ slave. I think that she blamed Tituba because she saw it as a way out. I think that when Hale grabbed her up close and asked if she ‘called the Devil’ she replied ‘I never called him! Tituba, Tituba†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ because it released the pressure off of her. The pressure being released and put onto Tituba meant that Abigail was free and was not under questioning. The courts procedures were very strict in Salem. There were two judges, judge Hathorne and deputy-governor Danforth. Danforth strongly believes in the court and is stubborn in his beliefs; he thinks that people are scared of the court because they are guilty. He won’t listen to any reason that may lead him off his path. When Giles Corey’ proposes his deposition to save his wife (which said that Putnam manipulated the girls) is proposed in act three, Danforth sticks to the way he believes is right, the court. He says that he must go through the proper procedure and that he must ‘submit his evidence in proper affidavit’. Miller puts Giles’ deposition in the play for two reasons. I think that the first is to show how difficult it is to be heard and that they could not protest their innocence, this foreshadows the later events. I think the second reason is to create time for the judges to read it. This time creates tension as the audience are waiting to see what will happen with Mary Warren’s deposition, which we know about from act two. Arthur Miller builds up the tension in act three, he uses the tension of the conflict between Danforth, Parris and Hale near the begin and throughout. Theses are three men with different beliefs, rules and procedures, to achieve dramatic effects. He does this by using the conflict to give hope in the audience that the court will crumble.  Later on in act three Miller creates tension by putting Danforth on the spot. He does this by putting Proctor on the scene with his deposition of the evidence of Mary Warren. Again Miller creates tension because we already know from act one about Mary’s character. She is a shy, naà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ve and subservient girl who wanted to be honest from the start. In act one she says ‘Abby, we’ve got to tell. †¦ We must tell the truth, Abby!’ however Abigail’s strong, threatening behaviour stopped her from owning up, we wonder whether Abigail will do this again.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Ashford University Library: What does the library have to offer? Essay

Research is one of the most important parts of an individual’s academic life and proof that they have developed their academic skills and knowledge in their area of study. Ashford University Library is an amazing place where one is able to access all the materials that is needed in carrying out a research in any field of study. Conducting any kind of research requires full access to various sources that are considered to be scholarly sources that are reliable for information and data that will help in making the research credible. Using Ashford University Library for research and to access data and information from reliable sources offers an opportunity for s credible research since the library has scholarly sources as well as popular sources that can easily be accessed (Ashford University, 2013). Ashford University Library: What does the library have to offer?                The benefits of using Ashford University Library are that a researcher is able to access all data and information within the library without having to engage the services of outside sources (Gasparyan, Ayvazyan, Gorin, & Kitas, 2014). The materials and sources which are included in the portfolio of Ashford University Library are credible and reliable sources which are easy to access through the simplest search tools of the library (Ashford University, 2013). This helps in saving a lot of time when carrying out a research since all information and data is within research by simply using the search tools which include the university’s database and the Find@AU search tool that are simple and easy to use. Ashford University Library has sources which are considered scholarly and sources which are considered popular (Calkins, 2007). Scholarly sources within the library simply refers to sources which that have been published by recognized scholarly organizati ons or institutions such as universities and sources which have been sent out to other scholarly peers for an anonymous review. The sources always include journals and even books which have been published by scholarly groups, colleges or universities (Gasparyan, Ayvazyan, Gorin, & Kitas, 2014). Furthermore, in scholarly sources, the original research have been published in books and even journals, written by people who are experts in that field of study, has citations and are usually longer, having about 10 to 30 pages of research (Calkins, 2007). Popular sources on the other hand are considered to contain interesting stories, which may refer to research but do not necessarily contain the original research that was conducted. In addition, they are written by general public, they lack citations in most occasions, not peer-reviewed and they tend to be much shorter, having about 200 words to some few pages of writing (Gasparyan, Ayvazyan, Gorin, & Kitas, 2014). To make proper use of the library’s database and to know effectively and efficiently what you need for your research, it would be important to know what your research entails and what you hope to achieve with the final completed research (Ashford University, 2013). This means the thesis and the problem question to be answered by the research must be identified and clearly understood after which one will be able to know what materials to look for in the library (Calkins, 2007). The resources that fit the need for the research can be identified through the problem question and the thesis statement which will help in knowing whether the research will require use of scholarly sources or any other sources which can help in providing data for the research. Conclusion                Conducting a complete research that is satisfactory and one that can be relied on requires the use of data and information sources which are reliable. Ashford University Library provides great opportunity for conducting research since it offers a wide range of scholarly sources that can be relied on for research in any field of study. The benefits that one gets from using Ashford University Library are numerous since the sources available within the university are considered to be scholarly hence the reliability of the resources. References Ashford University, (2013), Library Services viewed from http://www.ashford.edu/student_services/library_resources.htm on 9th August 2014. Ashford University, (2013), Writing Services, viewed from https://awc.ashford.edu/research-papers-intro-to-the-online-library.html on 9th August 2014. Calkins, S. R. (2007). Evaluating Internet and Scholarly Sources Across the Disciplines: Two Case Studies. College Teaching, 55(4), 151-156. Gasparyan, A., Ayvazyan, L., Gorin, S. V., & Kitas, G. D. (2014). Upgrading instructions for authors of scholarly journals. Croatian Medical Journal, 55(3), 271-280. doi:10.3325/cmj.2014.55.271 Source document

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Managing the Best Blog In Your Niche With Kyle Bulygo [PODCAST]

Managing the Best Blog In Your Niche With Kyle Bulygo [PODCAST] Successful content marketing depends on publishing great content consistently. Do you know how to know what’s working and what’s not? More importantly, can you learn as you go so you can improve your future blog posts? Today, we’re talking to Zach Bulygo, the blog manager at Kissmetrics. We’ll talk about Zach’s process and planning, how to work with guest writers, how to publish lots of content with a small team, and how to turn your marketing blog into a leading authority. Sit back, relax, and get read to glean a ton of great information from Zach. Some information about Kissmetrics and what Zach does there, as well as what topics are covered on the Kissmetrics blog. Why the team as Kissmetrics embraces guest posts and how those fit into the site’s strategy. The goals of the Kissmetrics blog and how the team uses data analysis and testing to achieve them. How Zach uses data to know that the blog posts and CTAs are working and how the information helps the team tweak future blogs for more success. The standards that the Kissmetrics team holds its guest writers to. How Zach manages the blog as the only permanent person on the team. The typical workflow for a blog post on Kissmetrics. Zach’s advice for a marketing team that is hoping to add blog content to their marketing mix. Links: Kissmetrics Blog Post: What’s the Difference Between Google Analytics and Kissmetrics? If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play. Quotes by Zach: â€Å"If the [writing] is good, I’ll tell them it’s great. If it’s not so great I don’t get into this mess of trying to fix a blog post that can’t really be fixed.† â€Å"You should already have an idea of who your ideal customer prospect is.† â€Å"Google Analytics is not the most exciting platform add a little bit of humor where possible. Just mix that humor with useful information with images and keep the writing flowing well.†

Monday, October 21, 2019

Euthanasia and a Right to Die essays

Euthanasia and a Right to Die essays I once heard this story a long time ago. I cant remember what I was doing at the time, and it is rare that I can remember a story in such detail, but when I do, I consider it has profound meaning. Wait, now I remember. I was working in a cancer ward and I took my break next to the patient rooms. Oddly enough, the place seemed dreadfully empty, except for one old man whom I suspect had cancer. I thought to myself there could not be any harm in having a conversation with him so I meandered over until I sat next to him. Without hesitation, he asked me, Have you ever seen anyone die? I never had, nor had I ever known anyone close to me die. Sure, thousands die on the news everyday, but Im completely desensitized to issues far away from home. So this question struck me as quite peculiar and I knew I was in for an interesting conversation. I did not want to sound boring, so I boasted that I had seen nearly every way a person can die. I left out the part that I had seen all those deaths on television. He gave me a smirk, but whether he was impressed or saw through my facade, I will never know. Hes probably dead now, you see. But I suspect it was the latter. So he began to tell me this story. It goes something like this. Not too long ago in a kingdom lived a king, and this king loved all the joys that life could bring. He especially loved to laugh, often waking up in the middle of the night laughing hysterically from a dream he had. All his advisors could not understand the source of his laughter. Indeed, they tried many methods to curtail his humor in the hopes that he would act more like a king than a jester. Finally, at their wits end, they decided that they should hold a great contest to find the best court jester to entertain the king. I think thats where the saying if you cant beat them, join them came from. Anyway, in the great court, the funniest men in the kingdom conve...

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Why Renting a Flat in Germany Is Totally Common

Why Renting a Flat in Germany Is Totally Common Although Germany has got the most successful economy in Europe and is basically a wealthy country, it has also got one of the lowest homeownership rates on the continent and is also way behind the US. But why do Germans rent flats instead of buying them or even build or buy a house? Buying their own accommodation is the goal of many people and especially families all around the world. For Germans, it might seem that there are things way more important than being a homeowner. Not even 50 percent of the Germans are homeowners, whereas over 80 percent of the Spanish are, only the Swiss are even renting more than their northern neighbors. Lets try to track the reasons for this German attitude. Influence of World War II Like many things in Germany, the tracking of the attitude to rent reaches back to the Second World War. As the war ended and Germany signed the unconditional surrender, the whole country was rubble. Almost every bigger city was destroyed by the British and American Air Raids and even the smaller village had suffered from the war. Cities like Hamburg, Berlin or Cologne where nothing but a big pile of ashes. Many civilians became homeless because their houses were bombed or collapsed after the fights in their cities, over 20 percent of all housing in Germany was destroyed. That was why it was one of the first priorities of the new built West-German government in 1949 to prove every German a safe place to stay and live. Therefore, big housing programs were started to rebuild the country. Because the economy was also laying on the ground, there was no other opportunity than having the government put in charge of new housings. For the newborn Bundesrepublik, it was also very important to give the people a new home to face the opportunities communism promised just on the other side of the country in the Soviet zone. But there was, of course, another opportunity coming with a public housing program: Those Germans who hadnt been killed or captured during the war were mostly unemployed. Building new flats for over two million families could create jobs that were urgently needed. All this lead to success, the lack of housings could be reduced during the first years of new Germany. Renting Can Just Be a Good Deal in Germany This leads to the fact that Germans today just as their parents and grandparents have reasonable experiences with renting a flat, not only from a public housing company. In the major cities of Germany like Berlin or Hamburg, most of the flats available are in public hand or at least managed by a public housing company. But besides the big cities, Germany has also given the private investors the opportunity to own properties and rent them out. There are many restrictions and laws for the landlords and tenants they have to follow which proves that their flats are in a good condition. In other countries, rental flats have the stigma of being run down and mainly for poor people who cant afford to own an accommodation. In Germany, there are none of those stigmas. Renting seems just as good as buying - both with advantages and disadvantages. The Laws and Regulations Made for Renters Talking about the laws and regulations, Germany has got some specials that make a difference. For instance, there is the so-called Mietpreisbremse, which passed the Parliament. In areas with a strained housing market the landlord is only permitted to increase the rent up to ten percent above the local average. There are a lot of other laws and regulations which lead to the fact that the rents in Germany - compared to those of other developed countries - are affordable. On the other side, German banks have high preconditions for getting a mortgage or a loan to buy or build a house. You just wont get one if you dont have the right sureties. For long term, renting a flat in a city can therefore be a better opportunity. But there are of course some negative sides of this development. Like in most other western countries, the so called gentrification can also be found in Germanys major cities. The good balance of public housing and private investment seemed to tip over more and more. Private investors buy old houses in the cities, renovate them and sell or rent them out for high prices only wealthy persons can afford. This leads to the fact that normal people can no longer afford living inside the big cities and especially young people and students are stressed to find a proper and affordable housing. But thats another story because they couldnt afford buying a house either.

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Criminology Theory Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Criminology Theory - Case Study Example Ashley's mother had every right to be worried. In July 2006 Simpson took notes of another phone call from her not long after a man who was suspected of murdering Ashley had been released on the word of a jailhouse informant who had said that Ashley had stolen drugs from this person. Not long after that, Ashley's mother was told that no charges would be laid and to this day the murder has remain unsolved. Ashley's mother died on November 19, 2006 after falling ill after the death of her daughter. Becker (1963) describes labelling theory as describing a situation where a group of people who fail to act within the accepted norms of society are ostracized, isolated and in some cases persecuted because of their behavior. Using the term "outsider" Becker (1983) explains that although individuals may act out in certain ways and that this can be considered a primary deviance, that many of these people become involved in secondary deviance or criminal behavior.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Reading Standard for Foundational SKills Assignment

Reading Standard for Foundational SKills - Assignment Example However, for the younger students such as the one in pre-kindergarten, the list of objectives should be way smaller with only one or two items to be assessed by the teachers as they are still very young will smaller ability to understand and shorter memory span. The above mentioned tools in the checklist cannot be appropriate for assessment of children from birth to pre-kindergarten as they are very young and cannot understand what is being tested. However it is appropriate for those from kindergarten to grade 3 as they also hold similar learning objectives as the ones discussed above in the check list. For the children between births to pre-kindergarten, they should have their own set of simpler and way shorter learning objectives which would lead to shorter assessment and check lists for the teachers to examine. This as explained above is because of their short memory span as well as ability to understand which is still developing. Most of the assessment tools for such children are just repetitive sounds and music among other simpler

Supply Chain Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Supply Chain - Assignment Example In this case our desired outputs are burgers with all of the fixings, brats, and ribs, therefore the inputs in this case would include various ingredients for preparing them such as meat, cooking oil, garlic and even peppers. The supply chain in this given situation would include suppliers who will take care of supplying all the ingredients and equipments, and the distributors who will ensure that those ingredients and equipments are safely transported to the stadium. Due to the fact that I was given the task to just ensure that all the ingredients are safely procured and transported to the stadium for the party, I strongly recommend this type of supply chain since we don’t need a manufacturer to prepare the burgers for us. We only need the ingredients and the equipment and the rest would probably be upon us to see that all is prepared after they have been transported to the stadium. The benefits of this supply chain would include: reduced costs since the element of manufacturer have been eliminated and the fact that the stadium is just next to our home, the costs of storage would probably be eliminated; easy monitoring since the supply chain only involves the suppliers and distributors and probably my home is going to serve as the store making it easy for me to monitor the ingredients; strategic decisions can be taken centrally; no outsourcing of professionals is required to manage the supply chain and no commercialization of finished pro ducts is required since the products would just be consumed at the party in the stadium. (Bowersox, 2007) In order to ensure that this supply chain provides a smooth running of resources, it would involve additional experienced personnel who will foresee that all the right ingredients and equipment have been supplied. This would also ensure that they are supplied in correct quantities to avoid shortages at the party. Inventory should be checked at the point of delivery to ensure that the supplies physically

Thursday, October 17, 2019

The notion of strategy in organizations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

The notion of strategy in organizations - Essay Example Strategy as a Plan or Ploy The term plan is common to different fields when it comes to strategy formulation. For instance, in the military, strategy is to draft a plan while in Game theory a complete plan is necessary to determine the choices the players will make. The dictionary too describes strategy as a plan and in management it is an integrated plan to achieve the organizational objectives. Mintzberg contends that a strategy can be a ploy too. To discourage a competitor when an organization expands its plant capacity, it can be termed as a ploy. Since it is meant as a threat, it cannot be called a plan; it is a ploy with a specific intention. Strategy as a pattern According to this definition strategy is consistency in behaviour and has a set pattern, whether or no intended. Patterns can appear without pre-conception but people can observe a set behaviour in an organization and call it a strategy. This may be just an assumption. A plan can be an intended strategy where as a pattern can be called a realized strategy, since it was not intended. Thus, when the intended strategy is realized, it is a deliberate strategy as the intentions existed. Emergent strategies are those that went unrealized where the patterns developed in the absence of intentions or perhaps despite them. Strategy as a position The fourth definition is that strategy is a position. It is a means of locating an organization within the industry environment. This definition suggests that strategy is a mediating force between the organization and the environment. ... Strategic analysis requires the use of several tools but there is limited use of these tools. Tools and techniques are essential because they help the SMEs to change their course of action depending on the data collected through these tools. Tools and techniques do not help or make a strategy but they are useful in collecting and presenting data which help in strategic analysis . The most used tool is the financial analysis followed by PEST or STEP analysis, Porter’s five forces analysis and analysis of critical success factors (CSF). External analysis, considered a part of SWOT analysis ranked sixth in popularity, in a study conducted by Aldehayyat and Anchor . The study found that respondents were aware of other tools such as value chain analysis, competition analysis and portfolio analysis, but none used them. Other tools for strategy analysis such as organizational culture, core capability and experience curve analysis were not even known by the respondents. 2.2.1 Porter’s Five Forces Model The five competitive forces that shape strategy (Figure III) include the threat of new entrants, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, rivalry among existing competitors and the threat of substitute products . He further clarifies that these five forces differ by industry. If the forces are intense, the return on investment is low; if the forces are benign, the profit margins are high. The strongest competitive force determines profits and is important for strategy formulation.

Reflection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 20

Reflection - Essay Example Writing has helped me discover myself about my high points from a self-evaluated point of view. I strongly rely on spoken vocabulary. I write what I can say aloud making my writing direct and easily understood by others. Right from grade1 days I was told reading a lot builds our vocabulary and the greatest speakers in the world are equally chronic readers. At a personal point of view, my reading habit has greatly helped create the writer in me since it not only nurtures my grammar but also gives me a diversified approach to different situations. In addition, I constantly listen to my writing as if it were spoken aloud. This gives rhythm to my writing. Truth is highly compromised especially where the consequences that come with telling the truth are adverse making it subjective and objective and hence will now be propaganda and not factual. As a writer, I do not subscribe to such beliefs among people since I believe a writers duty is to tell the truth no matter how gross the circumstance is or whoever forms part of the story. I have a memory strong on recognition. I am not outstanding on recall but when someone or something triggers a memory, I retrieve it all a fresh with a new enticing version of it. I regard this rather advantageous as opposed to photographic memory, which impedes the imaginative process, which is why I am glad I do not have one. For a writer I suspect that recognition is more important than recall since when a memory of an individual is buried, all types of interesting links are formed in your mind. No machine is a hundred percent efficient, and as humans our efficiency is relatively lower than that hence I greatly embrace my weaknesses as I strive to work on them. Reluctance to edit is a major hiccup I face. When I am done with my writing, my mind drifts to something else and thus not unless I am willing I end up not editing the work. I have a phobia about fiction. When it comes to creating

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

The notion of strategy in organizations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

The notion of strategy in organizations - Essay Example Strategy as a Plan or Ploy The term plan is common to different fields when it comes to strategy formulation. For instance, in the military, strategy is to draft a plan while in Game theory a complete plan is necessary to determine the choices the players will make. The dictionary too describes strategy as a plan and in management it is an integrated plan to achieve the organizational objectives. Mintzberg contends that a strategy can be a ploy too. To discourage a competitor when an organization expands its plant capacity, it can be termed as a ploy. Since it is meant as a threat, it cannot be called a plan; it is a ploy with a specific intention. Strategy as a pattern According to this definition strategy is consistency in behaviour and has a set pattern, whether or no intended. Patterns can appear without pre-conception but people can observe a set behaviour in an organization and call it a strategy. This may be just an assumption. A plan can be an intended strategy where as a pattern can be called a realized strategy, since it was not intended. Thus, when the intended strategy is realized, it is a deliberate strategy as the intentions existed. Emergent strategies are those that went unrealized where the patterns developed in the absence of intentions or perhaps despite them. Strategy as a position The fourth definition is that strategy is a position. It is a means of locating an organization within the industry environment. This definition suggests that strategy is a mediating force between the organization and the environment. ... Strategic analysis requires the use of several tools but there is limited use of these tools. Tools and techniques are essential because they help the SMEs to change their course of action depending on the data collected through these tools. Tools and techniques do not help or make a strategy but they are useful in collecting and presenting data which help in strategic analysis . The most used tool is the financial analysis followed by PEST or STEP analysis, Porter’s five forces analysis and analysis of critical success factors (CSF). External analysis, considered a part of SWOT analysis ranked sixth in popularity, in a study conducted by Aldehayyat and Anchor . The study found that respondents were aware of other tools such as value chain analysis, competition analysis and portfolio analysis, but none used them. Other tools for strategy analysis such as organizational culture, core capability and experience curve analysis were not even known by the respondents. 2.2.1 Porter’s Five Forces Model The five competitive forces that shape strategy (Figure III) include the threat of new entrants, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, rivalry among existing competitors and the threat of substitute products . He further clarifies that these five forces differ by industry. If the forces are intense, the return on investment is low; if the forces are benign, the profit margins are high. The strongest competitive force determines profits and is important for strategy formulation.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Benefits and drawbacks of the electronic health record Research Paper

Benefits and drawbacks of the electronic health record - Research Paper Example The past decade has witnessed technological advancement in virtually every industry. Compared to a decade ago, many people in developed economies can now purchase goods online, buy air tickets and earn degrees online. Health records have for a long time depended on the traditional system of record keeping that is tedious and prone to errors. Electronic health Record (EHR) system plays a vital role in transforming the healthcare system mainly from a paper based system to a comprehensive computerized system through the use of clinical information to deliver high quality care to the patients. Various countries have come up with laws that manage require the healthcare facilities to adopt EHR and utilize it in a â€Å"meaningful way† with respect to cost containment and errors reduction. This is expected to transform the healthcare institutions for the benefits of both patients and administrators. However, there are various concerns over the use of EHR and questions are asked whether it really meets the intended benefits that are to improve care with acceptable level of errors. This study focuses on the review of literature on the impacts of EHR. As stated by Dentler et al (2014), EHR impacts are either beneficial or drawbacks, thus this study embarks on the merits and demerits of implementing an EHR by a healthcare facility as identified by experts in various studies. Electronic Health Register (EHR) refers to the longitudinal electronic record of patients’ information with respect to health that has been generated through one or more encounters with the patient. EHR contains the patients’ information related to progress, demographics, past medical history, vital signs, radiology reports, laboratory data, problems and medications (Page et al, 2011). According to Menachemi & Collum (2011), three attributes defines a â€Å"meaningful use† of EHR: Computerized Physician order entry (CPOE) systems, Clinical Decision Support (CDS) and

Monday, October 14, 2019

Module one review parenting skills Essay Example for Free

Module one review parenting skills Essay 1. What are the different parenting styles used by families? Which do you think is better? Why? The first type of parenting styles is the authoritarian style where the parents have all authority and say so in every matter. The second type is the permissive style where the parents are extremely passive and give the children a lot of power. The third is the democratic style of parenting where the parent considers the thoughts and feelings of the children but ultimately they make the decision. The democratic style is my personal favorite because it makes they child feel like their opinion matters but does not give them the power to run all over their parent. 2. What makes a person ready for parenthood? When should an individual consider entering parenthood? Who should postpone parenthood? Should everyone become a parent eventually? Do you think some people should not become parents altogether. I think a person is ready for parenthood when they are financially stable, emotionally stable and have a good support system behind them to help them raise a child whether that means they are married or they have family. I think an individual should consider entering parenthood when they had all of the things previously stated meaning that they are ready and when they are 100% sure that they ready and that they are not being pressured into it. I think that young people, newlyweds, and people with any doubt at all should postpone parenthood. I do not think that everyone is meant to be a parent so not everyone should eventually become one, some people are better off not having children. I think there are people in this world who should never have chi ldren altogether because they are not capable of providing a safe and loving home for them.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Relationship Between Police and Muslim Individuals

Relationship Between Police and Muslim Individuals Shamma Alsuwaidi Dataset being used: 2014-15 Crime Survey of England and Wales Variable name of dependent variable: copannoy Variable name of main independent variable: Muslim Word count of this project ¹: 2,672 words I have included my SPSS output as an appendix to this project I am happy for an anonymised version of this project to be used  for teaching purposes at the University of Kent    My research question In this project, I examine the relationship between police officers and individuals from different religious groups. I will examine whether Muslims encounter more disturbing and discriminatory experiences with the police, compared to those who follow different religions (Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and those who do not follow any religion). Accordingly, the dependent variable I will be using is: really annoyed with the police, while my independent variable will be: Muslim religion. Potential mechanisms linking police malpractice to Muslims I selected these variables because in a post-9/11 civilisation, Muslims are increasingly becoming more segregated from societies as a result of the increased media attention to them. People began to fear Muslims and attempts to segregate them from society were made by many. Muslims are now perceived as an outsider group, a category of aggressive, extremist individuals, who pose a risk to British lifestyles (Rowe, 2013). Although Islam is the most common religion amongst minorities, high rates of prejudice of Arabs and Muslims is evident in countries of the EU such as France and the UK. For instance, over 50% of people in Germany, France, and the UK identify and associate Muslims as radicals, aiming to promote their extreme religious beliefs (Jikeli, 2011). As a result, attitudes towards Muslims dramatically changed worldwide. Prejudice and hate spread, leading Arabs/Muslims to now face critical observation in every aspect of their lives. They can no longer travel, drive, and enjoy being out in public due to the discrimination they face in their everyday lives. In addition, instead of receiving support and protection from law enforcements, they are instead further victimised by them. Racial profiling, unjust treatment, unjustified investigations, harassment, and wrongful captures are now very common experiences between Muslims in European countries (Cainkar, 2002). In addition, it is not uncommon for an Arab to be randomly selected for security checks at airports, and even be prohibited from flying due to such prejudice views. However, discrimination against those coloured and those who acquire divergent features than typical Europeans do occur as well; where gipsies (47%) and Africans (41%) experience higher levels of discrimination as well (Jikeli, 2011). I expect that Muslims are more likely to find themselves in situations where they become irritated by the police, or unsatisfied with how the police deal with occurrences compared to those who follow other religions. This is because, at a time of increased awareness and fear of terrorism, and with socially and politically constructed images of Muslims, society would ultimately treat them in a hostile manner. As a result, members of the law enforcement are more likely to share the same views with society or would be inclined into targeting and eliminating any potential harm or threat of terrorism that could be caused to society. Therefore, the police would be more likely to be suspicious towards an Arab or Muslim. Dependent variable In my analysis, I used data collected from the 2014/15 Crime Survey of England and Wales, which surveys adults (16+) living in private residence in the UK. My dependent variable is really annoyed by police, which comes from the question: Have you ever been really annoyed about the way a police officer behaved towards you or someone you know. OR about the way the police handled a matter in which you were involved? This might have been a police officer or another member of police staff. 1. Yes- towards respondent 2. Yes- towards someone else 3. Yes- towards both respondent and someone else 4. No I am missing statistics on the frequency of police aggravation, since 24,806 out of 33,350 individuals did not respond to this question. Below is the frequency table of those who did respond: Number of responses Frequency (% of valid cases) No 6,341 74.2% Yes 2,203 25.8% Total 8,544 100% Table 1: Frequency table of police annoyance Since the question gives respondents chances to respond in different yet similar ways, I modified the way in which responses are interpreted. For example: * Yes: towards respondent à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬Å¡towards someone else à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬Å¡towards both respondent and someone else I integrated the responses in order to simplify the data. Instead of having various categories of the yes responses, they would all be integrated into an individual yes group. Therefore, my dependent variable is respondents claiming themselves, another individual, or even both being irritated by any staff within the law enforcement agency. 25.8% of the valid respondents stated that they have been in an experience where they, and/or someone they know has been annoyed by the police, as shown in Table 1. Main independent variable The main independent variable I am manipulating is the Islam religion. This is derived from the Crime Survey of England and Wales (2014/15), which is built upon individuals self- reported religion, at the time they took part in the questionnaire. The question is shown as the following: What is your religion, even if you are not currently practicing? CODE ONE ONLY IF YES, PROBE FOR RELIGION 1. Christian (including Church of England, Catholic, Protestant, and all other Christian denominations) 2. Buddhist 3. Hindu 4. Jewish 5. Muslim 6. Sikh 7. Other (SPECIFY) 8. No religion Here, I am missing 76 responses out of the total of 33,350 people who took part in the survey. These individuals either refused to answer or claimed they did not know the answer. A frequency table of the remaining respondents can be seen in Table 2: Number of responses Frequency (% of valid cases) No 32309 97.1% Yes 965 2.9% Total 33274 100% Table 2: Frequency table of Muslim respondents As the question initially asks for their reported religions, I have created two distinct response categories. For instance, those with no self-reported religion, and those associated with other religions (Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhists), are categorised as no. Whereas, Muslims respondents are placed in the yes category. This is because I was interested in making a general comparison of Muslim and non-Muslim perception of the police, in order to carry out my analysis. Control variables In this section of my analysis, I added two further control variables, whether respondents live in urban or rural areas and their reported gender. Here, all 33,350 respondents answered the questions. This is achieved in order to explore other factors that could influence people to experience irritation from the actions or behaviour of the police. Although there was no precise question presented to determine whether a place of residence is in a rural or urban area, respondents had to describe the features of their neighbourhoods and provide their address (postcode) on the survey. As a result, rural areas come to be defined as areas where the population is less than 10,000; communities where 7,567 (22.7%) of the respondents inhabit. However, exploring gender was based on the following question: CODE THE SEX OF EACH ADULT IN THE HOUSEHOLD IF NECESSARY: Is (name) male or female? Male Female Here, the interviewer collects data on every member of a household, assuming their gender, unless they are uncertain. This data indicates that 45.1% (15,030) of the 33,350 respondents are males. Analysis Part I: In my first stage of analysis, I examine the pattern of irritation from the police, by association of the Islam religion. The link between being a Muslim and the likelihood of being annoyed by the police is analysed by using a Crosstabs, as shown in the table below: Table 3: Link between police annoyance and Muslim religion Have not been annoyed with police Have been annoyed with police Total Non-Muslim 74.0% 26.0% 100% Muslim 84.0% 16.0% 100% Total 74.2% 25.8% 100% Total number of respondents for this analysis: 8521 Although 24,829 people did not answer this question, Table 3 shows data based on the 8,521 individuals who did. 16.0% of Muslim respondents claimed that they encountered a situation where an officer annoyed them, or someone they knew, in comparison to 26.0% of non-Muslim respondents. In other words, Muslims are 10% less likely to claim to be annoyed with an officer of the law, than those of other religions; resulting in a different pattern than I predicted at the start of my analysis. Analysis Part II: Is this pattern systematic? Data suggests that members of the Muslim community are less likely to be annoyed by the way police handle situations than others. However, this could have resulted from the randomness of the sample, or randomness of how police members handle occurrences and behave towards people. So, I ran a regression with being annoyed with the police as the dependent variable, and being Muslim as an independent variable; to examine the patterns certainty. A table below discloses whether the pattern in systematic: Coefficient (B) 95% confidence interval Constant 0.260 0.251 to 0.270 Muslim -0.100 -0.157 to -0.043 Table 4: Regression table of influence of police annoyance In Table 4, we can see that the estimated effect correlates with the mean difference in the likelihood of being annoyed with the police, in the previous part; Muslims are -0.100 (-10%) less likely than those of other religions, to state that they have been really annoyed with the police at one time. In addition, the regression table produces a confidence interval around this data; -0.157 to -0.043 (-15.7% to -4.3%). Since the figure (-0.100) lies between the confidence range, this data implies that we can be quite confident that Muslims experience lower levels of police annoyance, in a systematic manner: If we could create 100 worlds, and re-run the patterns, the true value would lie within the range (-0.157 to -0.043) 95 out of 100 times. Which, therefore, suggests that being Muslim decreases an individuals likelihood of being annoyed by the police, 10% less than those of other religions. In addition, as both figures in the confidence intervals are negative and the range is narrow; this allows us to be quite confident that the pattern is systematic. However, we cannot be 100% certain. Analysis Part III: Is this pattern causal? There are other possible factors that could explain the correlation between Muslims and dissatisfaction in how police handle situations. These confounders vary from the mechanism I examined earlier; around police interactions around Muslims. For instance: An individuals area of residence could impact the way the police interact with them. It is more likely for those living in deprived areas to experience injustice from the police, and therefore, hold negative images of police officers. They are also more likely than those in urban areas to have issues with police officers, as their neighbourhoods are likely to have high rates of criminal activities. In addition, police staff may be prejudice against people living in rural areas, labelling them as criminals, and therefore, treating them in a different manner. It could also be due to gender. As female criminality is not as common as those of men, police are known to focus on male suspects. Especially as there is a high rate of young male offenders in this century, male suspects are more likely to be annoyed by the police. In order to test both hypotheses, a further regression was carried out, which includes neighbourhood area (urban) and gender (male) as control variables (as defined above). Coefficient (B) 95% confidence interval (Constant) 0.141 0.081 to 0.202 No religion 0.147 0.089 to 0.206 Christian 0.077 0.019 to 0.134 Hindu 0.012 -0.088 to 0.111 Other religion 0.109 0.021 to 0.197 Lives in urban area -0.017 -0.039 to 0.005 Male 0.073 0.054 to 0.091 Table 5: Regression model of influences of being annoyed by the police We can see the impact of my control variables, as shown in Table 5: Living in an urban area: living in urban the areas, is associated with a decrease in being annoyed by the police by 0.017 (1.7%). Although this effect seems minimal, it could increase dramatically depending on how rural/urban an area is labelled as. However, here, we cannot be confident that the pattern is systematic, due to the confidence interval containing positive and negative figures (-0.039 to 0.005). Gender: males in the community are more likely than females to be annoyed with the police, or how they handled a situation; 7.3% (0.073). Here, we can be very certain that the pattern is systematic because the confidence interval range is very narrow. In order to concentrate on my main area of interest, I pay particular attention to the difference in how the police deal with those of varying religions. We can analyse a contrast among both versions, in a chart shown below: Coefficient (B) 95% confidence interval Original model (no controls) -0.100 -0.157 to -0.043 Second model (with controls) -0.099 -0.157 to -0.042 Table 6: Comparison of effects of police annoyance on Muslims This suggests that the gap in how police interact with those of different religions, is almost identical in both models; whereas, in the original model, Muslims are 10% (-0.100) less likely to have been annoyed by the police, and 9.9% less likely when controls are added. We can still be quite confident that Muslims are less likely to have been annoyed by the police, as the confidence intervals in both remain almost unchanged, and remain narrow. This indicates some proof of causality; however, we cannot be 100% confident. While keeping reverse causality in mind, to further investigate whether there is a causal effect, we can be quite certain that it does not apply in this context. In other words, we would not infer that experiencing a dissatisfying experience with a member of the police causes an individual to become Muslim. Limitations conclusion In this research, I researched whether Muslims are more likely to have been annoyed by a member of the police. I assumed that they would be more exposed to the negative experiences and qualities of the police force, especially after 9/11. A period where Muslims would be forced to endure discrimination by society and the justice system (random searches, presumptions of terrorism, etc.). However, I came to find that my presumption was incorrect. I utilised the 2014-15 Crime Survey for England Wales study. This typically involves a questionnaire that examines the degree of crime and victimisation in areas of England and Wales. From this survey, I discovered that: Muslims are less likely to be in a situation, where they became irritated by the police, in comparison to Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and those who do not follow any religion. Also, I found that we can be quite convinced that the pattern is systematic. When allowing for the possibility of alternative factors impacting Muslims experiences with the police, income and gender, the results of their experiences remains roughly identical. There is little or no possibility of reverse causality being possible in this context, as interactions with the police would not necessarily cause someone to follow a certain religion. However, a few limitations can be found in this study, altering the way findings are gathered and construed. For instance, there could be other factors that clarify the link between being of Muslim religion and being irritated with the police. In this case, Muslims may be less likely to report their victimisation, especially reporting against a police officer. In addition, the Crime Survey for England Wales may be less available to Muslims than those of other religions, creating a bias or unrepresentative sample. Another limitation is in the way the question is asked; towards you or someone you know. This question includes others interactions with the police (or someone you know), therefore, although a respondent did not personally feel irritated by the police at a given point, the would report some form of police annoyance. Therefore, data collected could be inaccurate, as their responses could affect the way the statements are interpreted. As a result, data would suggest that those of other religions are more likely to have been annoyed by the police. Although certainty of a causal effect is not definite, my inspection of the data indicates that a causal effect of religion (being Muslim) on how the police interact with individuals does exist, in some manner. Bibliography Cainkar, L. (2002). No Longer Invisible: Arab and Muslim Exclusion after September 11. Middle East Report, [Online] 32(224), pp. 22-23. Available from: http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006context=socs_fac [Accessed 15 Mar. 2017]. Jikeli, G. (2011). DISCRIMINATION OF EUROPEAN MUSLIMS: SELF-PERCEPTIONS, EXPERIENCES AND DISCOURSES OF VICTIMHOOD. 1st edn. [ebook] Nova Science Publishers, Inc., pp. 1-3. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gunther_Jikeli2/publication/289972827_Discrimination_of_European_Muslims_Self-Perceptions_Experiences_and_Discourses_of_Victimhood/links/56b2596708aed7ba3fedcded.pdf [Accessed 15 Mar. 2017]. Rowe, M. (2013). Policing beyond Macpherson. 1st edn. Routledge, 2013, pp. 109-111.   Ã‚  

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Relative Reactivity of Anilines :: essays research papers

Relative Reactivity of Anilines Abstract: Various Anilines were tested with Br2/HBr solution, the products were crystallized and melting points attained to verify relative reactivity. My assignment, 2,4-Dibromoanisol, was prepared in a yield of 52% with a melting point of 55-58 C . Reaction: Mechanism: Procedure: Anisole (0.35mL, 0.0378mol) was obtained and placed in a pre-weighed 25 mL round bottom flask, along with 2.5 mL of glacial acetic acid and a magnetic stir bar. Then the reaction apparatus was assembled, the dry tube was charged with conc. sodium bi sulfate, the 25 mL round bottom was attached to the apparatus, and 5 mL of Br2/HBr mixture was obtained and placed in the round bottom. The reaction took place for 20 minutes. An orange liquid was obtained and placed in a 125 mL Erlenmeyer flask along with 25 mL of water and 2.5 mL of conc. Sodium bisulfate soln. The solution was then placed in an ice bath to precipitate and then the solid product was filter in a Buchner funnel. These crystals were then re-dissolved minimum amount of hot solvent (heptane) and recrystallized. Once a dry product was obtained, a melting point was established (2,4-Dibromoanisol mp 55-58 C) and percent yield was established (52%). Results: Through a melting point reading, it was determined that the product obtained was 2,4-Dibromoanisol mp 55-58 C. The products obtained by my partners, were determined to be: (p-bromoacetanilide mp 160-165 C) and (2,4,6 tribromoaniline, mp of 108-110 C) respectively. Discussion and Conclusions: Interpreting these results have concluded that relative reactivity of these three anilines in order of most reactive to least reactive go; Aniline > Anisole > Acetanilide. Aniline, has an NH2 , the most active substituent , and adds to any ortho/para position available on the ring. This data is confirmed with the product obtained, (2,4,6 tribromoaniline, mp of 108-110 C). As for anisole, it has a strongly activating group attached, OMe an alkoxy group, and it added in two of the three available spots, both ortho. The results conclude: (2,4-Dibromoanisol mp 55-58 C ). Acetanilide has a strong activating group attached, acylamino group, but this group is large and the ortho positions are somewhat hindered so the majority of the product obtained added at the para position, results conclude: (p-bromoacetanilide mp 160-165 C). Since all the substituents attached to the aromatic rings were activators the only products able to be obtained were ortho/para products .

Friday, October 11, 2019

Ethics in Leadership

Ethics in Leadership Ethics, as defined by Richard daft, is â€Å"the code of principles and values that governs the behavior of a person or group with respect to what is right or wrong† (Daft, 2011, p. 445). Ethics play the most important role in any business, and are the key to its success. Every company expects a standard pattern of behavior from their employees on some common grounds. In order to define ethics in leadership, we must first define leadership. Leadership is defined as â€Å"an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes and outcomes that reflect their shared purposes† (Daft, 2011, p. ). A dynamic leader operates with a high sense of ethics, integrity, and possesses high moral standards. True leaders have an appreciation for learning, take risks, and understand the importance of change and when it is necessary. Leadership, in a sense, is never a finished product, but rather, it is an ongoing process that continuously needs refinement. Leaders are aware of what they value and recognize the importance of ethical behavior. â€Å"Leaders come in all shapes and sizes but all good leaders possess leadership style and actions that exhibit both their values and their ethics† (Daft, 2011, p. ). Since we have defined leadership as the â€Å"influence relationship among leaders and followers, ethical leadership is about leaders trying to influence people to act in an ethical manner† (Daft, 2011, p. 5). Some believe that ethical leadership is only a matter of leaders having good character. By being a person of strong character and having the right values, an ethical leader can use these characteristics to set an example for others. Without taking anything away from those characteristics, the reality of ethical leadership is far more complex. Also read: Advantages and Disadvantages of Ethics in BusinessEthical leaders embody the purpose, vision, and values of an organization and of its followers. Ethical leaders connect the goals of the organization with that of the company stakeholders and employees. We’ve learned in this class that true ethical leaders â€Å"have to discover their own personal ethical values and actively communicate those values to others through both words and actions† (Daft, 2011, p. 447). One of the most famous examples of a company not showing ethical leadership is in the company Enron. The Enron Corporation was an energy trading and communications company based out of Houston, TX.By 2001, Enron employed around 21,000 people and was listed as the seventh largest company in America. Enron’s executives practiced accounting methods that falsely inflated the company’s revenues, which eventually led to bankruptcy and the collapse of the corporation in December 2001. In the cas e of Enron, the employees agreed to a set of values that were not demonstrated and led by the executives of the company. The leaders of Enron did not act in a manner that sets the example for the rest of the organization. Bad leadership and a lack of leadership ethics at Enron caused the eventual collapse of the company in 2001.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Nature Nurture

The psychological debate of nature vs. nurture is one that has been deliberated and refuted for many years. This debate is so controversial because although it is fact that genetic makeup does play a major role in developing a person, the nurture and environment in which a person is brought up in is also an important factor. The nature vs. nurture issue dates back to Ancient Greeks, through the times of Aristotle and John Locke, with each philosopher projecting their own individual thoughts on the matter.Although nature depicts the development of a person in terms of their appearance and certain personality traits, nature and the setting and situations in which a person grows up is more important in explaining the development of a person because ultimately a person is an overall reflection of the environment of which they were brought up in. Psychologists are quick to support the nature debate because it deals with the genetic make-up of a person and biological psychology, which is f act. First of all, a person’s physical traits, such as eye color and blood type are genetically determined, even though there are certain ways to alter your look.Personality is proven to be heritable to an extent. Studies have proven that biological siblings are more similar in personality that adoptive siblings. In addition, a person’s genes can determine whether a person is predisposed to a disease or illness, such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s (Davies). A person who is affected with those types of diseases shows how nature can directly effect the development of an individual. A new technique called developmental genetic analysis is a procedure that examines the effects of genes throughout a person’s life.The technique concluded that a person’s intelligence is due about 50% to the genes they are born with (Huang). Furthermore, the nature debate is credible because of the genetic factors that support how people’s personalities and appearance develops, yet the nurture of a person ultimately overshadows the nature debate because environmental factors better influence the development of a person Each person comes from different backgrounds, religions, and environments, which are all external factors that play a large role in the development of an individual.Diet, stress, prenatal nutrition, peer pressure, and television are just some of the more specific environmental factors that can affect a person. Clearly, there are many more aspects of the nurture debate that contribute to the argument that a person’s upbringing is what will influence their development. For example, NBC reported that in a study where teenagers played violent video games and non violent video games, the violent video games were proven to enhance emotion in the amygdale, or the center for fear and aggression (Kalning).In this case the emotional effect from the video games supports the nurture debate because normal teenagers with non violent behav iors and tendencies were affected by an outside force that has the potential of affecting the teenager’s personalities. Nurture is more important in developing a person because despite a person’s genetic coding, the parents and the adults that a child is subjected to will play a greater role in the child’s development. Research shows that parents who talk to their children and spend time helping them interact ultimately raise more socially developed and intellectually stimulated children (Dewar).Even if a child born had genius parents, the environment and the early stages of development are crucial for the later stages of life. People are also highly influenced by their peers, and in the case of preschoolers who typically dislike a certain food will eat that particular food if children around them are eating it, showing that because it is the way of the human to want to fit and be liked, nurture has the greater impact and influence over a person (Harris).Further more, nurture is more important in shaping a human being because there are multiple factors that can influence a person differently, even if they have the same genetic background. Even though the nature vs. nurture debate is likely to always be challenged and discussed, it is possible that there may never be a right answer. The reason for this is that many situations and conditions factor in both the nature and nurture debate and there is reasoning in both cases to support either one as a reliable source.Overall, the biological traits and genes of a person enable individuals to learn and adapt to their surroundings, thus showing the debate is so closely related that it is difficult to determine which one more effectively contributes to the development of a person. However, the nurture issue states that a person is affected of the environment that they are brought up in, which is a more reliable source of the development of a person because there are more factors that influence envir onment than the biological aspects of the nature debate.Nature versus nurture. This has been a topic of debate for centuries. Years have passe still not been found regarding this issue. This is an argumentation of the utmost significance, not only because of its anthropological meaning, that will help us understand where we come from and how our personality is formed, but also because of the moral, political, ethical, educational, social, and statistical issues that it discusses. The nature side of the polemic says that humans behave as they do according to heredity, or even animal instincts.The nurture side believes that people think and behave certain ways because they are taught to do so. Neither of the above is the correct answer to the question, â€Å"Why do we behave like that? â€Å" The accurate answer is that heredity, meaning nature, is a true fact, but it has a role of â€Å"basis†, in the building of our mind and personality. The biggest impact in our developmen t is the environment in which we live and grow up: the nurture side. Therefore, nature is mostly influenced by nurture. Many scientists and authors have been arguing for the correct side, between nature and nurture.For example, William Golding, the English writer who wrote the book, Lord Of The Flies, states generally that every man has a capacity to be â€Å"evil† from the beginning of his life. This statement shows that from the point of view of Golding, every person has an inherited characteristic, which would basically mean he is on the nature side of the debate. Another notable person that agreed with the nature side of the polemic was the scientist, Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist.Galton was the man who first started the debate between hereditarians, a group of people who believe that heredity determinates our human nature, and environmentalists, people who believe that our environment has the biggest impact on our development. In 1865, h e began to study heredity, basically the idea of nature. This was partly influenced by reading Darwin's publication, Origin of Species. This â€Å"thirst† for knowledge led him to do very significant and important studies, the twin studies, hoping to find the different contributions of nature and nurture.His huge contribution to the debate, especially to the nature side, proves that he agreed with the theory of heredity. As mentioned earlier, Galton had a cousin named Charles Darwin. He was a British naturalist and big defender of the nature side of the debate. According to the Indian University Archives, without Darwin there would be no nature vs. nurture debate. Darwin wrote various pages on his autobiography about his family’s contributions to his intelligence. However, he attributed his intellectual success on nature, not nurture. Proof is provided by, this sentence that he wrote about his brother: †¦I do not think that I owe much to him intellectually-nor to my four sisters†¦I am inclined to agree with Francis Galton in believing that education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of any one, and that most of our qualities are innate â€Å"(Darwin, 43). Darwin believed that intelligent behavior came from the instincts of our previous, nonhuman ancestors. This proves that Charles Darwin, one of the brightest minds of the 19th century believed in the nature part of the argumentation. The point clearly stated through these three examples is that, the genetic predisposition (heredity) is real.Genetic predisposition may be a fact, but it isn’t the reason why we behave the way we do. Heredity is only the basis. The formation of ourselves is due to the environment in which we grow up. An example of this theory is shown, Lord of the Flies. In the book, a group of kids find themselves all alone on an island. In this group we find different characters with diverse personalities and manners. Also, as previously ment ioned, Golding, the author of the book, believed that everybody has the capacity of being evil. The kids in the story start developing that initial evil due to the new environment in which they live.A hostile, unknown, scary and dangerous environment; leads to the development of an aggressive and violent comportment. In the book, we see that in the first chapters, Jack is a born leader with self-control. Generally he appears as a normal kid. But, as the story progresses, and the kids find new problems on the island, he starts developing â€Å"his evil†. At the end, he becomes a belligerent and confrontational leader of a violent mob. The new environment in which he lives causes this enormous change in his personality. Another example situated in the book is the case of Ralph.He is also a born leader, a boy who listens to reason and logic, and someone who always finds solutions to his problems. But, in this new environment, as the kids around him start being â€Å"evil† , he starts losing his self-control, and develops a new character, where he is not the boy that he was before. This change occurs when Ralph joins Jack’s mob and starts dancing with them: â€Å"Piggy and Ralph under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secured society â€Å"(Golding, 152) . The last example is the case of Piggy. He is a tormented kid, a victim of bullying, but deep down he is a smart boy.In the book he finds himself being insulted by Jack all the time. For instance when Jack says: â€Å"Better call you Piggy than Fatty â€Å" (Golding, 26 ) . The results of this bullying are that he can’t say his opinion or ideas when he is around of Jack, opinions that could be very helpful sometimes. But later in the story, when Jack leaves the group, and the environment of their small society becomes more friendly and calm, he feels more free and happy and he finally express his opinion and shows his intellige nt ideas to everybody, so basically the change of environment change him too.The point I want to make with my examples, is that, we may all have, a â€Å"groundwork† , our initial nature that we inherited from our parents, but the biggest impact in the development of our personality is the environment in which we grow up, which can completely change us, like the characters in Lord Of The Flies†¦ Supporting my theory, Judith Rich Harris, the author of the book : The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do . She generally says in her book that she challenges the idea that the personality of adults is determined chiefly by the way they were raised by their parents.She also says that the role of genetics in personality has long been accepted in psychological research, however, even identical twins, which share the same genes, are not exactly alike, so inheritance is not all. Another example that proves the theory that nurture has the most impact in our pers onality is the case of Genie. Genie was a girl who spent nearly all her childhood inside a bedroom. She was a victim of one of the most severe cases of social isolation in American history (ABCnews). The police discovered her in 1970 after spending all her life tide to a chair.The result of this loneliness, was that she was unable to speak, walk, socialize, and generally being normal after being rescued. We can see, that due to the fact that she was in an isolated and lonely environment her attitude and personality weren’t usual, so this proves that the environment in which somebody lives has a direct connection with his/hers development, even if she inherited a bright and regular attitude from her family. To finish ill say that heredity is a well known, scientifically proved, theory. A fact.But without the help of nurture, it isn’t accurate. We become who we are, and we act the way we do because we are taught to do so. That’s how we learned . It doesn’t matter how our genes are, and what we inherited from our parents. The environment in which we live in will define us. â€Å"Genetic predisposition is not destiny â€Å" David Kranzler WHEN THE BRITISH EDUCATOR Richard Mulcaster wrote in 1582 that †Nature makes the boy toward, nurture sees him forward,† he gave the world a euphonious name for an opposition that has been debated ever since.People's beliefs about the roles of heredity and environment affect their opinions on an astonishing range of topics. Do adolescents engage in violence and substance abuse because of the way their parents treated them as toddlers? Are people inherently selfish and aggressive, which would justify a market economy and a strong police, or could they become peaceable and cooperative, allowing the state to wither and a spontaneous socialism to blossom? Is there a universal aesthetic that allows great art to transcend time and place, or are people's tastes determined by their era and culture ?With so much at stake, it is no surprise that debates over nature and nurture evoke such strong feelings. Much of the heat comes from framing the issues as all-or-none dichotomies, and some of it can be transformed into light with a little nuance. Humans, of course, are not exclusively selfish or generous (or nasty or noble); they are driven by competing motives elicited in different circumstances. Although no aspect of the mind is unaffected by learning, the brain has to come equipped with complex neural circuitry to make that learning possible.And if genes affect behavior, it is not by pulling the strings of the muscles directly, but via their intricate effects on a growing brain. By now most thinking people have come to distrust any radical who would seem to say that the mind is a blank slate that is filled entirely by its environment, or that genes control our behavior like a player piano. Many scientists, particularly those who don't study humans, have gone further and express ed the hope that the nature-nurture debate will simply go away.Surely, they say, all behavior emerges from an inextricable interaction between heredity and environment during development. Trying to distinguish them can only stifle productive research and lead to sterile polemics. But moderation, like all things, can be taken to extremes. The belief that it's simplistic to distinguish nature and nurture is itself simplistic. The contributions of this opposition to our understanding of mind and society are far from obvious, and many supposedly reasonable compromises turn out, under closer scrutiny, to be anything but.Let's consider some of the †reasonable† beliefs of the radical moderates. ‘Reasonable† Belief No. 1: No one believes in the extreme †nurture† position that the mind is a blank slate. Certainly few people today endorse the blank slate in so many words, and I suspect that even fewer believe it in their heart of hearts. But many people sti ll tacitly assume that nurture is everything when they write opinion pieces, conduct research, and translate the research into policy. Most parenting advice, for example, is inspired by studies that find a correlation between parents and children.Loving parents have confident children, authoritative parents (neither too permissive nor too punitive) have well-behaved children, parents who talk to their children have children with better language skills, and so on. Everyone concludes that to rear the best children, parents must be loving, authoritative, and talkative, and if children don't turn out well, it must be the parents' fault. But there is a basic problem with this reasoning, and it comes from the tacit assumption that children are blank slates. Parents, remember, provide their children with genes, not just a home environment.The correlations between parents and children may be telling us only that the same genes that make adults loving, authoritative, and talkative make their children self-confident, well behaved, and articulate. Until the studies are redone with adopted children (who get only their environment, not their genes, from their parents), the data are compatible with the possibility that genes make all the difference, the possibility that parenting makes all the difference, or anything in between. Yet in almost every instance, the most extreme position – that parents are everything – is the only one researchers entertain.Another example: To a biologist the first question to ask in understanding conflict between organisms of the same species is †How are they related? † In all social species, relatives are more likely to help each other, and nonrelatives are more likely to hurt each other. (That is because relatives share genes, so any gene that biases an organism to help a close relative will also, some of the time, be helping a copy of itself, and will thereby increase its own chances of prevailing over evolutionary time. But when the psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson checked the literature on child abuse to see whether stepparents were more likely to abuse their children than biological parents, they discovered not only that no one had ever tested the possibility, but that most statistics on child abuse did not even record the information – stepparents and biological parents were lumped together, as if the difference couldn't possibly matter. When Daly and Wilson did track down the relevant statistics, their hunch was confirmed: Having a stepparent is the largest risk factor for child abuse ever examined.The finding was by no means banal: Many parenting experts insist that the hostile stepparent is a myth originating in Cinderella stories, and that parenting is a †role† that anyone can take on. For agencies that monitor and seek to prevent child abuse the finding of a greater risk with stepparents could be critical information. But because of the refusal to entertai n the idea that human emotions are products of evolution, no one had ever thought to check. †Reasonable† Belief No. 2: For every question about nature and nurture, the correct answer is †Some of each. † Not so.Take the question, †Why do people in England speak English, and people in Japan Japanese? † The †reasonable compromise† would be that the Japanese have genes that make it easier for them to learn Japanese (and vice versa for the English), but both groups must be exposed to the language to acquire it fully. This compromise, of course, is not reasonable at all; it's false. Immigrant children acquire the language of their adopted home perfectly, showing that people are not predisposed to learn the language of their ancestors (though they may be predisposed to learn language in general).The explanation for why people in different countries speak different languages is 100 percent environmental. And sometimes the answer goes the other way. Autism, for example, used to be blamed on †refrigerator mothers† who did not emotionally engage with their children. Schizophrenia was thought to be caused by mothers who put their children in †double binds† (such as the Jewish mother who gave her son two shirts for his birthday, and when he turned up wearing one of them, said, †The other one you didn't like? †).Today we know that autism and schizophrenia are highly heritable, and though they are not completely determined by genes, the other likely contributors (toxins, pathogens, chance events in brain development) have nothing to do with parenting. Mothers don't deserve †some† of the blame if their children have these disorders, as a nature-nurture compromise would imply; they deserve none of it. †Reasonable† Belief No. 3: Disentangling nature and nurture is a hopeless task, so we shouldn't even try. On the contrary, perhaps the most unexpected and provocative disco very in 0th-century psychology came from an effort to distinguish nature and nurture in human development. For a long time, psychologists have studied individual differences in intellect and personality. They have assessed cognitive abilities using IQ tests, statistics on performance in school and on the job, and measurements of brain activity. They have assessed people's personalities using questionnaires, ratings by other people who know them well, and tallies of actual behavior such as divorces and brushes with the law. The measures suggest that our personalities differ in five major ways.We are to varying degrees introverted or extroverted, neurotic or stable, incurious or open to experience, agreeable or antagonistic, and conscientious or undirected. Where do these differences come from? Recall those flawed studies that test for the effects of parenting but forget to control for genetic relatedness. Behavioral geneticists have done studies that remedy those flaws and have disco vered that intelligence, personality, overall happiness, and many other traits are partly (though never completely) heritable.That is, some of the variation in the traits among people in a given culture can be attributed to differences in their genes. The conclusion comes from three different kinds of research, each teasing apart genes and environment in a different way. First, identical twins reared apart (who share their genes but not their family environment) are far more similar to each other than randomly selected pairs of people. Second, identical twins reared together (who share their environment and all their genes) are more similar than fraternal twins reared together (who share their environment but only half their genes).Third, biological siblings reared together (who share their environment and half their genes) are more similar than adoptive siblings (who share their environment but none of their genes). In each comparison, the more genes a pair of people share (holding environment more or less constant), the more similar they are. These studies have been replicated in large samples from many countries, and have ruled out the alternative explanations that have been proposed. Of course, concrete traits that patently depend on content provided by the home or culture are not heritable at all, such as the language you speak, the eligion you worship in, and the political party you belong to. But the underlying talents and temperaments are heritable: how proficient with language you are, how receptive to religion, how hidebound or open to change. So genes play a role in making us different from our neighbors, and our environments play an equally important role. At this point most people leap to the following conclusion: We are shaped both by our genes and by our family upbringing: how our parents treated us and what kind of home we grew up in.Not so fast. †The environment† and †our parents and home† are not the same thing. Behavi oral genetics allows us to distinguish two very different ways in which our environments might affect us. The shared environment is what impinges on us and our siblings alike: our parents, our home life, and our neighborhood (as compared with other parents and neighborhoods). The unique environment is everything else: anything that happens to us over the course of our lives that does not necessarily happen to our siblings.Remarkably, study after study has failed to turn up appreciable effects of the shared environment – often to the shock and dismay of the researchers themselves, who started out convinced that the nongenetic variation in personality had to come from the family. First, they've found, adult siblings are equally similar whether they grew up together or apart. Second, adoptive siblings are no more similar than two people plucked off the street at random. And third, identical twins who grew up in the same home are no more similar than one would expect from the eff ects of their shared genes.Whatever experiences siblings share by growing up in the same home in a given culture makes little or no difference in the kind of people they turn out to be. The implications, drawn out most clearly by Judith Rich Harris in her 1998 book †The Nurture Assumption,† are mind-boggling. According to a popular saying, †as the twig is bent, so grows the branch. † Patients in traditional forms of psychotherapy while away their 50 minutes reliving childhood conflicts and learning to blame their unhappiness on how their parents treated them.Many biographies scavenge through the subject's childhood for the roots of the grown-up's tragedies and triumphs. †Parenting experts† make women feel like ogres if they slip out of the house to work or skip a reading of †Goodnight Moon. † All these deeply held beliefs will have to be rethought. It's not that parents don't matter at all. Extreme cases of abuse and neglect can leave permanent scars. Skills like reading and playing a musical instrument can be imparted by parents.And parents affect their children's happiness in the home, their memories of how they were treated, and the quality of the lifelong relationship between parent and child. But parents don't seem to mold their children's intellects, personalities, or overall happiness for the rest of their lives. The implications for science are profound as well. Here is a puzzle: Identical twins growing up together have the same genes, family environments, and peer groups, but the correlations in their traits are only around 50 percent.Ergo, neither genes nor families nor peer groups, nor the interactions among these factors, can explain what makes them different. Researchers have hunted for other possible causes, such as sibling rivalry or differential treatment by parents, but none has panned out. As with Bob Dylan's Mister Jones, something is happening here but we don't know what it is. My own hunch is that the differences come largely from chance events in development. One twin lies one way in the womb and stakes out her share of the placenta, the other has to squeeze around her.A cosmic ray mutates a stretch of DNA, a neurotransmitter zigs instead of zags, the growth cone of an axon goes left instead of right, and one person's brain might gel into a slightly different configuration from another's, regardless of their genes. If chance in development is to explain the less-than-perfect similarity of identical twins, it says something interesting about development in general. One can imagine a developmental process in which millions of small chance events cancel one another out, leaving no difference in the end product.One can imagine a different process in which a chance event could derail development entirely, or send it on a chaotic path resulting in a freak or a monster. Neither of these results occurs with a pair of identical twins. They are distinct enough that our instrumen ts can pick up the differences, yet both are healthy instances of that staggeringly improbable, exquisitely engineered system we call a human being. The development of organisms must use complex feedback loops rather than prespecified blueprints.Random events can divert the trajectory of growth, but the trajectories are confined within an envelope of functioning designs for the species. These profound questions are not about nature vs. nurture. They are about nurture vs. nurture: about what, exactly, are the nongenetic causes of personality and intelligence. But the questions would never have come to light if researchers had not first taken measures to factor out the influence of nature, by showing that correlations between parents and children cannot glibly be attributed to parenting but might be attributable to shared genes.That was the first step that led them to measure the possible effects of parenting empirically, rather than simply assuming that those effects had to be all-po werful. The human brain has been called the most complex object in the known universe. No doubt many hypotheses that pit nature against nurture as a dichotomy, or that fail to distinguish the ways in which they might interact, will turn out to be simplistic or wrong.But that complexity does not mean we should fuzz up the issues by saying that it's all just too complicated to think about, or that some hypotheses should be treated a priori as necessarily true, necessarily false, or too dangerous to mention. As with other complex phenomena like inflation, cancer, and global warming, when it comes to the development of a human being we have no choice but to try to disentangle the causes. Steven Pinker is Peter de Florez Professor of Psychology at MIT and author of †The Language Instinct,† and †How the Mind Works. † This essay is adapted in part from his latest book, †The Blank Slate