Friday, December 27, 2019

The Giant Panda Paradigm Essay - 1363 Words

The Giant Panda Paradigm The Giant Panda is a creature of mystery. Adults and children alike appreciate it for its cute, fuzzy, lovable qualities, but it is an animal that is in desperate need of immediate attention. Scientists know the basics: how and what they eat, where and how they live, and how they reproduce. The fact remains, however, that this universally loved national symbol of China is facing the threat of extinction. What accounts for this fact and what can be or is being done to protect the panda from such a fate? This paper will discuss the characteristics and lifestyle of the panda as well as issues and questions that arise as a result of the threat of their extinction. Pandas have made their homes in China for†¦show more content†¦Pandas have inefficient digestive systems, and must therefore spend more than ten hours a day eating the amount of food needed for necessary nutrients ((1)). While their dental structures have adapted to the bamboo diet their digestive systems remain closer to those of carnivores ((6)). This results in a low percentage of food digestion in comparison to the amount that it actually ingests ((6)). The Giant Panda is currently threatened in a number of ways. The first threats are to their food sources. The Bamboo Rat is a minor, but existent problem that feeds on bamboo roots, killing plants on an individual level ((6)). Bamboo also undergoes phases of growing and then dying as part of the renewal cycle ((7)). This process is not a problem in itself, except for the fact that whereas the pandas might move to a different location to feed, they are running out of places to move because of the expansions of farmland and increased forest clearing ((7)). The greatest threat of all to the Giant Panda is man. The abovementioned land clearing for farms, residential and commercial areas coupled with prowling poachers are the two most serious threats to the panda and its habitat ((3)). Efforts to set up reserves for the pandas have sparked conflicts with locals. When a reserve is established, people are often not compensated for the loss of land that they have used for years, and they are tempted to continue to use the land illegally ((3)).Show MoreRelatedSpace Exploration: A Waste of Tax Revenues Essay2138 Words   |  9 PagesThese advancements are not just specific to human beings but are also helpful to animals like the Space pumps developed by by Brunel Institute of Bioengineering in the UK has helped in improving the lives of giant female pandas. The pump worked perfectly, and helped in making the lives of pandas better. For the society as a whole space exploration has resulted in advancements regarding Human waste management. This will help us in managing the waste and sewerage and will improve the lives of all theRead MoreThe Effects of Overpopulation Consumption Essay3165 Words   |  13 Pagespopulation. Soon animals face starvation due to lack of food and shelter. The animal population is left to die off one by one making them an endangered or in severe cases extinct species (Economic Times). According the animalfactguide.com, the Giant Panda has lost more than half of its population since the 1950’s, and its population is now at 1600 worldwide. This is an example of how human population has affected other species of animals. The expansion of roads and housing for the human populationRead MoreProcurement in Oil and Gas Industry in Developing Countries Nigeria Agip12200 Words   |  49 Pagesdownstream portions of the chain, even though procurement as a vital purpose has to happen before processing plant stage in order to make available the contributions for it (Stabell, 2001; Jasuja, Sowmya, Chaudhary, Hussain et al., 2006; Kanade amp; Panda, 2009). 2.2 Procurement process In modest terms procurement means the acquisition of goods or services. (A Dictionary of Economics, 2002) As communal innovativeness, associations should not be unfamiliar person to the thought of trading in goodsRead MoreProject Report on Security Analysis15431 Words   |  62 Pages MBA SESSION: 2010-12 Project Guide:- Submitted By:- Mr. SUNIL PANDEY GAGAN DEEP VERMA Regional Head of Roll No. 105042249858 Karvy Stock Broking Ltd. Lect. HOD OF Management Department of RIMT Mr. S.N. PANDA STUDENT’S DECLARATION I hereby declare that the Project Report conducted at SECURITY ANALYSIS Under the guidance of Mr. SUNIL PANDEY Submitted in Partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTERS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIONRead MoreDisney: Losing Magic in the Middle Kingdom16116 Words   |  65 Pagesâ€Å"Hong Kong Disneyland Opens with Wealth of Challenges—Mouse Meets Mao†, Hollywood Reporter, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051279 (accessed 11 June 2008). 22 Under the â€Å"one country, two systems† paradigm, Hong Kong became a â€Å"Special Administrative Region† of China, with the city having its own set of laws and judiciary system. 16 4 Disney: Losing Magic in use Kingdom foreign and new things. A lot of American products previously launched

Thursday, December 19, 2019

The Theory Of Social Psychology - 996 Words

Introduction In 1971 Dr. Philip Zimbardo, conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment at Stanford University in the basement. According to Zimbardo, the study was an effort to see how well people would react in a place of confinement, Classic Studies in Psychology, (2012). There were 24 male randomly assigned to act as guards or prisoners in the derision prison. The endeavor was of this study was at the start to last two weeks, but was ended after six days due to the immoderate action of the participants, because some guards were abusive, prisoners became passive. The participants prisoners was unexpectedly arrested at their home, fingerprinted, booked, and taken to the simulated prison by officers of the local police department. The normal setting for arrest, However, the stage was set for this experiment. The value of the study in relation to social psychology The value in relation to social psychology in generalization to humanity as a whole and the difficulty and precaution in place to reduce the ethical concerns the study created. This study became an example to how good people mannerism and behaviors is influence to be coming the offender of evil. The value is good and bad people together have combinations of factors needed to produce certain effects and to predict the results that would be obtained under certain specified conditions and turn to bad and evil. The Stanford Prison Experiment has become a good example of how good people can be influencedShow MoreRelatedThe Theory Of Social Psychology1654 Words   |  7 PagesSocial psychology is a subfield of psychology that studies how people’s feelings, behaviors, and thoughts vary depending on their social environment (Social Psychology Careers, n.d.). Plato first attributed changes in a person’s behavior to their social environment in his idea of â€Å"crowd mind† but social psychology began as an independent subfield after World War II (Cherry, n.d.). The genocide conducted under Hitler’s Nazi regime prompted psychologists to investigate how social influences effectedRead MoreThe Theory Of Social Psychology1551 Words   |  7 PagesSocial psychology seeks to identify and understand how society (i.e. family, community, sub groups, and peers, etc.) influences thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of the individual. Within the realm of social psychology, two prominent theorists emerge, Albert Bandura and Bernard Weiner. Both theorists have made great impacts within their fields, determining and describing cause and effect of social influences on the individual’s behaviors, but more importantly, how external contributors manifest intoRead MoreThe Theory Of Social Psychology911 Words   |  4 PagesGroups have the capability to influence the perspectives of individuals in a so cial gathering (Myers, 2010). This paper will analyze the meaning of a group dynamic and how it relates to social psychology. This paper will give you an understanding on how individuals are influence by group dynamics and social involvements. Finally, this paper will provide information that was collect from a social group session interaction with collective studies to determine a conclusion. The interaction during aRead MoreThe Theory Of Social Work And Psychology Essay1137 Words   |  5 Pagesto the proposed research are social work and psychology. The theories to be utilized within each cognate are the systems theory for social work and the cognitive behavior theory for psychology. Given the heuristic nature of interdisciplinary research, the theories to be utilized within each cognate could possibly be dynamic in nature; therefore, subject to expanding to include more than just the two theories or disciplines currently included. The systems theory, as the name implies, deals withRead MoreTheories Of Personality And Social Psychology3265 Words   |  14 Pages THEORIES OF PERSONALITY Signature assignment: Explore future directions for personality theory and research in social psychology Apologies it is slightly late. I’ve been trying to upload this and even attach as an email. I’ve had to use an entirely different computer to do this. Faculty Use Only Future directions for personality theory and research in social psychology Introduction and overview of personality in social psychology Social psychologyRead MoreThe Theory Of Psychology And Social View3117 Words   |  13 PagesAbstract Although these two great minds of psychology have two different theories on how we as humans develop and learn, they have many similarities. I feel after researching and reading that the two psychologist lives themselves can provide more to the study of psychology and social view. I feel that their theories showed the contrast in ways of their social environment. Vygotsky being of the Russian Empire and the background of the Soviet Union that shows much determination to grow and individualizeRead MoreThe General Strain Theory Of Social Psychology1647 Words   |  7 PagesIntroduction The general strain theory has developed into among the greatest crime theories of social psychology with a fairly developed research body. General Strain Theory is thought to be a strong philosophy, and has gathered a lot of experimental confirmation, and has additionally extended its essential degree by offering clarifications of wonders outside of criminal conduct. There are diverse negative relationships with strain or stress that result in negative emotions along with encouragingRead MoreZimbardo s Theory Of Social Psychology1952 Words   |  8 Pagesimportant task, Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo’s theories and experiments have made him stand out, and differentiate himself from the rest in his profession. Zimbardo s area of expertise in the field of psychology is social psychology, the branch that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual. Zimbardo may be most well known for his Stanford Prison experiment, an experiment that seems to address the definition of social psychology perfectly. In this experiment ZimbardoRead MoreSocial Psychology And Albert Bandura s Social Cognitive Theory1338 Words   |  6 Pageswithin a social context, a cultural context, and a modeling context. This papers is intended as a review of how personalities effect our actual behaviors and how those behaviors are molded into an individualistic personality. The best definition of personality I found is â€Å"Personality is can be described in terms of personality traits: characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving† (Soto Tacket, 2015). For purposes of this paper, I chose to incorporate Horney’s Social and CulturalRead MoreGeorge Herbert Mead s Theory Of Psychology And Social Psychology1827 Words   |  8 Pagesmajor figure in the history of American philosophy. Through his writing and teaching, Mead has established significant influence in social theory among both philosophers and social scientists. He is considered a pioneer in the field of sociology and social psychology. Mead is best known for his theory or work on emergence of self (or personality) and mind from social process. There is argument among psychologists about the existence of personality. Some psychologists argue that personality is a fiction

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Responsibility Industry Corporate Social -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Quesstion: Discuss About The Responsibility Industry Corporate Social? Answer: Introducation In todays industry practices, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is dishevelled with many MNCs and industries in strategic planning procedures. The drivers behind CSR can be due to the reason for showing responsibility towards human and environment. This can also be said that companys along with producing product or service has to take responsibility to satisfy entire stakeholders those can be common people, employees, owners, buyers or government. According to Mallen Baker, "CSR is about how companies manage the business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society"(Careers and Industry Guide, 2017) Competitors, government and populations often influence organisations to destabilize or undertake unethical motives. Laws and penalties levied by government and legal bodies keep safeguard of ethics and social values of industries. Legal processes if structured accordingly ensure international borders are not exposed only for self interest. CSRs confirms shareholders tha t their organisations provide maximum profit out of processes while ensuring to make positive impact on environment and society. Implementation of CSR in industries has been visible immensely since the last decade as organisations are tending to be modest in behaving under CSR criterias(Aras, 2008). Australian companies those are listed in stock exchange have taken initiatives by showing their part of responsibility towards nation. According to a study made by Australian Centre for CSR, Australian companies have increased their awareness regarding CSR(Mendoza, 2017). Good initiatives shall always be encouraged so that working with communities proactively alleviates the potential by damaging obstructions in business and create significant benefits for long term(The conversation Media Group, 2017). This report will make research on implementation of CSR while demonstrating the way corporate governance may contribute to higher standards of business performance and accountability in min ing industry of Australia. Corporate Governance And Sustainabilty Of Mining Industry In Australia Mining industries are accountable for a noteworthy proportion of GDP in many developed nations and has an impending prospective to deliver sustainable economic growth to worlds most needful communities. In global context, the societal anticipation is growing towards corporate, especially in developing nations to foster responsibility by not generating profits only but benefiting entire community with their presence. Large MNCs and global resources sectors are responding to expectations by adopting high profile range of CSR guidelines and sustainability frameworks along with serving public relation practices. Despite of considerable potential in economy along with environmental and social impact on mass commune, many low profile and small Australian mining and exploration companies operates ignoring CSR practice in the country(Rice, 2016). While making the research it was found that junior levelled industries and communities focussed to approach CSR and while visualising the contracti on in operations, they failed to understand the overall importance of CSR(Lyons, 2016). Various theories in CSR will explore the complex force that shapes mid tier mining industry in Australia and implement CSR and sustainability in their challenging operational environment. The critical research in CSR practices of resources sector has been seen delivering inappropriate operations and also been accused of making unexpected processes. CSR programmes are been conceded without consulting communities and is been carried without thinking about its priorities. Those industries are also criticised as developers of environment and social damage whereas billion dollar brands becomes vulnerable to communities and suffer fallouts from mining sector without sharing much benefits out of it. Global conglomerates in mining sector remain only handful that also dominates the industry. Many junior resources industries who explore potential mineral deposits are sold off to big companies in order to develop and carry business according to countrys austere laws and regulations(Scilly, 2017). Thus they have pitiable reputation and have got a history of getting targeted by developing nations which has got weak environmental regulations. These companies lack CSR knowledge and the amount of significance they has on the regions they operate which is the reason they are been under rated in CSR and sustainability investigation and shows that larger companies gets disproportionate focus. This report will make study of few CSR theories which will assist small mining industries and develop their challenging force while responding to social expectations and behaviour towards environment in responsible way. Theories Of Csr And Sustainabilty Institutional theory: This theory states that the behaviour of firms is regulated by institutional field or environment. The major constituents of field include scope of firms activity, social context and network of social relationships. The institutional environment brings uniformity in practices carried by businesses through mechanisms namely normative, coercive and mimetic. Mimetic practices deals with peer strain on firms to obey rules. Coercive refers to technical pressure that aspires companies to get align with societal prospect. Normative mechanism refers to internalization of credence about sustainability and suitability of behaviour. The forces of institutional theory drive organisations to get in line with belief and social norms along with internalization of processes from external force. Mining industries in Australia can be conceptualised as socially co ordinate unit which functions on an incessant basis to achieve goals. Thus it can be said that specific group of organ isations are likely to be exaggerated by regulations. CSR designates the organisation to voluntarily behave by not harming its stakeholders and besides looking into business issues, also look after environmental and social issues. The institutions drive organisations to select norms and align their behaviour with norms, while institutional theory demonstrates the reason behind performing CSR activities(Mishra, 2016). Integrative theory: This theory focuses on detecting and scans respondents of social demands while generating social authenticity. Integrative theory enables exceeding social acceptance and prestige of companies by making corporate laws in favour of society and environment. The management identifies issues in corporate and evaluates while responding to political and social issues those might place impact on business. The basic responsibility towards public in this theory considers suitable managerial behaviour that is found in relevance with people policy. The board prototype of social trend is reflected in public opinion and reduction in social issues. Legal requirements and enforcements are also said as drivers of such CSR theories in industries and implementation processes for sustainability. Managing stakeholders is an approach towards public who are directly or indirectly affected by industries policies and procedures. This theory increases the advantages by stimulating sensitiv ity of people and environment as then the stakeholders might understand the dilemmas faced by organisations. Corporate social performance can also be said as a set of theories which searches for social authenticity while giving efforts towards gaining appropriate response(Garriga, 2004). Utilitarian theory: Under this theory the corporations performs as an element of economic system which has got functional mechanisms traditionally known as profit maximising. Corporate responsibility idea had emerged after realising the need for economic responsibility along with maintaining ethics in business. According to analysis made by Secchi, utilitarian theory gives way to businesses by determining individualism in controlling public and responsibilities towards self and social communities(ISMAIL, 2009). This theory is synonymous with instrumental theory under which the corporate are seen only as an instrument for creating wealth, and social activities for them are only a tool for achieving economic results. In instrumental theory, the basic idea behind investments is to invest in local communities only and according to Friedman, the investors shall perform activities that serve revenues for long terms while providing resources and facilities for the source of income of public living in similar community. On the other hand utilitarian theory is associated to strategies for competitive advantage theories as formulated by authors like Porter and Cramer, who have formulated their theories according to dynamic use of natural resources for competitive advantage. These theories also include unselfish nature of industries as they are recognised socially and treated as an instrument for marketing purpose. Utilitarian theory can further be divided into social cost theory and functionalism theory. The social economic system of communities is highly influenced by non economic forces of corporate which are the basis of social cost theory or instrumental theory in CSR and shall be taken as social power of companies whose specific purpose is to build relationship between politics and society. The functionalism theory advocates that industries and corporations are seen as a part of economic system whose ultimate goal is making profits and the firms shall make investmen ts so that stakeholders get maximum profits out of it. Thus, the basic purpose behind this theory is to give industrial systems a defensive tool i.e. CSR tactic that could provide making balance between profiteering and social objective for equilibrium of economic system(ISMAIL, 2009). Implementation Strategy Of Csr In Mining Industry Implementation strategy of CSR program as stated by Lynch (2006) is been developing as compared to earlier days. The key factors emphasizing strategies of company are welfare and competition improvement, market competition, global and local demands, empowerment and involvement of workers for setting industry policies, evolution of technological and communicational forms and lastly the fallout of industries due to ethical problems. According to the author, social responsibility and innovation are taking crucial part in industries strategies(Setyadi, 2013). The strategy contains overall of the organisation and states how the company carry their structure and financial models while stating their allocation of available resources to realise maximum outputs. Competitive or business strategy which shows the level of competition with the surroundings includes its competitors. While the operational strategy concentrates on various divisions of company that offers contribution. Some authors h ave also put an effort in maintaining sustainability of mining sector by including a category in corporate strategies. The strategy that mentions sustainability strategies in industries is based on knowledge management and social information which supports the continuity in mining operations. By implementing this strategy, mining companies applies for advancement in enhanced corporate governance, turnover and social environment(Ranngen, 2015). In order to get sustainable advantage, maintaining nominal economic performance is necessary so that stakeholders expectation is fulfilled. The companies will not survive if normal CSR is not carried by it unless; government subsidy or funding from private entry is provided(Yakovleva, 2005). The first level in implementing CSR in mining industry is to achieve turnover as bigger the profits are, bigger allotment can be made for CSR programmes. A fair CSR strategy will always carry responsibility by following the principle of fairness and equity which requires considerable amount of investment in it. Industries can conduct communication and uphold fair relationship with local community along with government by operating safely and making profit without interfering in their day to day life. Second strategy that can be applied is improving mining operations is by strengthening development of business. As mining industries operates on natural resources those are non-renewable in nature, the company, to remain sustainable has to find new locations whenever their present locations seems to be dwindling(Hohnen, 2007). Implementing CSR program in mining industry is difficult as in the exploration phases the companies cannot implement profit enhancing strategies. Therefore only in vestment preservation strategies suites best for them which is why local communities and government are required to be maintained for generating favourable situations in preservation process. Investors also look for environmental situations and preservations to decide upon investment of their capital. However to carry operations between communities and company, ethics maintenances is also required to be considered as many companies closes due to ethical misbehaviour. It is expected that mining industries shall also implement ethical duties in their CSR strategies as it constitutes as an important role in industry environment(Setyadi, 2013). BENEFITS OF IMPLEMENTING CSR STRATEGIES This report has made analysis of various theories and strategies in implementation process of CSR programs for sustainability in mining industry in Australia. In order to get motivation behind implementing it, benefits behind implementation process shall also be seen by the companies that could secure them for operating their mining business while strengthening relation with their surroundings. Socially tied mining industries are quick in realising success as compared to no social tied ones. If companies do not maintain CSR in their business, the activities carried by them become highly vulnerable. In order to get continuous run and sustainability, CSR programs is highly recommendable as the benefits received then can be seen by both company and communities(Muir, 2015). Besides, the chance of improving infrastructure and healthy lifestyle is observed; it will also reduce the burden in terms of education and earnings. Government is also benefitted by getting a relief in the form of es tablishments made according to welfare of people and promoting regions which are unrecognised(Ksiezak, 2016). Therefore, when companies establishes CSR practices and coordinates with government, sustainable development is realised easily. Other benefits of CSR programs and knowledge management makes organisations committed to making employees learn and develop talent pool in them so that work efficiency is increased. Increment in accountability standards and performance is recognised quickly while CSR are taken as compulsory process in companys operations. The reputation and publicity improves relationship with stakeholders while local communities become supportive. Innovation and cost curtailing is obtained while getting an access to markets and thus chance of increasing production becomes conventional. While involving community and practicing in social responsible manner, environment is protected along with securing human rights and fair operational practices. The companys brand i dentity is also strengthened by approaching to CSR institutions rather than focussing on making advertisements only which are limited to few audiences(Creative Commons, 2017). Conclusion After making analysis of CSR implementation processes, theories and role of CSR for maintaining sustainability in mining sector, the junior mining sectors in Australia demands involvement of three parties i.e. government, company, and society. The implementation of CSR shall be made from the beginning stage of commencement and while entering into the sites. The benefits achieved by the industries can be seen with stability in operations and achieving sustainability by getting permits from government and social communities. One of the most successful mining industries situated in Australia is BHP Billiton who has set an example for other mining industries in terms of maintaining CSR programs in mining operations(BHP Billiton: Resourcing the Future, 2014). Benefits received from implementation of CSR process in few mining industries proves that maintaining social responsibility along with profit making is highly appreciated by government and people. Normally mining sites are located in villages and underdeveloped regions, realising community development is ascertained if CSR program enabled companies are increased in those areas and government shall also support for such grateful presence of companies in those areas. On the other hand, companies shall also maintain their part of responsibility to support sustainability of mining industry in Australia. Environmentally, minimising side effects shall also be considered by companies by taking environment as their first priority. During the time when new site is detected, peeling of soil and plants is done which is threatening the biodiversity in those areas. Thus companies are challenged to avoid making adverse collision of territory and minimise destruction by changing procedures. Thought out mining plan can safeguard biodiversity and environmental destruction. Therefore on concluding note it can be said mining companies who shows utmost interest in environment and CSR are the ones who contributes to high standards of accountability and business performance while possessing sustainable division in country(Yakovleva, 2000) References Aras, C.C.a.G., 2008. Corporate Social Responsibility. [Online] Available at: https://mdos.si/Files/defining-corporate-social-responsibility.pdf [Accessed 09 October 2017]. BHP Billiton: Resourcing the Future, 2014. Value through Performance: Annual Report 2014. [Online] Available at: https://www.bhp.com/~/media/bhp/documents/investors/annual-reports/bhpbillitonannualreport2014.pdf [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Careers and Industry Guide, 2017. Building Better Community Relationships. [Online] Available at: https://www.miningoilgasjobs.com.au/mining/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-mining---metals-sec/building-better-community-relationships.aspx [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Creative Commons, 2017. Three Theories of Corporate Social Responsibility. [Online] Available at: https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s17-02-three-theories-of-corporate-so.html [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Garriga, E.M.a.D., 2004. Untangling the Jungle of Corporate Social Responsibility Theories. [Online] Available at: https://www.ieseinsight.com/doc.aspx?id=389 [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Hohnen, P., 2007. Corporate Social Responsibility: An Implementation Guide for Business. [Online] Available at: https://www.iisd.org/pdf/2007/csr_guide.pdf [Accessed 09 October 2017]. ISMAIL, M., 2009. CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ITS ROLE IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE. [Online] Available at: https://www.sosyalarastirmalar.com/cilt2/sayi9pdf/ismail_maimunah.pdf [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Ksiezak, P., 2016. The Benefits from CSR for a Company and Society. [Online] Available at: https://jcrl.umk.pl/files/7815/0102/1176/ksiezak.pdf [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Lyons, M., 2016. CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) IN JUNIOR AND MID-TIER AUSTRALIAN RESOURCES COMPANIES OPERATING IN DEVELOPING NATIONS BEYOND THE PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFENSIVE. [Online] Available at: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/92310/1/Margaret_Lyons_Thesis.pdf [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Mendoza, 2017. Mining and sustainability:experience from Australia. [Online] Available at: https://im4dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Mining-and-sustainability-in-Australia-English.pdf [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Mishra, S.S.D.a.N., 2016. Institutional Theory as a Driver of CSR: An Integrative Framework. [Online] Available at: https://www.anzam.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf-manager/2844_ANZAM-2016-407-FILE001.PDF [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Muir, S., 2015. Top 5 benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility. [Online] Available at: https://cubegroup.com.au/top-5-benefits-of-corporate-social-responsibility/ [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Ranngen, H., 2015. Advancing CSR in the Mining Industry. [Online] Available at: https://ltu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:991215/FULLTEXT01.pdf [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Rice, S.S.a.J., 2016. Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing. [Online] Available at: https://theconversation.com/australian-corporate-social-responsibility-reports-are-little-better-than-window-dressing-66037 [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Scilly, M., 2017. Four Types of Corporate Social Responsibility. [Online] Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/four-types-corporate-social-responsibility-54662.html [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Setyadi, B.S.K.R.a.S.R.H., 2013. The Role of CSR as Corporate-Level Strategy in Mining Companies Case Study in Indonesia. [Online] Available at: https://pakacademicsearch.com/pdf-files/eng/510/82-95%20Vol%203,%20No%2010%20(2013).pdf [Accessed 09 October 2017]. The conversation Media Group, 2017. Australian corporate social responsibility reports are little better than window dressing. [Online] Available at: https://theconversation.com/australian-corporate-social-responsibility-reports-are-little-better-than-window-dressing-66037 [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Yakovleva, N., 2005. Corporate Social Responsibility in the Mining Industries. [Online] Available at: https://books.google.co.in/books?id=rAwkDwAAQBAJpg=PT100lpg=PT100dq=IMPLEMENTATION+STRATEGY+OF+CSR+IN+MINING+INDUSTRYsource=blots=3Zwr7RllwNsig=k8YCip9ckpETWPT2dENs1txN9n8hl=ensa=Xved=0ahUKEwiW8cjltOPWAhUBs48KHR8-AS84ChDoAQhWMAM#v=onepageq=IMPLE [Accessed 09 October 2017]. Yakovleva, H.J.a.N., 2005. Corporate social responsibility in the mining industry: Exploring trends in social and environmental disclosure. [Online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/3204698/Corporate_social_responsibility_in_the_mining_industry_Exploring_trends_in_social_and_environmental_disclosure [Accessed 09 October 2017].

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Relationship Between Social Policy And Welfare Social Work Essay Essay Example

Relationship Between Social Policy And Welfare Social Work Essay Essay Social policy may be described in two ways. Chiefly, societal policy is seen to hold a direct impact on persons and groups of people. Second, Social policy is an academic topic to be researched. Social Policy may be defined as the development and implementing steps to battle societal jobs in society, and to the academic survey of these steps and their broader societal context ( Alcock, Erskine, and May, 2002:240 ) . Baldock, Manning, and Bickerstaff ( 2007: twenty-one. ) describe a social policy as the provinces deliberate engagement to redistribute resources amongst its citizens so as to accomplish a public assistance nonsubjective . Social policies affect a broad scope of people, whether it is at an single degree or respects to communities. Harmonizing to Spicker ( 2008:1 ) societal policies have to concentrate on several issues including lodging, wellness, instruction, societal security and employment. We will write a custom essay sample on Relationship Between Social Policy And Welfare Social Work Essay specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Relationship Between Social Policy And Welfare Social Work Essay specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Relationship Between Social Policy And Welfare Social Work Essay specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer The development of Social policies and their execution have a direct impact on the societal public assistance of everyone in the society. Social public assistance refers to the assorted societal agreements that are in topographic point to run into the demands of persons and groups in society, with the hope to undertake societal jobs. Harmonizing to Fitzpatrick ( 2001:5 ) societal policy purposes to maximise public assistance and minimise diswelfare and he states that there are six chief positions on public assistance: felicity, security, penchants, demands, desert, and comparative comparings . There are legion texts that exist around the issue of policy formation and its contested relationship with the effects of the policies execution on the public assistance of those it aims to aim. This essay aims to supply an overview of the development of societal policy, statute law and pattern in relation to child public assistance in Irleand. Relation to an Aspect of Irish Policy Hill and Hupe stated that Implemenation necessarily takes different forms and signifiers in different civilizations and institutional scenes ( 2006:2 ) . This subdivision of the essay will analyze some of the relationship between societal policy and kid public assistance in Ireland from the 1940 s up to the present twenty-four hours. Children Allowance and Health Care: Perphaps one of the most signisifcant societal policy developments sing kid public assistance was in debut of Children s Allowance in 1944. However, the initial implemention of the Act included serveral disagreements, therefore it did non profit the public assistance of all the communitiy. For illustration, ab initio the payment was merely availabe to households with three or more kids. Means proving meant that many households were elimanted from the possible societal public assistance they deserved. Simliarly, in 1950, Noel Browne introduced the Mother and Child Scheme. He hoped that this would get the better of many of the elements that infringed the rights of people in respects to the Childrens allowance. However, both the Catholic church and the medical profession opposed he s strategy in fright that province tally and free medical attention would travel against their hierachy. With Browns subsequently surrender, the hope of his strategy being to the full implented collapsed. Bur ke ( 2005:29 ) stated that the contention over the female parent and kid strategy has profound effecs on the developement of societal policy in this state . The power battle between the church and the province most definelty lead to diswelfare among citizens. Compulsory Reporting of Child Abuse: Society has a ambitious undertaking of protecting kids. Societies need to use several ways in which they can accomplish this, for illustration, societal, economic, moral, legal and environmental. In the mid 1990 s, The Law Reform Commission recommended the debut of compulsory coverage of kid maltreatment. The affair of compulsory coverage is one of complexness which has deductions non merely for kids s public assistance but besides households, workers and the province. One of the chief advantages of the implemenation of such a system was the hope that it would authorise proffesionals to describe maltreatment. Above all else it was prodicted that this would procure consistence and would supply a footing for better statistical grounds. However, disadvantages included the danger of over coverage of instances utilizing scarce resources. There was great assortment of options about the compulsory coverage of kid maltreatment. Many argued for an immediate debut of compulsory coverage of kid maltreatment as it was seen as a agency of protecting kids ( ACT Legislative Assembly: neodymium ) and their public assistance. However, others believed it would deviate the already scarce resources from plans that delivered aid to households and at hazard kids. For illustration, Lipsky ( 1980 ) beleived that scarceness of resources leads to street- degree bureaucratisms being systematically criticized for their inability to implement policies which are related to the countries they work in therefore taking to diswelfare in many instances. After much argument, the authorities decided against the debut of compulsory coverage on the footing that it was non in the kids s best involvements and public assistance. The scarceness of resources combined with the complex relationship between proffesionals and clients made it unrealistic. Legislative Framework Regulating the Execution of Childcare Policy: The Children Act of 1908 and the Health Act 1953 and 1957 were replaced by the Child Care Act 1991 and the Children Act 2001 as the primary statutory model for the attention and control of kids in Ireland. Among many commissariats, the chief purpose of the Act harmonizing to O Sullivan ( 2009:251 ) is the placing of a statutory responsibility on wellness boards to advance the public assistance of kids who are non having equal attention and protection . In the period following the passing of the childrens act in 1991, many efforts were made to standardize processs and practises in the country of child care services. For exmaple, the Report of the Killkenny Incest Enquiry in 1993 obviously highlighted that guidelines were non being used and many workers were non even cognizant of there being. However, in 1995, new guidelines on The Presentment of Suspected Cases of Child Abuse Between Healthboards and Gardai were issued and aimed at standardizing the instances between the two burea us. This was a measure frontward for maximizing the public assistance of kids. In 1999, in the Publication of Children First ; National Guidelines for the Protection and Welfare of Children were introduced to better proffesional practise and therefore bettering the public assistance of kids. It highlighted the importance of consistence between policies and processs. Unlike guidelines before it, Children First was built upon a set of rules which included engagement by parents/carers and kids in conferences and the development of kid protection programs. These guidelines were valuable as they provided a model for practise, intending that proffessionals are accountable for their actions. In 2002, Buckley made a warning of the dangers of an over regulated system, as she believed it may take to discretion and therapeutical accomplishments being replaced by adminstrative direction and ordinance. In 2003 The Social Services Inspectorate was asked to supervise the execution of the guidelines, nevertheless, while some facet of the study were postivie, it was concluded t hat the advancement in realtion to Garda/health board cooperation, the kid protection commissions and be aftering for household support services was unequal O Sullivan ( 2009:257 ) Confusion environing the execution of this policy still exists. Conculsion: This essay has attempted to summarize and give a critical analysis of certain societal policy in Ireland and their relationship with childrens Welfare. As illustrated in the above illustrations, the in most instances policies may be developed with the hope to profit and increase the public assistance of kids but unless they are implemented right the policies may take to diswelfare.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Miles Davis Essays - Savoy Records Artists, Miles Davis,

Miles Davis This book, written by Miles Davis, is the autobiography tht he wrote a few years before he died. In this book I found how he first became interested in jazz. It also explains how he became one of the best jazz players of all time. Miles was born in Alton, Illinois in 1926 and grew up in eastern St. Louis. He learned how to play trumpet while in high school on the trumpet that his father gave to him for his 13th birthday. He was a bog fan of jazz and said that the thing that made up his mind to be a musician was wheh he first heard Billy Eckstines band with Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, and Charlie parker playing the sax. He then moved to New York looking for Charlie Parker and to study classical trumpet at Juilliard School of music. Aftera while parkers drug problem began to take over his life, and this also affected Davis. Davis took some time toget over that, and by the late 50s he was a much bigger star than he had been before due to some of his recent recordings. In 1969, Davis started to record more electronic music, which was the start of the azz-Rock. Later on, when he came out with the albums A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and On the Corner, fans were dissapointed, and thought it was a terrible portrayal of the jazz they knew. Miles then sort of dissapeared from the view of the public eye between 1975 and 1981, but even when he came back, he wasn't as into playing anymore as he had used to be. He played again a couple times before he died in 1991 at 65 years old. As for the author's description of the book, it was all first person, because he wrote the book himself with the help of Quincy Troupe. My conclusion to this book strenghtens what I think about musicians. I don't understand why lots of famous people and especially musicians experiment with drugs. I would think that if their life is going well why mess with it. Another thing this book made me think about is that Miles is still a very widely known artist. Before reading this book I hadnt known that he died in 1991, I thought that him and his music was something that died long ago and only older people listened to. That is wrong though. I enjoyed this book and didn't realize before how much work it takes to live forever in history.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Why must thrombolytic therapy be initiated immediately upon essays

Why must thrombolytic therapy be initiated immediately upon essays Why must thrombolytic therapy be initiated immediately upon onset of ischemic stroke? In Canada a stroke occurs every ten minutes, it is the fourth leading cause of death and is the number one cause of long-term disability. Canadians spend a total of 3 million days in hospital because of stroke costing the Canadian economy $2.7 billion a year, with the average acute care stay costing approximately $27,500 per stroke (Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, 2002). Currently there are 350,000 Canadians living with the effects of stroke with 50,000 new strokes occurring every year and the incidence is increasing as Canadians age. Of every 100 people experiencing a stroke in Canada, 10 are so severely disabled they require long-term care, 40 are left with moderate to severe impairment or disability, 25 will have minor impairment or disability, 10 will completely recover and 15 will die. Fewer than 50% of stroke patients ever return to work (Canadian Stroke Network, 2004). This paper will use the pathopysiology concepts of ischemic stroke to answer this question: Why must thrombolytic therapy be initiated immediately upon onset of ischemic stroke? This is a very clinically important question because early identification of stroke is the single most important tool in the reduction of disability. The largest barrier to patients receiving thrombolytic therapy is the failure to identify signs and symptoms and seek immediate treatment. A recent study found only 5% of patients experiencing stroke symptoms sought medical attention within the three-hour time window. Patients delayed seeking treatment because symptoms were not recognized, the patient and family waited for symptoms to go away, and the patient and family believed nothing could be done, or that it was not an emergency. These findings indicate the need to educate the community about stroke risk factors, signs and symptoms, and the appropriate response (Kongable, 1997). W...

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Core- Global issues Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Core- Global issues - Assignment Example There is a comparable example in numerous creating nations, where disparities have climbed pointedly to a great extent because of the reception of budgetary liberalization and modification strategies. In addition, as in praiseworthy economies, the ascent in income inequality shows up firmly connected with more continuous domesticated fiscal emergencies. As it were, there gives off the impression of being a solid connection between the ascent in income inequality and the expanding recurrence of financial emergencies over the world. (UNDP np) Despite the fact that the unfriendly impacts of fiscal emergencies on growth and neediness are overall reported, the way that budgetary emergencies additionally have a tendency to intensify income circulation in creating economies is less as often as possible recognized. As this happens and biases decline, they make the precise conditions that incite the following emergency. Consequently, climbing income inequality, be it in developed or creating economies, has turned into a vital driver of helplessness as of late. Moreover, the diligence of inequality at abnormal amounts in numerous creating economies has made it more troublesome to lessen neediness. It is well acknowledged at this point that the more amazing inequality makes it more improbable that financial development can decrease destitution—paying little mind to the rate of monetary growth. Also, there is a developing agreement that the unnecessary inequality can stunt growth itself. (UNDP np) High inequality can additionally have undesirable political and social results. Where the establishments of government are powerless, inequality intensifies the issue of making and keeping up responsible government, growing the likelihood of financial and social approaches that hinder development, and destitution lessening and where social organizations are delicate, inequality further disheartens the municipal and social life that undergirds

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Reserch proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Reserch proposal - Essay Example ning to the emergence of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) from the approach of conventional Human Resource Management (HRM) will be provided. According to Armstrong (2006,) human resource is linked with strategic goals to improve the over performance of business and to develop such an organizational culture that fosters flexibility, innovation, as well as competitive advantage. For a company, SHRM refers to viewing functions of HR and accepting those functions as a strategic partner of the company that involves in implementation and formation of business strategies through activities like Training, Recruitment and Selection, Performance Appraisal etc. Currently, HRM is considered as nothing more than an administrative duty. In modern era, the responsibilities of HR Manager are higher than ever before. Due to Globalization, it must be ensured that human resource department is handled effectively and smartly. Globalization has causes a diversified workforce where people come from varying background. Globalization also causes technological changes, changes in the context of business, concern of business from moving to profit-oriented to growth-oriented and many others (Devana, Fombrumm, & Tichy, 1981; Wrightt, 1998). In modern era, in order to make a business grow, companies need to achieve a competitive edge and not only look into the transactional activities and administrative aspect of the job, but also formulate those strategies that align with the goals of business. In case the company does not adopt these tactics, then it will lose its relevance sooner or later. According to Huselid and Becker, (1997) companies that align orga nizational goals with human resource management system, a considerable change in financial position is observed. SHRM is considered as more extensive approach than conventional HRM because it links the activities of an organization with its goals (Singh, 2003). The performance appraisal system involves a strong reward plan.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Teamwork experience Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Teamwork experience - Essay Example The researcher states the cultural differences made him stand out of the group at a communicative level. The Australians fluently spoke to one another and quite often, the researcher would feel left out. He tried to join them in the conversation. But he used to take too long to think about right words to construct the sentence, which would not only be embarrassing for him, but would also require them to display patience while listening to the researcher, which ultimately broke the temp of conversation. The author of this article understood English sufficiently to know the meaning but founds it difficult to speak with the required fluency and appropriate usage of words. Anyhow, he did not have any choice as the authority rested with majority and conversation had to be made in English. Besides, English is the course language so he had better give up any attempts to devise another language as the medium of communication. He mostly listened to his group members as they spoke. This not on ly maintained the tempo of conversation, but also provided him with an opportunity to improve his English speaking skill. There was a great deal of difference between the comfort he felt in speaking English between the start of the project and the end of the project. There is another positive aspect of interacting in foreign language which is that it reduces cultural differences among team members and helps in the development of strong rapport among them. (Neyer and Harzing, 2008, p. 13). In week 6, we learned how to work in a diverse group. The diversity among team members can be there in terms of difference of age, gender, culture and such other factors. In our case, our team was diverse in terms of culture as we were all boys and belonged to the same age group. I learned that diversity can cause many conflicts if not handled in the appropriate manner. In order to minimize the conflicts, we needed to minimize the cultural differences by understanding one another’s culture. Therefore, we established a culture based meeting. In that meeting, I was supposed to introduce Chinese culture to my group mates whereas they would talk about the Australian culture. That meeting was specifically meant to enhance our understanding of each other’s cultures. It is possible to reduce the cultural differences between team members if â€Å"mental processes associated with national culture are relatively fluid, and can be changed and sustained by appropriate situational factors† (Leung et al., 2005, p. 367). In the culture based meeting, the specific area that required to be discussed was ethics. Standards of ethics vary from culture to culture. What actions are considered respectable and honoring in one culture may be considered insulting in another, Therefore, in order to make sure that we respected each other’s cultural ethics, we discussed ethics of Chinese and Australian culture in this meeting. This way, we handled the cultural diversity in a v ery good manner. Not only was this meeting very enjoyable and informative, it also helped us escape a lot of dysfunctional conflicts as we knew each other’s cultural demands and would act accordingly so that nobody’s feelings were hurt. In week 7 and week 8, we learned how to work in a team, minimize the conflicts and be successful. Teamwork is very helpful for achieving big tasks that require a multitude of competences all of which are not the property of one individual. Therefore, in a team, members benefit from one another’s competences in order to attain their mutual goals and shared objectives. In our team, students A and B had a stronger bond with each other than with the rest of team members. They would often make fuss over petty issues, and we had to be patient in order to keep the ship

Friday, November 15, 2019

Implementation Of The Library Management System Technology Essay

Implementation Of The Library Management System Technology Essay This report focuses on the design and implementation of the library management system. It deals with the complete processes on building and implementing it. It focuses in the technical aspects of the system starting with identifying the necessary components and building the relevant relationship between or among them as needed for the smooth and efficient operation of the system. The process starts with the entities involved in the system, with proceeding towards the ER Diagram in order to identify the meaningful relationship between the entities. Next is the table design which fulfils the normalization principle of relational database system and finally the physical tables are created with the necessary and relevant data in them. The system can keep track of the members joining and leaving the library, borrowing and returning of the books. Checking the availability of the books using different attributes as parameters. Finally checking of the overdue books and fines payable is another feature of the system. Abbreviation SQL Structured Query Language ER Entity Relationship ERD Entity Relationship Diagram DDL Data Definition Language DML Data Manipulation Language 1. Introduction: Library management system is a system that facilitates the easiness in using and tracking the library assets. It provides an instant real picture and process of all the activities that happens in a library commencing from the member joining the library and the same leaving the library with all the utilization and rendering of the library facilities in between. 1.1 Background: A library is a collection resources especially books that a wide range of individuals can access and share them. Library has been in use since 15th century as has been gone through several stages of improvisation and its been in the form as today. Library can be categorized into different types according to the organization that runs it as Academic library, public library, School library etc. Further more it can be classified according to the subject matter of the documents it contains as Medical library, Law library, Arts Library etc. Libraries are organized in a way to access the materials in an easy an effective way. There are several systems in practice which makes the library organized. Library is basically concerned about acquisition, preservation and administration of its resources. In order to carry out these tasks a system is implemented. All these process has been carried out manually before the advancement of new technologies. Now the computer automated system is in practi ce to carry out these systems which makes all these processes effective and efficient. These computer automated systems makes easy for the members to access the available resources where as it makes easy for the librarians to keep track and maintain the library resources. 1.2 Objective: The objective of the entire project Design and implement a library database. Construct the expandable search alternatives for the best handling of member queries, searching the books by book title, book author, ISBN. Construct the search option for the librarian to find the over due books and fine details. 1.3 Scope: The goal of this project is to design a database for a college library which will be implemented in the form of an online library which provides members a digitized catalog in order to search the books and browse information about the book. In the same time this system also enables the librarians to find the information of the book in a precise way especially the fine and overdue books. The summarized activities are as follows: Members registration Book issue and collection Book cataloging Collecting overdue book and fines 1.4 Technology Used: Technology used in this project is MYSQL. 2. Current system and its fallacy The library is managed, organized and run by the librarian. All the functions like managing books, issuing books, and finding the books for the members is carried out by librarian. This is where the time and effort is consumed. Whereas the members also find difficulty in finding availability the books and need the assistance of librarian in every step. The librarian also finds it tedious if s/he has to deal with several members at a same time. There is a difficult system 2.1 New system and its features The new system is also based on the daily routines of the library but the function carried out within it will be automated. Once all the data are stored in a database with a proper system both the librarian and members will be benefited over the traditional system as it is designed with the following features in mind: Effective The library system will streamline the library process which accelerates the effectiveness of the library. Efficacious The users are served in a reasonable time and are also able to search and select their required books. Efficient Members and Librarians are able to use the system quickly without any long procedures. Elegant Since the system is intuitive and comprehensive and is designed to be as effortless as possible 3. Literature Review This report focuses on the conceptual design of the system using ER i.e. entity relation ship diagram which is a diagrammatic representation of the entities and their relation with one another which is explained in the forth coming section. The ER is constructed using the UML. UML stands for unified modeling language. Software engineering uses UML as the standardized modeling language. It was created by Object management group. UML is a language used to present the blueprint of the system to be designed. It has got its own notations to represent the processes and objects involved in the software to be designed. ER Diagram is a graphical representation of the entities and relation between them in order to execute a system. This Diagram is constructed in some available ER Diagramming packages which is Visual paradigm community edition in this case. MYSQL has been chosen as the database system for this library management system. Since it is relational database available under the terms of GNU public license. Besides the ease of using through a variety of freely available tools as PHPMYADMIN makes a choice of most of database designers today. Besides it is the database of choice because of its high performance, high reliability and ease of use. Moreover it runs on maximum operating systems available in the IT fraternity like windows, Mac OS, Linux, Solaris, IBM . 3.1 Requirement Analysis The library management system should be able to fulfill the user requirements to all the extent and when analyzed are found as follows Member should be able to join and leave the library Member of a library should be able to borrow and return books Member of the library should be able to check book availability. Librarian should be able to check the overdue book and the fines payable. 4. New system Design The library management system with the goal to cover the requirements noted above needs to be developed in a system which has the proven track of implementing the same or same type of systems. So, a relational database system is chosen to carry out the task. The relational database system is basically a system where data is stored in a container called tables and the relational among them is also stored in the same form. The new system follows the waterfall model of the software development models. The processes in execution order in a water fall model are: Requirement analysis Software Design Integration Testing Deployment Maintenance 4.1 Conceptual Data Model The design of this data model is part of software design phase. After going through the requirement analysis the next step is the Software design and in it conceptual data model is the first among them. The conceptual data model identifies the necessary entities and establishes a relevant relation among them. In this design ER Diagram (Entity relationship diagram) is created to illustrate the relations between the entities. The diagrammatic conceptual representation of structured data is known as ER Diagram. Relational schema is used in this method for database modeling. The dominant method of database designing in the Software industry is the ER Diagram. Peter Chen invented the ER diagram in the early days to model the design of the databases from a more abstract perspective particularly for the academic research. Based on that, ER diagram was further elaborated and now is used worldwide in different forms. ER diagram deals with three major components of a database namely, Entity, A ttributes and Relation. Entity is nothing but a set of particular thing which shares common properties. Whereas attributes are the set of common properties which the entity share. The last but not the least component of an ER Diagram is a relation which is the model of association between one or more entities. Each relationship in ER Diagram has a cardinality which defines the degree of relationship between the two entities. In other words how the related entities has presence over one another. Cardinality is of three types: one to one, one to many and many to many. In an ER diagram the one occurrence of the entity is shown by a vertical line and many occurrence of the entity is shown by the crow foot. The relationship is established on the basis of several keys called primary keys and foreign keys. Besides there are other keys called candidate key and composite key. Primary key: The attribute which uniquely identifies a record in a table is called primary key. Foreign Key: As the name specifies this is the key which points the primary key of another table to which it is related. Candidate Key: The attribute that is identified to be unique for a given record is the candidate key. Composite Key: Primary key consisting of more than one attributes to identify the record uniquely is composite key. For the library system the constructed ER Diagram is shown below. 4.2 Logical Design The logical representation of the entities is drawn out in the logical design. It is a table prototype of the entities. Based on the conceptual Design above we do have following table and entities mapping. Member member_id (integer), member_fname (varchar), member_lname (varchar), member_address(integer), member_phone (varchar), member_email (varchar), member_type(integer) member_id is primary key and member_address and member_type are foreign keys to build the one to many relationship between address table and member table and member table and member_type table respectively. Member_Type member_type_id(integer), member_type_name (varchar), member_type_allowed_day (integer), member_type_fine (integer) member_type_id is primary key. Address address_id(integer), address_description (varchar), postcode (varchar) address_id is primary key. Postcode postcode_id (integer), postcode_description (varchar), postcode id is primary key. Books ISBN (integer), book_name (varchar), book_status (varchar), book_type_id (integer), book_publisher(integer) ISBNis primary key, book_type_id, book_publisher are the foreign keys which relates the the book table with book type with one to many, and with publisher table in one to many relation ship as well. Book_Type book_type_id(integer), book_type_name (varchar) book_type_idis primary key. Publisher publisher_id (integer), publisher_name (varchar) publisher_idis primary key. Author author_id(integer), author_fname (varchar), author_lname (varchar), author_email (varchar) author_idis primary key. Librarian librarian_id(integer), librarian _fname (varchar), librarian _lname (varchar), librarian _address(integer), librarian_phone (varchar), librarian_email (varchar) librarian idis primary key, librarian_address is the foreign key which establishes the one to many relationship with address table. Book_Author ISBN(integer), author_id(integer) ISBN is the foreign key which maintains one to many relation with books table and author_id is the foreign key which establishes the one to many relationship with author table. Thus in this way Many to Many relationship is established between Book and Author table. Borrow borrow_id(integer), member_id(integer), ISBN(integer), librarian_id(integer), borrow_date (date), return_date (date), expected_return_date (date) borrow_id is the primary key and memer_id, ISBN, librarian_id are the foreign keys. Member table and borrow table shares one to many relationship, Books table and borrow table shares one to many relationship and librarian table also shares one to many relation with borrow table involving the mentioned foreign keys. In other words many to many relation ship occurs between these entities i.e. many to many between librarian and books, member and books. Fine fine_id(integer), borrow_id(integer), librarian_id(integer), fine_amount (float), fine_id is the primary key and borrow_id, librarian_id are the foreign keys. Fine is associated with borrow in one to one relation whereas librarian is associated in one to many relation. 4.3 Normalization After the conceptual model the logical representation of entities are created and then before converting them into the tables with physical existence normalization is carried out. Normalization is process by which the data redundancy is nullified. This is achieved by disintegrating the single relationship with ambiguity into multiple smaller and precise relations. The tables holding such data are split into several atomic tables so that they become isolated and the data manipulations are carried out in a propagative way i.e. a change in an entry point data in a relation makes it triggered and reflected throughout the relations which frees tables from modification anomalies, i.e. insertion, updation and deletion anomalies. Several levels of normalization exist in database design and are called Normal Forms. They are First Normal Form (1NF), Second Normal Form (2NF) and Third Normal form (3NF). First Normal Form (1NF) First Normal form is concerned with multiple valued attributes. For the table to be in a first normal form it cannot contain multiple values for any attributes. Second Normal Form (2NF) For the table to be in second normal form the non key attributes of the table shouldnt be partial dependent on any single element of composite primary key. Third Normal Form (3NF) For the table to be in third normal form the non key attributes shouldnt have the transitive dependency on the primary key. The tables for the different entities are normalized in following manner: Books Table (without normalization): Fields (ISBN, book_name, book_status, book_edition, book_type, book_publisher, book_author) where ISBN is the primary key. books table before normalization In the above table the author value is repeated in the book_author table, for the table to be in 1NF, the table cell must contain a single value. The next is the value of book publisher and book type is repeated in multiple rows so it results in the update, insert and delete anomalies. To overcome this problem the author name and publisher entity are separated into multiple tables as shown below. The author table is created with author_id as primary key. Author Table: Fields (author_id, author_fname, author_lname, author_email) where author_id is the primary key. author_id author_fname author_lname author_email 1001 Max Godwell [emailprotected] 1002 Robin Hood [emailprotected] The relationship between book and author table is maintained in book_author table which is many to many as many a book has many authors and an author can write many books. This relation is established by creating a third table book_author which maps book to author and vice versa. This table contains two fields both as foreign keys which refer to book and author table respectively to establish one to many relationship on both sides. Book_Author Table : ISBN author_id 91238745654 1 91238745654 2 Publisher Table: Fields (publisher_id, publisher_name) publisher_id is the primary key. Similarly the repetition of publisher values in a book table is rectified by creating a publisher table as publisher_id as primary key which is then mapped as foreign key in books table to create one to many relationship, which rectifies the insert, update and delete anomaly thus creates 1NF in all cases. publisher_id publisher_name 1 Apress 2 Princeton Book_Type Table: Fields (book_type_id, book_type_name) book_type_id is the primary key. Similarly the repetition of book type values in a book table is rectified by creating a book_type table with book_type_id as primary key which is then mapped as foreign key in books table to create one to many relationship, which rectifies the insert, update and delete anomaly thus creates 1NF in all cases. Book_type_id Book_type_name 1 Computing 2 Economics The second normal form deals with the dependency of the non key columns with the primary key, i.e. no non key columns can depend upon another non key columns or no non key columns can depends on any one column in case of composite primary key. The conclusion is all the non key columns must be dependent on primary key strictly. Since this is also satisfied in all the tables above all the tables satifies 2NF as well. The third Normal form deals with transitive dependency of non key columns, since this is abolished in all the tables above all the tables are in 3NF as well. Books Table (Normalized): Fields (ISBN, book_name, book_status, book_edition, book_type, book_publisher) ISBN is the primary key, book_type is the foreign key referring to book_type table and book_publisher is the foreign key referring to the publisher table. Books table after normalization Member Table: Fields (member_id, member_fname, member_lname, member_phone, member_email, member_address, member_postcode, member_type, member_allowed_day, member_type_fine) member_id is the primary key. Member table before normalization The table above contains repeated address, repeated postcode, repeated member type, repeated member_type_allowed day and member_type_fine so this should be resolved to convert the tables in 1NF. Since there is no composite primary key there is no partial dependency as such so once the above table is resolved to 1NF it becomes 2NF as well. Since member_type_allowed_day, member_type_fine is dependent on member_type alone which is dependent in member_id it creates transitive dependency. So the table to be in 3NF this anomaly should be removed. Again to overcome these anomalies the tables are separated and the relation between them are established accordingly. The member, address, postcode and member_type tables are separated as below to convert into 3NF. To avoid the repetition of member type in member table the member type is separated in member_type table with member_type_id as primary key and member_type as foreign key in member table which creates one to many relation between these two tables. This also rectifies the transitive dependency existing on the member table formerly and thus resolves the table to 3NF. Member_Type: Fields (member_type_id, member_type_name, member_type_allowed_day, member_type_fine) member_type_id is the primary key. member_type_id member_type_name member_type_allowed_day member_type_fine 1 Student 14 10 2 Lecturer 30 5 The dependency of address in postcode also creates the violation of 2NF through the dependency of non key attribute in another non key attribute other than primary key so this is further resolved by splitting address and postcode table separately. The address table has address_id as primary key which is referred in member table as foreign key which establishes one to many relation between them. At the same moment the postcode table is created with postcode_id as primary key and is referred in address table as foreign key named postcode also creates one to many relation between postcode and address. Thus the 2NF violation in member table is abolished and further more all the resulting table satisfies all the Normal form conditions. Address Table: Fields (address_id, address_description, postcode) address_id is the primary key and postcode is the foreign key referring postcode_id in the postcode table which creates one to many relation between address and postcode table. Address_id address_description postcode 1 121 East Road 1 2 45 Parr Road 2 3 36 Jhon Road 3 4 23 Plashet Road 1 Postcode Table: Fields (postcode_id, postcode_description) postcode_id is the primary key. postcode_id postcode_description 1 E15 3QS 2 NW9 1NF 3 SE1 2NX Member Table (Normalized): Fields (member_id, member_fname, member_lname, member_phone, member_email, member_type, member_address) member_id is the primary key; member_type is the foreign key referring to member_type_id in member table to create one to many relations between these two table. member_address is the foreign key referring to address_id of Address table to establish another one to many relation. As in case of librarian the repeating fields in a table address and which caused the insert, update and delete anomalies so violated 1NF and this is resolved by creating the Librarian table with the foreign key mapped to address table thus maintaining one to many relationship and thus abolishes any Normalization violations and thus results in satisfaction to all the Normal forms. Library Table (without normalization) : Fields ( librarian_id, librarian_fname, librarian_lname, librarian_phone, librarian_email, librarian_address, librarian_postcode) librarian_id is the primary key. Library Table (normalized): Fields (librarian_id, librarian_fname, librarian_lname, librarian_email) librarian_id is the primary key and librarian_address is the foreign key which refers to address_id in the Address table to create one to many relationship. Borrow Table (without normalization) : Fields (borrow_id, member_id, ISBN, issuing_librarian, borrow_date, return_date, expected_return_date, returning_librarian, fine_amount) borrow_id is the primary key. Borrow table before normalization The above table violates the 1NF by repeating the librarian ids at the same once it is resolved all other normal forms conditions are satisfied. The borrow table is divided into one more table as Fine and the librarian is associated to Borrow and Fine table separately through one to many relationships in both cases. This eradicates the violation of normal forms and thus makes the form normalized up to 3NF. Fine table: Fields (fine_id, borrow_id, librarian_id,fine_amount) fine_id is the primary key and borrow_id is the indexed foreign key which is mapped to the borrow_id of the borrow table, so as to create one to one relationship between them. The relation ship is created one to one as one borrow can only have one fine and not more than once. fine_id borrow_id librarian_id fine_amount 1 1 1001 10 2 2 1002 15 Borrow table (Normalized): Fields (borrow_id, member_id, ISBN, librarian_id, borrow_date, return_date, expected_return_date) borrow_id is the primary key. member_id is the foreign key which referrs to the member_id of the member table thus creating one to many relationship in between. Similarly ISBN is the foreign key that refers to the ISBN in the book table thus creating one to many relation between them. Similarly librarian_id is the foreign key that is mapped with librarian_id of the librarian table to create one to many relationship again. Borrow table after normalization 4.4 Physical Design The physical design refers to the creation of the physical tables in the preferred database management system. In database management system there are the specific SQL called Data definition languages (DDL) to create the physical table and establish the relationship between the tables. They are CREATE, ALTER, And DROP. CREATE statement is used to create the physical structure of the table. ALTER statement is used to modify the existing structure of a table as adding and removing columns, constraints etc. DROP statement is used to delete a table. For instance we have to create the tables as per the requirement. Here are the DDL statements to create the tables as illustrated in the ER diagram CREATE TABLE Books ( ISBN INT NOT NULL , book_name VARCHAR( 100 ) NOT NULL , book_status CHAR( 1 ) NOT NULL , book_type INT NOT NULL, book_edition INT NOT NULL , book_publisher INT NOT NULL , PRIMARY KEY ( ISBN ) ); CREATE TABLE Book_Type ( book_type_id INT NOT NULL , book_type_name VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY ( book_type_id ) ); CREATE TABLE Author ( author_id INT NOT NULL, author_fname VARCHAR ( 50) NOT NULL , author_fname VARCHAR ( 50) NOT NULL , author_email VARCHAR ( 100) NOT NULL ); CREATE TABLE Publisher ( publisher_id INT NOT NULL, publisher_name VARCHAR (100) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY ( publisher_id ) ); CREATE TABLE Book_Author ( book_id INT NOT NULL , author_id INT NOT NULL ); CREATE TABLE Member ( member_id INT NOT NULL , member_fname VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL , member_lname VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL, member_phone VARCHAR( 25 ) NOT NULL , member_email VARCHAR( 100 ) NOT NULL , member_email VARCHAR( 100 ) NOT NULL , member_type INT NOT NULL , member_address INT NOT NULL , PRIMARY KEY (member_id ) ); CREATE TABLE Member_Type ( member_type_id INT NOT NULL , member_type_name VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL , member_type_allowed_day INT NOT NULL , member_type_fine INT NOT NULL , PRIMARY KEY (member_type_id) ); CREATE TABLE Address ( address_id INT NOT NULL , address_desc TEXT NOT NULL , postcode INT NOT NULL , PRIMARY KEY (address_id ) ); CREATE TABLE Postcode ( postcode_id INT NOT NULL, postcode_description VARCHAR( 10 ) NOT NULL , PRIMARY KEY (postcode_id ) ); CREATE TABLE Librarian ( librarian_id INT NOT NULL , librarian_fname VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL , librarian_lname VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL , librarian_address INT NOT NULL , librarian_phone VARCHAR( 25 ) , librarian_email VARCHAR( 100 ) , PRIMARY KEY ( `librarian_id` ) ); CREATE TABLE Borrow ( borrow_id INT NOT NULL , member_id INT NOT NULL , ISBN INT NOT NULL , librarian_id INT NOT NULL , borrow_date DATE NOT NULL , return_date DATE , expected_return_date DATE NOT NULL , PRIMARY KEY (borrow_id ) ); CREATE TABLE Fine ( fine_id INT NOT NULL , borrow_id INT NOT NULL , librarian_id INT NOT NULL , fine_amount FLOAT NOT NULL fine_paid CHAR( 1 ) NULL , PRIMARY KEY ( `fine_id` ), INDEX (borrow_id) ); Once the table physical structures are created then the relation among them are established as per the ER diagram and normalization. Below are the DDL statements used to create the foreign keys so as to create the relationship between the tables as illustrated in ER diagram. ALTER TABLE Books ADD FOREIGN KEY (book_type) REFERENCES Book_Type (book_type_id) ; ALTER TABLE Books ADD FOREIGN KEY ( `book_publisher` ) REFERENCES Publisher( publisher_id ) ; ALTER TABLE Book_Author ADD FOREIGN KEY ( ISBN ) REFERENCES books( ISBN ) ; ALTER TABLE Book _ Author ADD FOREIGN KEY ( author_id ) REFERENCES Author( author_id ) ; ALTER TABLE Member ADD FOREIGN KEY ( member_address ) REFERENCES Address( address_id ) ; ALTER TABLE Member ADD FOREIGN KEY ( member_type) REFERENCES Member_Type( member_type_id ) ; ALTER TABLE Librarian ADD FOREIGN KEY ( librarian_address ) REFERENCES Address( address_id ) ; ALTER TABLE Borrow ADD FOREIGN KEY ( member_id ) REFERENCES Member( member_id ) ; ALTER TABLE Borrow ADD FOREIGN KEY ( ISBN ) REFERENCES books(ISBN) ; ALTER TABLE Borrow ADD FOREIGN KEY ( librarian_id) REFERENCES Librarian( librarian_id ); ALTER TABLE fine ADD FOREIGN KEY ( borrow_id) REFERENCES Borrow( borrow_id ); ALTER TABLE fine ADD FOREIGN KEY ( librarian_id ) REFERENCES Librarian( librarian_id ); ALTER TABLE address ADD FOREIGN KEY ( postcode ) REFERENCES Postcode( postcode_id) 5 Data Manipulation language Data manipulation language DML is SQL is the statement which used to insert, update, delete and retrieve the data from the table or multiple tables as per requirement. The INSERT statement is used to insert a record in a table. UPDATE statement is used to modify the value of the attribute in a record and DELETE statement is used to delete a record from the table. 5.1 DML to insert dummy records INSERT INTO Postcode (postcode_id ,postcode_description) VALUES (2, NW9 E5J); INSERT INTO Address (address_id ,address_desc ,po

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Parker Pen Company Essay

Background George Safford Parker founded Parker Pen Company in 1892 in Janesville, Wisconsin. It began with the production of his first fountain pen. Afterwards in 1894, Parker had its first major innovation; â€Å"the lucky curve† which consisted on reducing the leak caused in fountain pens. Parker’s first marketing approach was to produce high quality pens and make them become status symbols; Parker pens were signer’s favorite, giving the company the first or second position globally. The company obtained this successful position due to investigations and development by constantly innovating for the production of new products; for instance with the creation of Quink â€Å"quick drying ink, they produced the Parker 51; which became a bestseller and was catalogued as â€Å"the most perfect pen ever produced†. It gave the company $400 million within 30 years. By the end of 1980 the parker pens were sold in over 150 countries. In 1987 the company’s headquarters was moved to Newhaven, East Sussex, England. Then in 1993 Parker was aquired by Gillette Company, which already owned the PaperMate brand. Then in 2000 Gillette sold the company to Newell Rubbermaid, and became the largest in the world owning writing products with brand names such as, Sharpie, Parker, PaperMate, Waterman and Liquid Paper, among others. People involved George Parker the founder James R. Peterson the president and CEO of Parker Pen: Peterson has to deal with the compay’s problems, for instance instead of having over 40 publishing firms he hired one that could do the job of all. Jack Marks the head of writing instruments advertising Richard Swart the marketing vice president: Before entering Pen Parker, he worked for 3M Carlos Del Nero is Parker’s manager of global marketing planning. Business involved Pen Parker Company Gillette Company Newell Rubbermaid The U.K. subsidiary Ogilvy & Mather: Main problem Parker Pen Company faced some difficult years where they were not obtaining as much revenues as expected. Therefore the company hired a new board of marketing directors seeking the implementation of new strategies for the company. The new board, which consisted of highly qualified people, began their campaign by standardizing the products in a centralized system. This centralized system consists of abolishing plurality in the decision-making. The new system they adopted which was a world wide strategy caused the company more than $20 million in looses. Marketers didn’t investigate therefore gave the company a negative image in the market. Solution Due to the fact that the company was having some issues that was preventing the company to rise up, in 1985 the CEO was fired, moving the company’s new system to a decentralized one. The company is now able to adapt to changes, it is able to adapt to the numerous cultural barriers existing around the world, creating different marketing plans for each nation; with this, Parker regain their image in order to be able to position themselves in the market. Questions 1.The globalization process in the Parker pen company was a failure until major structural changes were implemented by James R. Peterson. Before this  change the company had misdirected its efforts to globalize its operations, many key maneuvers were ignored and this led to a close to bankruptcy status which was never in the company’s plans. Basic rules of globalization for any company state that an extensive research of the potential market has to be done, and very thoroughly. investigating the market conditions in not enough, political, legal, social and cultural aspect have to be at the top of the list to ensure that the strategies will b effective and that consumers will respond positively to the strategies implemented. This was one of the things that Parker pens failed to do, they just relied on a weak currency that allowed foreign markets to purchase American-made products, this would only last until the U.S. dollar lost its acquisitive value. Another reason why their globalization process failed was because they broke another fundamental rule, they didn’t centralize their operation and gave creative and operational autonomy to all of their branches. This caused a great loss of corporate identity and became a big problem at the most critical time since a different solution was to be presented for each one of the subsidiaries. 2.The problem that Parker pen had in its globalization process was spawned form miscalculations or lack of vision in very key areas. The first thing which globalization promoters at the Parker Company underestimated was the strength and impact of the changing market. They never considered that economic and political conditions would vary in such a way that their overseas operations would collapse in such a way. They relied on a very strong dollar which made it easy for foreign costumers to purchase their products, making this their most important income source. By overlooking this important event they drove themselves into an awkward position where they had low sales internally and over autonomous subsidiaries with a large stock and no market share at all. The other factor that they failed to consider seriously before engaging in such a risky entrepreneurship was the fact that they were living in a time when Chinese massive production was starting to flood the markets with cheaper and more convenient products, at a point where people demanded  cheaper product due to a volatile economy and political situation. Their product line depth and width were very impressive with over 400 different product, they had a solid portfolio but nothing to compete directly with the mass produced pens coming from China. They relied on their traditional products and their traditional distribution channels, in which they were losing their entire market share as well. 3.The Parker pen company is one on thousands of examples that can be quoted as being merged with a bigger company; this is an inherent condition of globalization as an economic phenomenon. Like everything else that is involved in globalization, this specific case of being acquired by a bigger company has its upside and its downside. For a company like parker that had a considerably large operation worldwide, the negative things are lesser important than the positive things. The main negative factors that this could have are for example a possible loss of the company ´s know how. By having to accommodate to another company’s rules and methods, Parker could have lost its own knowledge of the business, this is a very valuable commodity in the world today and it’s hard to maintain it when a company has to become an active part of another one. Uniting Parker pens to Gillette and Rubbermaid could also trigger a dangerous situation amongst the employees, changing cities and managers has a very large impact of the moral of the employees since they begin to lose their company identity which is another valuable commodity that companies cannot afford to lose since it is one of the main incentives that the workers have. Identity inside the company is just as important as identity outside it, if a merger like this means that there will be changes implemented in the company ´s image it could trigger a loss of costumers or even a major shift in the place that the company has in terms of â€Å"top of mind†. The benefits that this situation could bring upon a company are several and of great importance. In the case of Parker pens, a company with a very important level of recognition worldwide, joining a larger enterprise would imply broadening its market share globally, by having better, bigger and more distribution channels, allowing them to reach new costumers which is a very difficult thing to do in the world today. A big name behind a brand  means more resources, this in turn means more research for product development, more advertisement, more promotional strategies, better market research with a finer degree of segmentation and every other activity that would help a company to better it ´s self. Another very important thing is the support that Parker pens would have by being part of the Rubbermaid holding, this makes it easier to innovate and take risks, it also transmits a sense of safety to the costumer, they know that being part of the world ´s leader in writing instrument s does not come easy, so trusting Parker pens is something they can and should do.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

On Free Choice of the Will Essay

Questions to be addressed: Would a good God let bad things happen? Why does man choose to do evil? For many people, nothing drives them away from Religion like pushy, preachy people. I don’t feel that I am knowledgeable enough to argue many points when it comes to religion. I’m actually not a huge fan of organized religion myself. Like most things, it has its good and bad points, but overall, anything that brings people to God is great. However, you won’t find a better example of hypocrisy than the church. Throughout history, no cause has driven people to war like religion. On the other hand, if one does not agree with what people have done to the church, does that mean we have to turn away from its very foundation? When one analyzes the core of Religion, they discover that its most basic principles are, in fact, good. God IS good, right? Does God allow bad things to happen? Yes. But why? Because He has to in order to keep His promise of free will. God doesn’t make bad things happen, people do. God doesn’t snap his fingers and *poof*, somewhere in the world another person is murdered. That murderer chose to put himself in that situation. So does God let this happen? In the sense that He allowed the murderer to exercise free will – Yes, He did. Does this mean that we should blame God? No, I don’t think so. There is nothing I am more grateful for than my free will. There would not be much of a life without it. In Saint Augustine’s On Free Choice of the Will, the idea that God allows bad things to happen is presented in a conversation between himself and Evodius. On page 5 line 19 of the text, Augustine states â€Å"Yet it perplexes the mind how God should not be indirectly responsible for these sins, if they come from those very souls that God created and if, moreover, these souls are from God. † The entire concept of blaming God for bad things has always been hard for me to understand, but the book does clarify many points. I intend on presenting those points by defining several terms and applying them to the argument that Saint Augustine uses in order to obtain a sufficient answer to the question. In order to do this, we must assume that God does exist. People often say, â€Å"I know there’s a God, but I want to understand: Is this God good? And if he is good, then why do bad things happen? † By asking this question, one might really be asking â€Å"Does God even exist? † which is completely different. The question of whether or not God exists has nothing to do with people’s suffering, but instead, with creation, revelation, world history, etc. Therefore, for simplicity, we will not venture to answer that question and will assume that God does exist. The question we are addressing is, in essence, requiring us to â€Å"judge God. † In discussing this issue, I have chosen not to address the question of why particular things happen. Take a physicist, for example. He may be able to tell you why a leaf will fall in a certain place- it has to do with the aerodynamics of the leaf, the force of gravity, and the direction of the velocity; however, if you ask him where the leaf will fall, he cannot because it is impossible to quantify the different forces that a make a leaf fall in a particular place. Of course, he can propose several general principles, but calculating exactly where it will land is beyond the realm of his analysis. It’s the same idea here. We won’t be able to say why specific things are happening in a specific situation, but we will be able to speak about general principles that can lead us to understand the workings of a good God who lets bad things happen. The Bible tells us: â€Å"God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him† (Genesis 1:27). What does it mean that man was created in God’s image? It means that human beings are finite and corporal. So how are we created in God’s image? Obviously, the â€Å"image of God† is dealing with the non-physical part of us – the soul. We get our drive for morality and meaning from the soul which is in the â€Å"image of God. † Just as God has independent choice, so too does each human being have independent moral choice. The image of God means that we have the ability to choose. The ability to choose is what makes us special as a race. Life only becomes meaningful because of our ability to choose. Take love for example. The difference in being programmed to love and the choice to love, is exactly what makes love special. Similarly, if I don’t have the choice to do good, but am programmed to do good, then there’s nothing meaningful about it. On the same accord, if I have the ability to do good or evil, then good becomes significant. For a choice to be truly genuine, there must also be consequences. If every time I get in trouble, mom comes to bail me out, that’s not really a choice. Choice means consequences. Our history-personal or global- is based on decisions made by human beings including the consequences that come from that. Now we understand that â€Å"image of God† means that God created beings who have the ability to make decisions, and those decisions will create consequences that will make this being a co-partner in the development of the world. This has many ramifications as far as why God allows bad things to happen. For free choice to operate, it’s obvious that evil has to have the possibility of existing. If every time someone chooses to do evil, God is going to interfere, then there’s no moral choice. If every time the gun is pointed, the turret points backwards, after a few times you get the message. It simply becomes pragmatic not to do evil. If the lives of the righteous were obviously perfect, that too would destroy the possibility of choice. Pragmatically, we’d figure it pays more to be righteous because look at all the good things that come my way! That’s not choice. That’s not becoming God-like. A world where a human being can create himself into a Moses, also carries the possibility of a person creating himself into a Hitler. We have to understand and appreciate that in the Holocaust, it was not God who built the crematoriums, it was the Nazis. It is not God who was massacring Muslims in Bosnia, it was the Serbs. Augustine’s approach to the â€Å"free choice of the will† assumes that â€Å"there can be no denying that we have a will. † Instead, Augustine defines â€Å"good will† as â€Å"a will by which we seek to live a good and upright life and to attain unto perfect wisdom† which, of course, assumes that it is free. Those who choose evil are ruled by their passion and desire for things of this world. This is futile because they only have, as Augustine says, â€Å"the love of things which each one can lose against his will. † One who chooses to do good ultimately gains everything because there is no fear of losing â€Å"things† due to lack of attachment to them. Those who become perfect could lose every material thing and still gain all precisely because they are trying to attain the perfect, which is wisdom. Wisdom cannot be lost as long as someone has good will. This leads us to the question: Why would we choose evil? It is my belief that humans always choose to do good, it’s just a matter of whether one chooses a lesser â€Å"good. † This occurs when one chooses to allow passions and desires to rule the soul, which tend toward things of this world. While Augustine’s friend Evodius can claim â€Å"there is a great difference between† passion-desire and fear, fear is a part of passion. We fear because we hate something, which may or may not equate itself to reason. Therefore someone of good will necessarily seeks to order oneself perfectly with God’s lines of the Gloria: â€Å"Glory to God in the highest, and peace to men of good will† (Luke 2:14). Augustine begins to answer the question why man chooses to do evil by declaring what makes humans distinct from animals. It is the fact that humans have the capability of reasoning and animals do not. He points out that some things that men possess uniquely as opposed to animals, such as the â€Å"power to jest and laugh† and â€Å"the love of praise and glory,† are â€Å"of a lower order. † As a result, when reason rules the soul, â€Å"the more perfect [reason] is made subject to the less perfect [desire and passion]. † In our day, most people do not even realize they should work toward having reason rule their lives. It has been â€Å"in style† for more than one hundred years that humans must have their desires and passions rule their lives. Those who have reason rule their lives are thought to be â€Å"rigid† because reason assumes that someone can find truth, which many now claim is impossible. One can view this outlook first hand. It is manifested by people who think they can determine their own morality and even reality. On the flipside, people tend to think they’re at the mercy of the bad things that happens to them to explain away their need to eliminate their faults. If we have a free will, then we also have the duty to make decisions based on a well-formed conscience and what is good and evil. What determines whether a particular action is good does not depend on one’s own judgment on whether â€Å"it feels good† or â€Å"does not hurt anyone. † Instead, we have a duty to determine good and evil based on truth and to have it rule one’s life, with passion and desire subject to it. When people are ruled by feelings, it necessarily diminishes the dignity of a person. When a soul is not well-ordered, the ability to use one’s will freely is diminished, but not completely destroyed. Rather, we have the duty to work to order our souls correctly, no matter how low we’ve gotten. An interesting fact about Augustine exemplifies man’s imperfections and low points. According to an online encyclopedia reference site (Wikipedia. com), Augustine had a mistress for several years before turning from evil to do good. Not much more was written about this incident, but it did mention that Augustine attributed his rise from a life of sin to a great doctor of the Church by means of God’s grace. He believed that through God’s grace, we can choose to become men of good will and live good lives. For me, a â€Å"good life† means that I make a comfortable living as a doctor, I and my family enjoy good health, and then I die peacefully at age 80. That’s a good life. Anything else is â€Å"bad. † In a limited sense, that’s true. But if we have a soul and there is such a thing as eternity, then that changes the picture entirely. Eighty years in the face of eternity is not such a big deal. Relating this to a major historical event, after being responsible for the torture and deaths of millions of people, could Hitler could really â€Å"end it all† by just swallowing some poison? No. Ultimate justice is found in another dimension. I will stop myself there since the concept of â€Å"another dimension† is a whole other argument. That it is very difficult for us to â€Å"judge† God because we are stuck in time and space. And because our view is so limited, when â€Å"bad† things happen, there are so many possibilities of why it’s happening that we are incapable of considering them all: Is this a challenge in life that was given to me so I could become an example to inspire others? Or is this to get me to fix a wrong I’ve done? Or is this due to historical/national forces that are affecting me as an individual? Or is what’s happening to me now through a choice that I’ve made? Or that I’m on my own because I’ve distanced myself? † The fact that there are so many possibilities makes it easier to come to terms with the question and to be more comfortable realizing that if I had God’s infinite view I would understand. Until that day comes, these theories of mine will have to do. On Free Choice of the Will by Saint Augustine An essay providing insight as to why a good God lets bad things happen as well as why men choose to do evil. Roya Mohebpour.