The Importance of Hospitality in the Odyssey - 523 Words

In The Odyssey, Homer uses fear of the gods to portray the idea of Xenia, which means hospitality to all, to live a normal and happy life. On multiple occasions people ignore this idea and in result get a streak of bad luck. For example, the suitors that stay in Odysseus house are terrible guests. They get brutally murdered by Odysseus. Polyphemus eats several of Odysseus crew mates. Polyphemus gets blinded by Odysseus. Aegisthus does certain unstated acts with Agamemnons wife, then kills Agamemnon. Agamemnons son, Orestes, kills Aegisthus. Xenia is very important to the day-to-day life of the characters in The Odyssey. The main failure to be a hospitable guest in The Odyssey is that the suitors who believe Odysseus is dead and are waiting to marry his wife, Penelope. The suitors simply cannot stop being terrible guests, spending Os money and â€Å"feasting themselves sick, swilling our glowing wine† (2.61). The suitors are terrible guests, and have no care whatsoever as to th e fact that they are being extremely rude to the gods by being bad guests, and being rude to Odysseus, destroying his house and spending his money. Since the suitors are being such terrible guests, there has to be a consequence. Once Odysseus returns from his travels and becomes re-acquainted with his son Telemachus, they decide that it is time to put an end to the reign of the suitors. Odysseus is shooting arrows through the holes of axes when he â€Å"aimed and shot Antinuous square in the throat†Show MoreRelatedThe Importance of Hospitality Illustrated in Homers Odyssey Essay1708 Words   |  7 Pagesportrayed in The Odyssey, by Homer, where hospitality and good will are the way of things. As decreed by Zeus himself, those who wish the favor of the Gods must welcome foreign and domestic with hospitality. A man was supposed to offer the best of his food, his home, and his knowledge before ever asking for his guest’s name or why he was there. There is a sense that th ose of high status are the main givers of hospitality, but they are not the only ones commanded to offer hospitality. Homer emphasizesRead MoreThe Odyssey1243 Words   |  5 PagesThe Odyssey In Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, each culture treats strangers and guests with distinct differences from every other culture. One of the most hospitable cultures was that of the ancient Greeks, exemplified in Homer s The Odyssey by both gracious hosts and guests. In Greece and The Odyssey, not only was good hospitality etiquette expected, but the added pressure that if they didn’t treat their guests with respect the gods would punish them further compelled excellent manners. The OdysseyRead MoreThe Significance of Xenia in Homer‚Äà ´s The Odyssey1261 Words   |  6 PagesMay 2010 The Significance of Xenia in Homer’s Odyssey The society of Ancient Greece was very much centered around the gods, and a healthy fear of the consequences of not obeying their laws. The next most important staples of the society were the concepts of braver, pride, and hospitality, or Xenia. The significance of these values is shown quite clearly in The Odyssey of Homer. In the first five books of the epic, Telemachos is shown great hospitality by the kings, Nestor, and Menelaos. As HomerRead MoreThe Odyssey Essay1116 Words   |  5 PagesHomer, the author of The Odyssey, portrays many Greek values that make up a righteous man or as, Homer’s character Odysseus, an epic hero. The Odyssey is the story of King Odysseus return from the Trojan War to his kingdom of Ithaca. Stories, like The Odyssey, are told with the intent of delivering a message that was important to their culture. Through characters and situations, The Odyssey promotes and emphasizes many important ancient Greek values such as hospitality, pride, and fate. StressedRead MoreDuality Of Hospitality In Genesis And The Odyssey1441 Words   |  6 PagesThe Duality of Hospitality: In Genesis and the Odyssey In two of the texts considered this Fall—Genesis and the Odyssey, there are many incentives to show hospitality. Hospitality, when extended with the best intentions, speaks to the values of the ancient world as well as of the character of who extend it—usually these gestures are rewarded kindly by the master or divine being of the respective culture, but sometimes they are not. Arguably, hosts in Genesis understand hospitality as an opportunityRead MoreHomer’s Epic The Odyssey Essay645 Words   |  3 PagesA hero isn’t shaped by his strengths but by the values he possesses. Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, reveals the moral and ethical constitution of the ancient Greeks. Over time, certain cultures have grown to value a number of human characteristics. Those who acquire such values become respected heroes. After the fall of Troy, the protagonist of the epic, Odysseus, set sail for his home, Ithaca, where his faithful wife and son were waiting for him. Ov er the course of his journey, Odysseus faced some ofRead MoreEssay Homers Hospitality1386 Words   |  6 Pagesform, in both cultural and religious aspects. Historians often refer to this period as Mycenaean, but due to the culture and values embodied in Homer’s poem, The Odyssey, it is also known as the Homeric Age. In Homer’s world, society consisted of city-states controlled by well-respected Kings. The Homeric Age also focused on the importance of religion where all regions participated in sacrificial tributes to the Gods. Unlike today’s modern society, methods of travel were very limited in the 1600sRead MoreAn Epic Poem The Odyssey 1611 Words   |  7 PagesThe Odyssey, an epic poem written by Greek poet Homer, follows the story of Odysseus, a war hero and king of Ithaca, as he went on a journey to return home from Troy ten years after the Trojan War. On his journey, he was confronted by various monsters, including the one-eyed Cyclops, and faced the loss of his men and his ship. Not to mention, when he returned to his land, he also had to defeat the suitors who had overrun his home and were trying to court his wife, Penelope. Homer not only tells usRead MoreHospitality Is A Recurring Theme Throughout The Odyssey1394 Words   |  6 PagesThe Lack of Hospitality In Polyphemos In The Ancient Greek Culture Hospitality is a recurring theme throughout the Odyssey. Whether it is how Penelope and the people at Ithaca treat their guests, or how Oddyseus and his companions are welcomed in many of the lands they arrive to, hospitality is revealed as a significant feature and value in the Ancient Greek society. In The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus, the main character, has different types of encounters throughout his long years of adventure. InRead MoreEssay about Gift-Giving in Beowulf and the Odyssey1707 Words   |  7 PagesGift-Giving in Beowulf and the Odyssey Literature has always been an immensely helpful resource when discerning cultural values in societies past and present. Through the study of noteworthy historic fictional and factual, texts we are able to distinguish parallel characteristics present through many different cultures and time periods. These distinguishing characteristics are one of the main things that help us to determine when and how a society, or world culture as a whole changes as time

Essay on William E.B. Dubois - 1164 Words

William E.B. Dubois William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born in 1868, two years after slavery was abolished, in Great Barrington, MA. Born a free man in the North, during the dawn of the twentieth century, W.E.B. DuBois was able to receive an extensive education. Throughout his life he grew more and more cognizant of the politics, education, religion, and economics that shaped the American system and separated the peoples that lived there. Although he was granted the fortune of education and freedom, he was forever torn between his dark coloring which distinguished him from others. Furthermore, he was disillusioned by his unfulfillment of American ideals. Establishing an identity for DuBois was extremely complex, and in his classic†¦show more content†¦I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads.*214 The veil not only created a color line, but it also granted African Americans a unique insight on life, an insight that understood spirituality in a different sense than that found in Western culture. DuBois managed to establish a medium between his veiled and unveiled worlds, for although he struggled in pursuit of fulfilled manhood, he was able to achieve a successful life. Education further defined DuBois. In his essay The Freedom to Learn, he emphasized the importance of knowledge and asserted that of all the civil rights for which the world has struggled...the right to learn is undoubtedly the most fundamental. He attended Fisk University, with the help of fellow church members, and then went on to Harvard and became the universities first black recipient of a Ph.D. Previously he had studied at the University of Berlin for two years and focused on economics, history, and political science. Education was what created DuBois, a man of great consciousness and hope for the achievement of the African American. Over the span of his lifetime, he worked devotedly in the effort to advance hisShow MoreRelatedThe Souls Of Black Folk By William E. B. Dubois1066 Words   |  5 Pagesâ€Å"The Souls of Black Folk† was written in 1903 by William E. B. Dubois (4). Dubois was an activist for civil rights and an author of many pieces regarding the lifestyle, s truggle and historic patterns of African Americans (4). Though Dubois was born after the abolition of slavery, he knew the prospects of the African American struggle were most likely formed due to the conditions of black lives during slavery. Dubois was also an educator and advocate for educational opportunities in black communitiesRead MoreCash Crops1538 Words   |  7 Pagesmetaphor for casting out your life in a friendly caring way and seeing what comes back to you. 4. Explain how each of these leaders responded to the question of race relations. (9 points) Ida B. Wells: ï‚ § In 1906, Ida B. Wells joined with William E.B. DuBois and others to further the Niagara Movement, and she was one of two African American women to sign the call to form the NAACP in 1909. Although Ida B. Wells was one of the founding members of the National Association for the Advancement ofRead MoreReconstruction : The Burning Years10732 Words   |  43 Pageslike the new birth of freedom that black activists like Frederick Douglass and William Cooper Nell, and white activists like Angelina Grimke and William Lloyd Garrison, had sought for so many years. But history never proceeds in a straight line. The first challenge to a new, more racially inclusive America came one week after Appomattox: Confederate sympathizers assassinated Lincoln and wounded Secretary of State William Henry Seward. Andrew Johnson, a man grievously unprepared for the job of President

Purpose of Cost Accounting free essay sample

CH01_Bragg_36794 3/13/01 9:40 M Page 9 PART I Purpose of Cost Accounting 9 CH01_Bragg_36794 3/13/01 9:40 M Page 10 CH01_Bragg_36794 3/13/01 9:40 M Page 11 CHAPTER 1 Role of Cost Accounting When properly implemented, the cost accounting function can have a pervasive influence in the modern corporation. Unfortunately, it is not always properly implemented because management often is not completely aware of all the uses to which the cost accounting function can be put. This chapter describes the main categories of activities in which this function can become involved, and can be used as a guide by the controller in creating a well-rounded niche for the cost accountant. EXTERNAL REPORTING The key task for the cost accountant is contributing information to a company’s external financial reports. In many cases where the main accounting function is perceived to be financial reporting (such as in a publicly held company), the other tasks of the cost accountant may very well e subordinated to providing various types of information for these external reports. A key piece of information provided by the cost accountant is inventory valuation, which in turn impacts the cost of goods sold. Several tasks are involved here, such as deciding on the type of cost layering technique (Chapter 13), ensuring that inventory quantities and costs are accurate, and compiling the resulting data into the formats required for external reporting. Other related work may also be needed, such as compiling profitability levels for various product lines, or profit levels by division. The cost accountant may also become involved in the compilation or updating of a few footnotes to the financial statements, though most of these are handled by the financial accounting staff. 11 CH01_Bragg_36794 3/13/01 9:40 M Page 12 ROLE OF COST ACCOUNTING INTERNAL REPORTING The advantage of having cost accountants create reports strictly for internal consumption is that they are not restricted to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) when preparing these reports. GAAP requires the use of full-absorption costing in the creation of external reports, which may not be necessary or may even be counterproductive for internal reporting purposes. Accordingly, the cost accountant is free to use any costing paradigm that will result in the most informative reports for the management team—job costing, process costing, direct cost costing, activity-based costing, direct costing, throughput costing, and so on (chapters 9 through 18). For example, direct costing can be used for an internal report that focuses specifically on activities in the extreme short term, where there is no impact associated with overhead costs. Alternatively, a report can be based on throughput costs if the issue is how to push the correct product mix through a bottleneck operation in order to derive the highest possible profit. Further, full-absorption costing can be used for reports that focus on long-term decisions. The accounting method can therefore be precisely tailored to the use to which the report will be put. The format and content of internal reports can also vary substantially from the format used for external reporting. External report formats are precisely defined by GAAP: Revenues and costs are categorized in a specific manner and only a certain number of reports are allowed. None of these rules apply to internal reporting. Some examples of different reporting structures include: †¢ Corporate-level reports. These reports may include only trend lines of information about a few critical success factors that senior managers are most interested in influencing, bottom-line profits and return on assets for each production facility or store, and perhaps forecasts at the product line level. The exact format used varies not only by company but also over time within each company, as different reporting items become less or more important to the senior management team. There is certainly no reason to include deeply detailed reports in the reporting package that goes to senior managers—they do not have the time to wade through such a morass of information. Business unit-level reports. These reports must include a much larger quantity of information, for the recipient (the plant manager) needs to know about the operation of each department, as well as a host of operational issues such as the cost of quality, inventory turnover, machine utilization, profitability, and cash flow projections. This tends to be the most voluminous of all reporting packages, as well as the one that includes the greatest mix of financial and operational information. Function-level reports. These reports can be issued to individual departments or at lower levels, for example, to the supervisors of individual machines. Such reports are custom-designed for each recipient, with some requiring more financial data (e. g. , for the sales manager who wants to know about customer bad 12 †¢ †¢ CH01_Bragg_36794 3/13/01 9:40 M Page 13 SCOREKEEPING debts or orders booked) and others including almost entirely operational information (e. . , for the warehouse manager who is interested in inventory turnover, kiting percentages, and receiving accuracy). †¢ Project-specific reports. A project report is slanted more toward just those costs being incurred for a specific purpose and so tends to be heavy on direct costs and light on most other allocations. This report usually compares incurred costs against budgeted costs expected to have been incurred at various stages of the project. If a project is already bringing in revenues, the reporting structure can be converted to a profit center format. This format tends to have few operational statistics besides percentages of completion and lists of to-do items that must be finished in order to ensure conclusion of the project. Decision-specific reports. Many times the cost accountant is called on to report on a specific issue that occurs only once, after which the report is discarded. For example, a report may be needed that describes the particular quality costs associated with the selection of three prospective production processes the management team is considering installing. Once the decision is made and the installation completed, there is no longer a need for the report. Another example is a review of waste in a production process—the report may cover such information as times elapsed when moving products between manufacturing stations, setup times, cycle times, and the amount of space occupied by idle work in process; this report is concerned less with financial issues than with process efficiency, but it is still the cost accountant’s job to complete it. Clearly, these reports can cover virtually any topic and can include any type of information— financial, operational, or a mix. An enormous range of topics can be covered by internal reports. Because they lack the amount of structure imposed on external reports, they are much more interesting to prepare, giving the cost accountant free rein to express creativity in designing the perfect format that will result in easy readability and effective management decision making. SCOREKEE PING The last two sections have focused on the role of cost accounting in the preparation of formal reports. However, in terms of volume, the cost accountant probably issues more scorekeeping report cards than reports. These are simple reports, usually presenting a trend line of performance for a single key measurement that is posted frequently—perhaps daily. For example, the accounting staff may be called on to create a graph of machine utilization for each machine and post it on the appropriate machine every day. This is a highly standardized repetitive format that is easy to prepare and is targeted at a specific performance criterion. One can count on creating and distributing hundreds of these reports over the course of a full career in accounting. 13 CH01_Bragg_36794 3/13/01 9:40 M Page 14 ROLE OF COST ACCOUNTING BUDGETING Several of the subsidiary-level budgets that roll up into the main corporate budget involve information to which the cost accountant can contribute a great deal (Chapter 36). For example, the production budget includes estimated direct costs for each product the company expects to manufacture in the upcoming year, as well as estimated overhead allocations per unit based on expected production volumes. Cost accountants are in the best position to supply this information since they have access to all the needed information—bills of material, routings, throughput capacity constraints, nd sales estimates by unit. Similarly, the direct labor budget requires input about expected labor costs, which requires information from the cost accountant regarding expected labor utilization rates and overtime estimates. If there is no human resources department to provide information about labor and benefit costs, the cost accountant is expected to supply this information too. It may also be necessary to assist in compiling estimated costs for various departments that do not have an internal staff skilled in such work and help them determine cost estimates for the upcoming budget period. Finally, the cost accountant is frequently called on to estimate facilitywide budgeted costs, including those in such categories as repairs and maintenance, insurance, and utilities. Given the wide-ranging nature of these costs, it is evident that the cost accountant can expect to allocate a great deal of time to the budgeting activity at the times of the year that it is performed. COST REDUCTION ANALYSIS Cost accountants should be true to their job title and create in-depth examinations of the costs of many functions throughout a company. This is a wide-ranging activity, for it can involve cost studies virtually anywhere—in engineering, production, sales, and so on. No matter what the topic may be, the process followed is quite standardized—obtain a detailed list of all costs incurred, track down the origins of each one, insert this information into a process flow for the functional area where the costs are incurred, and see which costs can be reduced or entirely eliminated by omitting the associated process steps. This task is essentially a determination of what process steps create value for a company, and which ones can be eliminated. PRICING The responsibility for setting product prices should be part of the sales and marketing function, which has the best knowledge of current pricing in the marketplace. This group needs to know the cost of each product sold so that it does not set 14 CH01_Bragg_36794 3/13/01 9:40 M Page 15 SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE prices that are below a product’s cost, thereby creating loss on every unit sold. The cost accountant is in charge of compiling these costs and presenting them to the sales and marketing staff. This task is of particular importance when customers come to the company with offers to accept large volumes of product only if the sales price is substantially lowered. In these instances the cost accountant must determine the direct cost of the product in question, as well as the added cost of overhead directly associated with the production run that creates the customer’s product. It may also be useful to determine the overall impact on company profits via a throughput accounting analysis (Chapter 14). A separate analysis must usually be made for each customer pricing request; since larger companies may face these issues on a regular basis, they may employ teams of cost accountants who deal with only this type of work. Another important pricing-related task is determining the profitability of individual customers, products, product lines, and facilities. Each of these calculations must incorporate only the costs relevant to the particular analysis. For example, a review of profits by customer may include only direct costs (Chapter 11) if the analysis is meant to cover a short period of time, but should use activity-based costing (Chapter 16) if the company’s long-term impact on profits is the objective of the analysis. For short-term analysis profit impact using throughput accounting (Chapter 14) should be included. Given the wide range of costing methods available, these analyses can take a great deal of time and require extensive explanations for the management team so that they fully understand the consequences of any actions taken based on this information. Typical actions are the dropping of low-profit customers, products, and facilities in favor of focusing attention on those that are the most profitable. SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE The cost accountant has a great deal of influence over the types of data collection and summarization systems used by a company, as well as over systems that one would not normally associate with the cost accounting function, as will be described in this section. A main concern of the cost accountant is collecting a large enough quantity of data to create a sufficiently large pool of information that can be used for various types of costing analysis. However, there is a cost associated with the collection of data, so higher costs are incurred in collecting more data. Consequently, the cost accountant must spend some time exploring new types of data collection automation (Chapter 4) to keep these costs low, while still providing sufficient quantities of data. For example, replacing manual time cards for direct labor personnel with automated bar code scanning equipment eliminates a significant amount of the labor costs associated with collecting and processing direct labor-related data. When an activity-based costing system is used, the cost accountant is probably its primary maintainer. He or she carefully investigates the nature of all costs feeding 15 CH01_Bragg_36794 3/13/01 9:40 M Page 16 ROLE OF COST ACCOUNTING into the system, determines which costs will be collected into which cost pools, selects cost drivers for each pool, and verifies that there is indeed a causal relationship between the drivers and the pools (Chapter 16). These relationships change over time, so the cost accountant is required to investigate and make changes as necessary. It is also common to become involved in the assignment of costs to various entities, such as departments or product lines, and to constantly re-review this information and reassign the costs as needed. This is a particularly common activity in organizations where managerial compensation is based on localized profits, since managers are constantly attempting to shift cost allocations away from their areas of responsibility, thereby producing instant improvements in the profits attributed to them. Rather than allocating costs, as just noted, the cost accountant may be asked to take the reverse approach, that is, to determine hy costs have been incurred and allocated in a certain manner by tracing them back through the accounting system, perhaps all the way back to their originating source documents. This information can then be used for a simple report to management regarding the causes of costs, or it can be used as the foundation for a project to alter the system to allocate costs in a different manner. COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS A cost-benefit analysis is used when management wants to know if it makes sense to acquire or dispose of a piece of equipment, as well as to determine all of its associated costs. This is not a simple analysis, requiring the accumulation of all related cash flows and their reduction to a net present value with the use of a discount factor (Chapter 24). It may be necessary not only to delve into the inner workings of such prospective projects but even to be attached to them until they are completed, in order to ensure that all cost additions are within the original approved funding levels. This activity represents an entire subcategory of cost accounting called project accounting. INTERNAL CONSULTING It is also common to be assigned to any number of cost-related projects as an internal consultant. For example, a department manager may want to know what will happen to costs if certain functions are outsourced to a supplier. Alternatively, the warehouse staff may want assistance in determining the amount by which working capital requirements will be reduced if a new project to shrink inventory levels is implemented. In addition, it may be necessary to conduct a benchmarking study (Chapter 33) to find better ways to complete a task, either by searching within other divisions of the company or (more commonly) looking outside the company for better â€Å"best practices† (Chapter 35). These activities may stop with a presentation of the suggested improvements to management but can continue through monitor16 CH01_Bragg_36794 3/13/01 9:40 M Page 17 FUTURE ROLE OF COST ACCOUNTING ing of the implementation of these best practices—a common activity for the cost accountant. Thus, the cost accountant may be asked to review a wide variety of function-specific activities on a project basis. GOVERNMENT BILLINGS An extremely specialized area is government billings. Though many government purchases are now made through standardized pricing schedules, such as those issued by the General Services Administration or through a government-wide agency contract (GWAC), a significant volume of purchases still involve the use of costplus contracts. Cost-plus purchases are made in situations where the government wants to acquire something so unique (such as innovative new defense equipment) that it has never before been produced. Companies do not want to quote a fixed price for such items since they have no idea if they can actually manufacture them and still turn a profit. Accordingly, the government is compelled to offer a cost-plus contract under which a company is reimbursed for all costs related to the work being done for the government, plus a percentage allowance for profit. This is a key role for the cost accountant, whose job it is to learn the byzantine costing rules of the government and then create a cost accumulation system that records the costs for which the government requires records. In addition, one must determine the allowable allocation of overhead costs that can be applied to project costs and billed to the government. The rules for these procedures are mind-numbing. The allowable costs that can be billed to the government are drawn from different functional areas of a company, which requires the cost accountant to have considerable knowledge of the research, product design, production, and administrative functions and how each of these areas tracks its costs. Government contracting officers are assigned to review the billings issued by a company and may protest and refuse to pay for certain line items if they feel that the billing is not supported by government cost reimbursement rules. In these instances it is the cost accountant’s job to research the rules and present a case to the contracting officer that argues in favor of reimbursement. These cases can go to court for final resolution, and the cost accountant is then required to assist in preparing legal justification for the company’s case and may even be called on to testify. Government billings require cost accounting skills of the highest caliber. A topnotch costing professional in this area has a direct impact on company profits and is considered an important part of the management team in companies that engage in this sort of work. FUTURE ROLE OF COST ACCOUNTING The future role of cost accounting will certainly include a greater emphasis on corporate strategy. The cost accountant can contribute several types of costing information 17 CH01_Bragg_36794 3/13/01 9:40 M Page 18 ROLE OF COST ACCOUNTING o the planning process (Chapter 32) that are of assistance in making strategy alterations that will result in enhanced levels of profitability or at least in the avoidance of low-profit strategy alternatives. A large part of this information comes from a database of costs that encompass a much wider range of potential production volumes than those currently used by the company. This information is derived from interaction with the purchasing department, vendo rs, and industrial engineers, all of whom can contribute information about changes in costs at various volume levels. With this information, strategy planners can determine what will happen to internal costs if the company pursues various strategies that either increase or decrease sales (and therefore production) volumes for various product lines. Another contribution to corporate strategy is the use of throughput accounting (Chapter 14). This method allows the corporate planning staff to determine which equipment is currently causing the primary production bottleneck. It can use this information to shift the bottleneck to a different point in the production process if it will result in changes in the mix or in the volume of products manufactured that will cause a significant alteration in profits. One can also use this information to create a plan for producing a specific set of products that will make the most effective use of the existing bottleneck right through the planning period; this allows a company to redirect all its sales and marketing, production, and materials management activities around the sale and manufacture of only these products, thereby maximizing profit levels. SUMMARY Despite the large number of categories of work discussed in this chapter, it does not begin to reflect the full range of tasks that the cost accountant may be involved in during her career. The cost accountant can reliably expect to be assigned tasks in every nook and cranny of a corporation, which is what makes the job such an interesting one, far more so than that of a financial accountant, whose job is much more closely defined by external accounting reporting rules. The only common denominator among the various cost accounting tasks is that they focus on providing information for management decision making. Typically, the task is to conduct a short analysis of a specialized topic, draw conclusions, and make recommendations that will be acted on by management to make improvements. The responsibility here is great, for the cost accountant’s recommendations ultimately have a direct impact on company operations and overall profitability. 18

Technology and Text Speak Essay Example

Technology and Text Speak Essay Technology has changed our lives in the past twenty years. In the past, if we wanted to have a conversation with someone it was needed to find the person and go to the place they were to talk to them. However, today all it is need a cellphone, and you can talk with three or four even five people at the same time. Nowadays there are many ways to communicate to someone, and one of the most important ways is thru text messaging. This affects almost all of us, especially young adolescents. There is no doubt that text messaging is the best way to reach a person and communicate with them without the necessity of speak or call multiple times until the person answers the phone. In many ways, it is easy to type a message to express yourself to someone then call and explain in your word, simply by the fact that in text many people use abbreviation to describe their necessities in a short and objective way to someone. Many parents and teachers are concern about the way student text because of a bbreviations and short ways they use. In the article wrote by Michaela Cullington, â€Å"Texting and Writing† it is very clear how the author explains the concerns of parents and teachers over the â€Å"text speak† issue and how it effects the formal writing of adolescents and college students. The author used this article in a very effective way to reach the parents and teachers of those young adolescents by describing and showing the research made by the author himself to prove how â€Å"text speak† has no effect on students formal writing. This topic is very controversial; the reason is that many people believe abbreviation in text reduces the capability of the student to write in the formal language and the other hand many types of research and teachers disagree with that theory stating that text messaging improves students’ writing. There are numerous statements of different writers supporting the idea of the good side of text language. A book wrote by We will write a custom essay sample on Technology and Text Speak specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Technology and Text Speak specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Technology and Text Speak specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer

Radiation Effects of Hiroshima an Example of the Topic All Posts by

Radiation Effects of Hiroshima Radiation disease is something like a devil who sticks around with unshakable determination all your life (Selden The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki) On August 6, 1945 one of the most terrible atrocities in modern history took place in the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Atom bomb was completely on target and exploded in Hiroshima, with a force equivalent to twenty thousand tons of TNT, eighteen hundred feet in the air near the center of a flat city built mainly of wood. It created an area of total destruction (including residential, commercial, industrial, and military structures) extending three thousand meters (about two miles) in all directions; and destroyed sixty thousand of ninety thousand buildings within five thousand meters (over three miles), an area roughly encompassing the city limits. Flash burns from the beat generated by the release of an enormous amount of radiant energy occurred at distances of more than four thousand meters (two and a half miles), depending upon the type and amount of clothing worn and the shielding afforded by immediate surroundings. Injuries from the blast, and from splintered glass and falling de bris, occurred throughout the city and beyond. Need essay sample on "Radiation Effects of Hiroshima" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed Undergraduates Often Tell EssayLab support: I'm not in the mood to write my essay. Because I don't have the time Essay writer professionals advise: Contact Us To Get Your Essay Writing Services Professional Writing Services Essay Writer Service Best Essay Writing Service The number of deaths, immediately and over a period of time, will probably never be fully known. Variously estimated from 63,000 to 240,000 or more, the official figure is usually given as 78,000, but the city of Hiroshima estimates 200,000 - the total encompassing between 25 and 50 per cent of the citys then daytime population (also a disputed figure, varying from 227,000 to over 400,000). Publicly accepted estimates of the population at the time of the bombing are 280,000 to 290,000 civilians and 40,000 military personnel. That morning many workers from neighboring towns and villages were assembled in Hiroshima in order to clear debris from buildings that had been destroyed to create fire lanes in the city. People who gathered for physical labor at demolition sites included young teenagers. Schooling had been interrupted by the war, and students were mobilized daily to make fire lanes or to work at factories. Elementary school students who were third graders and above had been evacuated to the countryside in order to avoid possible air raids. Some children were sent in a group to safer areas, and others went to stay with relatives in the countryside. Younger children remained in the city with their parents. Victims of the bombing included all sorts of people: parents, small children, older children, elderly people, and laborers from other areas, as well as military personnel. In 1976, the city of Hiroshima reported to the United Nations that the number of the victims who had died from radiation effects by the end of December 1945 was between 130,000 and 150,000 (Yoneyama, 1999). The enormous disparity is related to the extreme confusion which then existed, to differing methods of calcul ation, and to underlying emotional influences, quite apart from mathematical considerations, which have at times affected the estimators. An accurate estimate may never be possible, but what can be said is that all of Hiroshima immediately became involved in the atomic disaster Two thousand meters (1.2 miles) is generally considered to be a crucial radius for susceptibility to radiation effects, and for high mortality in general--from blast, beat, or radiation--though many were killed outside of this radius. Within it, at points close to the hypocenter, heat was so extreme that metal and stone melted, and human beings were literally incinerated. The area was enveloped by fires fanned by a violent "firewind"; these broke out almost immediately within a radius of more than three thousand meters (up to two miles). The inundation with death of the area closest to the hypocenter was such that if a man survived within a thousand meters (.6 miles) and was out of doors (that is, without benefit of shielding from heat or radiation), more than nine tenths of the people around him were fatalities; if he was unshielded at two thousand meters, more than eight of ten people around him were killed. Mortality indoors was lower, but even then to have a 50-per-cent chance of escaping both death or injury, one had to be about twenty two hundred meters (1.3 miles) from the hypocenter. Within half an hour after the explosion, it started raining. This was not a normal rain but a black rain containing radioactive dust and ashes. The black rain devastated the city further by spreading radiation far beyond the areas the explosion itself had damaged. It is said that the rain reached over 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) from ground zero (Yoneyama, 1999). Radiation released by the bombing caused fatal injuries to many people in the city. Both the soil and all objects in the area became radioactive and many people who did not perish immediately died soon afterward from residual radiation. Not only people who were in the city at the time of the bombing but also those who entered it to search for their loved ones were fatally exposed to this residual radiation. There were, however, people who survived the massive fire, the black rain, and the residual radiation. These people were seriously harmed both physically and psychologically. The immense release of nuclear radiation includes gamma rays and neutrons, which do the most damage to living tissues. Much of the radiation is released in the first minute. There are longer-term energy releases as well, including fallout, which can carry radioactive particles far and wide, as scientists were to see most clearly later in the Marshall Islands tests. Studies that were conducted among Hiroshima survivors report some findings on immediate and continuous consequences of exposure to radiation. For instance, Yamazaki and Fleming (1995) interviewed women, who have been scarcely half a mile from the hypocenter of the explosion. Some of them had been thrown through the air by the blast and left unconscious. Yamazaki and Fleming (1995) indicate that all of them had suffered radiation illness in some form - lassitude, bloody diarrhea, loss of hair, skin hemorrhaging, ulcerations of the mouth, sores on the face, symptoms that continued for the duration of their pregnancies for some, longer for others. Selden and Selden (1989) affirm that more people died from the burns and radiation effects than from external injuries. They indicate that those who were in the open and directly exposed to the burst incurred burns over the entire body and died on the spot. Selden and Selden writes: An incoherent shock like state, with marked prostration, some times preceded the other symptoms, which progressed to early and severe symptoms of radiation effects and death (1989:71). Apart from biological consequences, bombing and radiation had a significant impact on survivors mental health. Studies indicate that many persons and patients appeared disoriented for several hours, unable to recall where they were at the time of the bombing (). It is impossible to tell whether this was an emotional response to the terrible events they had witnessed or some brain injury. At the time specialists were unaware that the brain could be damaged by radiation. These manifestations of toxic radiation effects aroused in the minds of the people of Hiroshima a special terror, an image of a weapon which not only instantly kills and destroys on a colossal scale but also leaves behind in the bodies of those exposed to it deadly influences which may emerge at any time and strike down their victims. According to Hein and Selden (1997), this image was made particularly vivid by the delayed appearance of these symptoms and fatalities - two to four weeks later - in people who bad previo usly seemed to be in perfect health and externally untouched. The scientific findings do not contradict some personal material included in books and poems written in the post-bomb period in Japan. Many who suffered the devastation of the bombs remain convinced that residual radiation, both in the area of the hypocenter and in more distant areas affected only by fallout, had serious biological consequences for the survivors. References James N. Yamazaki, Louis B. Fleming (1995). Children of the Atomic Bomb: An American Physicians Memoir of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and the Marshall Islands, Duke University Press Mark Selden, Kyoko Selden (1989). The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, M. E. Sharpe Laura Hein, Mark Selden (1997). Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age, M.E. Sharpe Selden K. Selden L. (1989). The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, M.E. Sharpe Yoneyama L. (1999). Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory, University of California Press

Christmas Truce of 1914 in World War I

Christmas Truce of 1914 in World War I The 1914 Christmas Truce occurred December 24 to 25 (in some places December 24 through January 1), 1914, during the first year of World War I (1914 to 1918). After five months of bloody fighting on the Western Front, peace descended over the trenches during the Christmas season of 1914. Though not endorsed by the high command, a series of informal truces occurred that saw troops on both sides celebrate together and enjoy singing and sporting events.   Background With the beginning of World War I in August 1914, Germany commenced the Schlieffen Plan. Updated in 1906, this plan called for German forces to move through Belgium with the intention of encircling French troops along the Franco-German border and winning a fast and decisive victory. With France knocked out of the war, men could be shifted east for a campaign against Russia. Put into motion, the first stages of the plan achieved success during the Battle of the Frontiers and the German cause was further enhanced by a stunning triumph over the Russians at Tannenberg in late-August. In Belgium, the Germans drove back the small Belgian Army and beat the French at the Battle of Charleroi as well as the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at Mons. A Bloody Autumn Falling back to the south, the BEF and French finally were able to halt the German advance at the First Battle of the Marne in early September. Stymied, the Germans retreated behind the Aisne River. Counterattacking at the First Battle of the Aisne, the Allies failed to dislodge the Germans and took heavy losses. Stalemated on this front, both sides began the Race to the Sea as they sought to outflank each other. Marching north and west, they stretched the front to the English Channel. As both sides fought for the upper hand, they clashed in Picardy, Albert, and Artois. Ultimately reaching the coast, the Western Front became a continuous line reaching to the Swiss frontier. For the British, the year concluded with the bloody First Battle of Ypres in Flanders where they sustained over 50,000 casualties. Peace on the Front After the heavy fighting of the late summer and fall of 1914, one of the mythic events of World War I occurred. The 1914 Christmas Truce began on Christmas Eve along the British and German lines around Ypres, Belgium. While it took hold in some areas manned by the French and Belgians, it was not as widespread as these nations viewed the Germans as invaders. Along the 27 miles of front manned by the British Expeditionary Force, Christmas Eve 1914 began as a normal day with firing on both sides. While in some areas firing began to slacken through the afternoon, in others it continued at its regular pace. This impulse to celebrate the holiday season amid the landscape of war has been traced to several theories. Among these was the fact that the war was only four months old and the level of animosity between the ranks was not as high as it would be later in the war. This was complemented by a sense of shared discomfort as the early trenches lacked amenities and were prone to flooding. Also, the landscape, aside from the newly dug trenches, still appeared relatively normal, with fields and intact villages all of which contributed to introducing a degree of civilization to the proceedings. Private Mullard of the London Rifle Brigade wrote home, we heard a band in the German trenches, but our artillery spoilt the effect by dropping a couple of shells right in the centre of them. Despite this, Mullard was surprised at sunset to see, trees stuck on top of the [German] trenches, lit up with candles, and all of the men sitting on top of the trenches. So, of course, we got out of ours and passed a few remarks, inviting each other to come over and have a drink and a smoke, but we did not like to trust each other at first. The Sides Meet The initial force behind the Christmas Truce came from the Germans. In most cases, this began with the singing of carols and the appearance of Christmas trees along the trenches. Curious, Allied troops, who had been inundated with propaganda depicting the Germans as barbarians, began to join in the singing which led to both sides reaching out to communicate. From these first hesitant contacts informal ceasefires were arranged between units. As the lines in many places were only 30 to 70 yards apart, some fraternization between individuals had taken place prior to Christmas, but never on a large scale. For the most part, both sides returned to their trenches later on Christmas Eve. The following morning, Christmas was celebrated in full, with men visiting across the lines and gifts of food and tobacco being exchanged. In several places, games of soccer were organized, though these tended to be mass kick abouts rather than formal matches. Private Ernie Williams of the 6th Cheshires reported, I should think there were about a couple of hundred taking part...There was no sort of ill-will between us. Amid the music and sports, both sides frequently joined together for large Christmas dinners. Unhappy Generals While the lower ranks were celebrating in the trenches, the high commands were both livid and concerned. General Sir John French, commanding the BEF, issued stern orders against fraternizing with the enemy. For the Germans, whose army possessed a long history of intense discipline, the outbreak of popular will among their soldiery was cause for worry and most stories of the truce were suppressed back in Germany. Though a hard line was taken officially, many generals took a relaxed approach seeing the truce as an opportunity to improve and re-supply their trenches, as well as scout out the enemys position. Back to Fighting For the most part, the Christmas Truce only lasted for Christmas Eve and Day, though in some areas it was extended through Boxing Day and New Years. As it ended, both sides decided on signals for the recommencement of hostilities. Reluctantly returning to war, the bonds forged at Christmas slowly eroded as units rotated out and the fighting became more ferocious. The truce had largely worked due to a mutual feeling that the war would be decided at another place and time, most likely by someone else. As the war went on, the events of Christmas 1914 became increasing surreal to those who had not been there.

Two-party system in Texas Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Two-party system in Texas - Essay Example a growing challenge to the Democrats in Texas even though the characteristics of the state today lean towards the side of the Democrats more than the Republicans (Young, 2008). The leaning towards the Democratic Party was evident even during the times of Andrew Jackson since the earliest politically motivated individuals working in Texas were close friends of Jackson with strong ties to the Democratic Party. Even though the elections at the time were dominated by personality and charisma issues more than political leanings, those who won elections in Texas were more likely to be democrats than anything else. Even after the civil war and the reconstruction era, the individuals who settled in Texas were Democratic Party sympathizers and the Republicans could do little to gain a lot of power in Texas (Young, 2008). Even through the progress of the First World War and the depression, democrats held on their power base in Texas due to â€Å"the oil, land and financial barons who traditionally kept conservative Democrats in power (Time Magazine, 1966, Pg. 1)†. However, things changed after the Second World War when the increasing importance of oil placed the Texas democrats in a conundrum. While the democrats suggested greater control of the federal government and the improved need for looking at the greater good, the Republicans presented a different picture with regard to the natural resources of the state (Young, 2008). The rights of the state with regard to the natural resources found in the state were supported by the Republicans who offered the idea of less federal interference in state matters. This idea became quite attractive to many people in Texas as they did not appreciate the democrats handing over the resources of the state to the federal government. Further, the issue also weakened the Democratic Party in Texas as factions within the party had different ideas as to how the issue should be handled. From 1976 to 1992, the democratic presidential

Entreprenuership Failure Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Entreprenuership Failure - Research Paper Example Till 2005, Oasis had satisfied the customers because it provided consistent and faithful flight experience. In the past, Oasis was possessed and managed by Singapore Airlines and its maintenance operation was handled by Hong Kong HAECO. Its first flight operation was from Hong Kong to London (MapXL, 2011). It had expanded its routes from London to Europe and North American countries. Besides major European cities, it had expanded its routes to Berlin, Cologne, Oakland and Chicago. It was anticipated that Oasis will further increase its base to the other cities of America. The popularity of Oasis had increased to a large extent that it’s ‘Boeing 747 – 400’ plane was recognized as ‘Queen of the Sky’ (MapXL, 2011). The reason for Oasis’s popularity was its comfortable travelling feature and fair cost structure. Oasis had two kinds of services which are business class passenger service and economy class passenger service. The cost of economy class was at a price of ?75. Its business class travel was also inexpensive at the rate of ?470. Oasis operated by coordination with ‘Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department’ to guarantee that the company entirely abided by the rules, regulations and requirements and provided the passengers a safe journey (MapXL, 2011). For making the aviation business more successful, Oasis organized promotional programs. For its promotional activities, Oasis provided its customers with benefits of selecting from list of 21,000 hotels and apartments with splendid discounts. These hotels were located in attractive sites. For attracting the people to make holidays, Oasis provided travelers to select the pick up cars which could be a shared vehicle, private vehicle or chauffer–driven vehicle. The customer had the free right to choose the kind of tour. It could be a scheduled tour or an unscheduled trip (MapXL, 2011). Competitors of Oasis Hong Kong Airlines Oasis not only provided its customers inexpensive fare but it also provided the opportunity to tailor the travelling experience in business class as well as economy class. In the aviation industry, Oasis had faced extremely rigid competition from other enterprises. In the London route the main competitor of Oasis was Air New Zealand which started its flight from Hong Kong to London route in the year 2006. Besides Air New Zealand, the other strong competitor of Oasis was Cathay Pacific. Cathay Pacific offered high class service to customers and it had most efficient airline hub (Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, 2007). The other competitors of Oasis Hong Kong Airlines are Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Limited, Air Hong Kong Limited, Metro jet Limited, Hong Kong Express Airways Limited and Hong Kong Airlines Limited (Legislative Council Secretariat, 2008). Mission and Vision of Oasis Hong Kong Airlines The mission of Oasis Hong Kong Airlines was to provide low cost travelling to people. Its vision was to stimulate t he people by providing inexpensive flight travelling. It was aimed towards helping people to travel most for tourism, educational and business purposes and broaden the horizon of long distance travel which can help to exchange ideas as well as encourage the economy (Anderson, 2007).

Job satisfaction paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Job satisfaction paper - Essay Example Having good people skills helps a lot, and I was lucky that I grew up with people who taught me how to be sensitive to what other people needed so that I could help them meet those needs. I also love to spend time thinking after I learned from an older friend who was an up and coming management trainee that this is what successful managers do: think. At first, I thought it was a waste of time, but one day, when I tried it out as I planned for an important event (actually, a party for some cousins who were visiting from out of town), it dawned on me that it was cool. Spending an hour thinking, writing things down, going through the plan over and over again saved me some hours that I would have used correcting mistakes, changing plans, or saying I'm sorry for screwing up. Since that day, I invested some time to think things through instead of attacking each activity without a plan, based on sheer determination alone. This was how I learned to clarify goals, think of the best people who can take the assignment, and knowing how to communicate the goals, the assignment, and the deadline in a way that encouraged them. I also learned to make the most out of mistakes others committed, making them (and myself) see the positive side, the things we learned from those mistakes, instead of wasting time finger-pointing that got us nowhere. So much time is wasted looking for someone to blame that if people only used that time learning, they could have accomplished much more. Thinking also helps me improve my productivity. Before I work on anything, I think about why I am doing it (goal), how much time I have (time), and what I need to reach the goal within the time limit (resources). If I needed things I didn't have, I would ask for it; and if I didn't get it, I would think how I could improvise. I learned that in the real world, we cannot get everything we want, but the world still expects much from us. That's the way the world turns, so instead of whining about not having everything I needed, I instead find a way to use my creative imagination to move forward and start getting to work. I also make it a point to teach these same skills and work habits to the people I work with, more so with those whom I want to do things for me. And I am not afraid they would replace me or get higher pay, because making myself dispensable also makes me promotable. How can I be asked to work on bigger things if I don't train people to take my place More than knowing how to work and motivate others to be productive, I also have a higher goal, a mission to see the world and help other people, because I have always wanted to reach out and make a mark in other's lives. This is why I enjoy working as part of a team. One summer, I read a book (Maxwell, 1998) a friend gave me. In fact I still have it on my bedroom shelf, and it struck a raw chord inside. Right then and there, I knew that I wanted to be a leader, to make my life useful, to be different by studying and working harder and doing things not because others were doing them, but because it was the good and right thing to do. This thought has served me well ever since. What keeps me satisfied in my job The first thing is the nature of the job itself. I want to grow, learn, and contribute to the

Internet of Things (IoT) in Insurance

Internet of Things (IoT) in Insurance There are many Insurers with well-defined IoT based solutions in their core business product space, such as Usage-Based Insurance in auto insurance, discounted smart sensor device offers etc.   Large Property and Casualty (PC) insurers have been watching the IoT technology space mature over a period of last couple of years, and thus have capitalized well on their learnings and analysis.   Expectations from IoT continues to grow in the field of insurance. IoT is not just about the connected devices, but any IoT solution is incomplete without capturing the real-time and relevant data.   This captured data should be available in cloud, to have the ability to run advanced analytics to provide appropriate customer and other stakeholder dashboards.   It is key for the insurers to leverage their existing high volume of data, and develop the ability to drive improved outcomes for customers, brokers partners. In this article, we review the journey of IoT in the insurance industry, and we discuss what to expect from IoT in future.   Other aspects of this article includes the impact of other technology trends with IoT, such as Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language processing etc. Influence in PC (Property Casualty) and (Life Annuities) LA industries IoT has been able to mark its impact in PC market, but LA market still needs exploring opportunities.   PC insurers have deployed more IoT projects than LA players have. Connected ecosystem is one of the core IoT trends in the insurance space.   Approximately 34 percent of customers have indicated that they would be inclined to smart homes and real estates.   Close to follow in terms of trends are the wearables with 30 percent customer interest. In terms of numbers, LA has only 5% projects deployed, whereas in PC percentage is 12%. The trends clearly indicate that growth of IoT based solutions in both the domains is obvious. As IoT grows in adoption, leading insurers will find ways to leverage the data available from these technologies to improve operations and better engage customers. BI Intelligence recently projected that by 2020, there will be over 34 billion connected IoT devices, and over $6 trillion spent on IoT solutions in the next 5 years. With this expected growth in IoT and wearables, insurers need to plan for their use by consumers and the impact of these devices on consumer behavior and expectations. Below are a couple of success stories in the PC world where IoT has played a significant role in improving their business: Progressive Snapshot ® Progressive insurance groups Snapshot ® product is a flagship initiative that primary deals with IoT and high volume of data with analytics to provide Usage-based insurance to its customers.   Its primary intent is to reward good driving, and thereby encourage insureds to save in their insurance costs.  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   Snapshot ® is an OBD II based simple device that pluggable into most modern cars.   This device keeps a track on the driving habits such as usage of brakes, average speed etc., along with other relevant data such as time of driving etc. Liberty Mutual Google Nest Liberty Mutual has collaborated with Google Nest to provide its customers an ability to prevent perils.   Customers are offered the Nest protect device along with their insurance at no extra cost.   This IoT device helps customers identify and alert on critical parameters such as smoke, CO emission levels, temperature variations etc. It rewards the insureds for staying safe. Challenges and Barriers for IoT in insurance Some of the apparent challenges that comes along with IoT based solutions in the insurance industry are: Security Risk IoT is susceptible to cyberattacks as it involves multiple devices and multiple protocols.   IoT based solutions are effective with very large volumes of data flow between entities, over networks and many a times over public networks.   Such solutions make the Insurance Company vulnerable to interceptions. Large investments are required to secure IoT generated data, to avoid intrusions as well as misuses of such data for fraudulent activities.   IoT solutions should include a clear focus on identifying and addressing the possible security risks and threats as an important aspect.   Insurers and the insureds should understand the security dimension of such solutions to ensure appropriate measures are in place. Data Volume management Strength of IoT solution is to provide and capture data (real-time in most cases), which is added to the Insurers big data repositories.   Such large datasets are the assets for the insurance companies and the whole solution relies on how stakeholders utilize these large volumes for the benefit of all.   With large data volumes, comes the volume management challenges that requires significant planning and appropriate enterprise strategy.  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   It is also very important to plan the inclusion of the IoT real-time data with the historic data such as Policy, Client, and Claims data etc. Data ownership is also a challenge with IoT data management strategies.   It is always a challenge to understand if the data belongs to the insured or the insurer.   There are other data challenges such as privacy, data tampering etc., which need absolute attention from the Insurers while defining and establishing a long-term solution. Standardization and Regulation With an increasing trend of growing numbers of IoT devices, interoperability is already a challenge.   Plenty of startups as well as large players are trying to capitalize on the IoT market by deploying and integrating devices.   With lack of regulations and agreements in place, the IoT solutions are bound to fail.   There have been quite a few initiatives by many players on this front, but the process maturity will take some time. Disruption to existing large business models Insurance industrys business relies on the right balance between the volume of risk managed, and the claims associated with the covered risks.   To understand this better, insurers always seek to contain the volume of claims by preventive measures to have a good handle on the loss ratio.   This leads to have a direct impact on their written premium to losses ratio and thus improves their margins.  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   IoT solutions give a great advantage in avoidance of claims by providing relevant indications and alerts for most of the critical major perils. There is always a threshold to such business theory because if the claims keep going down then it will have a direct effect on bringing down the premiums as well.   Insurers need to ensure the IoT based solutions provide the right balance and manage the alignment between solutions and core business models. IoT with other technologies Insurance industry has recognized the importance of IoT in its business, and we have seen a clear growth trend for the last couple of years. We believe that the trend will continue in the same direction, with an increase in the implementations of IoT based solutions.   IoT solutions involve multiple technologies to maximize benefits for stakeholders.   For example, IoT solutions are inclusive of Analytics, Cloud, protocol management etc. Some of the other trends where we see an immediate impact in the insurance industry are: Natural Language Processing Talking to devices is not something new for the human beings.   We have had our smartphone based digital assistants in existence for quite long now.  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   Amazon echo has already pioneered in the home digital assistant space.   Imagine a situation where an IoT device like Amazon echo, captures the conversations by a senior citizen living alone.   IoT devices can be extremely beneficial in emergencies for senior homes, and NLP capabilities to such sensors can help prevent any medical situation by understanding, processing and alerting appropriate agencies for help. NLP and Text processing is predicted to have a positive disruption in the insurance industry by providing abilities such as information retrieval from unstructured data, sentimental analysis to streamline the flow of information to customers thereby improving customer relationships, kiosk based Chabot etc. Blockchain Blockchain looks very promising when it comes to providing some of the challenges that IoT solutions possess.   Roadblocks such as inorganic scaling of IoT devices (without identity, or interoperability), information and privacy concerns etc. can leverage the fundamental principles of Blockchain technology for an appropriate resolution.   We foresee Blockchain considered as a heavyweight partner technology for IoT based initiatives. Insurance companies and their technology arms will need to understand and implement the appropriate solutions involving Blockchain.   Blockchain comes with its own baggage of challenges hence we recommend a thorough study of the problem scenario. Artificial Intelligence IoT generates high volumes of data, and such significant and relevant data is of no use if we do not have machine-learning capabilities introduced in our IoT based solutions.   As the devices are increasing, so will the data volume as well.   This significant and invaluable data will help our systems to understand what is working vs what is not working. This data volume goes beyond human capabilities for analytics; hence, a machine learning will be inevitable to maximize the return from IoT based solutions. Future Impact of IoT in Insurance Industry IoT based solutions have done tremendous development in all horizons of human life and the impact has been on positive as well as negative side. On the positive side, IoT provides real time data, which provides useful information ahead of time to both Insurers and Insureds that helps them in taking preventive action and reduces/eliminates losses. On the negative side, IoT brings risks, both physical and financial; with the connected devices over Internet. Some of the significant areas of IoT impact listed below: Need of Cyber Insurance policies will grow With the growth of IoT, the risk of data loss and resulting liabilities will increase. Cyber insurance policies provide coverage against data liability losses and the costs involved due to data breaches, hence there will be improved focus on cyber insurance products, which increase the sale of such policies. List of excluded risks will increase in cyber policies With IoT penetrating more and more in human life the risk of cyber-attacks on IoT devices will also increase. Providing coverage against all these risks will be loss for Insurance carriers hence insurers will provide specific exclusion for cyber perils. Minimize the insurance need IoT based solutions will continue to alter the risk associated with customers and their perils, which will make both Insurance carriers Insureds aware of the risks before time. This will have an impact on the global insurance market, as the chances of error will reduce which results in shrinking the insurance market thereby minimizing the need for insurance. Artificial Intelligence and containers will distribute IoT: The year 2017 would see Internet of Things software distributed across cloud services, edge devices, and gateways. Further, machine-learning cloud services and Artificial Intelligence will be used to mine data from IoT devices. Role of Insurance carriers in IoT security will increase More and more inclination of consumers towards IoT enabled devices lead to more security risk for them. Since IoT technology is changing so fast, it has become a big challenge for the insurance regulators to cope up with that and design the new products accordingly. Insurers are taking on the financial risk associated with the increase use of IoT; hence, they will address the IoT security via proper underwriting. IoT will affect the mobile industry in both directions Many upcoming solutions will create enhanced mobility solution requirements and at the same time, we will see some IoT solutions making mobile apps redundant.   With increased connected devices, mobility solutions will enhance the user experience using digital assistants, smart watches etc. IoT certification will suppress Industry specific certification In order to get into the nerves of IoT, the vendors will be motivated to get IoT certified inspite of having Industry specific certified. Investments will be focused on minimal cost based trainings and certifications along with maintaining high standards of these certifications. Along with it, all major industrial vendors will come together to jointly certify their IoT-enabled products with enterprise vendors. *Forrester ICRMC Report NIIT technologies IoT We have been participating in the growth of IoT based solutions across industries.   NIIT Technologies Ltd has already worked with a large US based insurer to come up with a complete connected solution suite.   This solution involves end-to-end IoT based package for the Personal lines insurers, especially dealing home and dwelling insurance based. NIIT Technologies also has in-depth experience with IoT based devices including, but not limited to, Bosch XDK, Google Nest, Amazon Echo, VR devices, Pressure and Temperature measuring devices as well as expertise in learning and research devices such as Raspberry pi, Arduino etc.   Our dedicated IoT lab and its experienced resources work closely with our Data Analytics experts to design comprehensive solutions for the insurance industry. NIIT Technologies is also working on other relevant initiatives i.e.   IoT solutions integrated with NLP, machine learning and Non Natural disaster artificial intelligence solutions etc. Recommendations for Insurers Research and understand customer needs and identify how IoT based solutions can improve your business model.   Understand your capabilities and whether you have the right solutions in place with the existing landscape for data management IoT in isolation is not beneficial for long term; invest on solutions that are beneficial for all stakeholders. Invest on partner technologies, as per relevance with your business Start looking beyond business as usual.   Disruption in business has already become a norm, hence business, technology and product research should be an ongoing process.   Focus on impact by IoT innovations on insurance products, for example, insuring driverless cars, drones etc. Enhance your business model and focus on how to help customers adopt the IoT based solutions.   Without customer buy-in, IoT solutions will have no value, and the benefits to the insurance companies is quite high hence, it is worth the focus. For many insurance products, IoT has minimized the need of large historic data and maturity.   This has happened because IoT has the ability to provide real-time, more relevant and custom user specific data to improve and customize underwriting.   This has allowed smaller players to jump in to participate in this levelled field.   Large insurers need to be flexible to customization of products and need to bring in more agility in product designing as well. Insurers should invest on appropriate Proof of Value and Proof of Concept initiatives for IoT solutions with their trusted partners before initiating any industry scale implementation or solution. Abbreviations and Acronyms IoT Internet of Things PC Property and Casualty insurance LA Life and Annuities insurance NLP Natural Language Processing

Beloved & Story

Beloved is a soul-stirring novel with vivid imagery, historical background and complex characters. The dark and grey, tones of slavery is very strongly captured in detail by characters going through the horrific experiences of slavery. The brutal images of slavery tarnishes their lives with â€Å"marks†(Beloved), scars, wounds, shackles, and memories with heavy burden of the past , fragmented self in the present and very foggy view of the future. The precious self, which is the birthright of every human being is stained, fragmented and diminished by the painful experiences of slavery.The body undergoes innumerable hardship, torture and agony; and the mind is made crippled, dependant and weak with exhaustion and hostility. The scars of slavery reduce the human beings to ashes, where they are drained of any hope and light. The spirit is submerged in the burden of life, and everyday existence for survival. Some of the strong ideas around which the novel revolves are: love (mother ’s possessive love), family, self-possessiveness, burden of the past, and desire for ownership. These themes unite the events and the characters within the story.These are the themes that also reflect that human self is higher than the mortal bruises inflicted on the body by the painful experiences of slavery. The power of mother’s love is the strong force which controls many happenings within the story. The life of the protagonist Sethe centers on the protection of her children from the horrors of the slavery. She lived a terrible life, where there was no ray of light and still managed to secure her freedom in the difficult days of pregnancy. How she managed to do it lies in her inner strength as a mother, for the protection of her children .Her mother love is the strong chord which propels her actions to send away her older children for safety and protection to Baby Suggs. In the last and difficult stages of pregnancy, when even walking is painful, she decides to run away from Sweet Home with the help from a white girl Amy. She gives birth to her 4th child on the run and still finds strength to carry on until she reaches the safety of home, where Baby Suggs lives with her other children. The whole length of the novel is weaved with instances that reinforce the strong desire for the family.The vision of united family under one roof is something held as aspiration for Sethe ( the main character), Baby Sugg ( the paternal grandmother), Denver(the living daughter), Paul D(another slave from Sweet Home) and Beloved( the ghost incarnate). The â€Å"House 124† is the symbolic of the shelter of home, which brings all the characters under this one roof, where all the interaction and complexities arise. This is where the past, present and future are face to face, in the race for dominance and survival. This is where the mystery of the numbers is revealed.The critical role which Beloved, the 3rd child, dead as well as living, plays is unfathomable. She creates the mysterious haunted atmosphere within the walls of â€Å"House 124†. Beloved fills the missing number 3, and remains as the unseen force calling the shots through her possessive love and desire for revenge. She represents the invisible force of past, which controls the actions of the present. The inhabitants of â€Å"House 124† are locked in love, possessive love which directs their thoughts and actions beyond control.The world outside does not attract them; they want to be in the security of their house, which represents their freedom and safety. The ownership of â€Å"House 124† is her first attempt to live a normal life without the shackles of slavery. Ownership is complex, when the experiences are so burdened by the cruelties of the past. The stamp of ownership reduced the humans living within the system to indifference. The body suffers, the mind is shattered with pain and anguish, and the spirit is reduced to emptiness.In this desperation, humans can act out of love in unpredictable ways to escape from the darkness and grimness of the situation. This is what Sethe did when she killed her one year-old daughter because she did not want her to live the life which she was living. The mark on Sethe's mother was a mark of possession, the branding of a slave. The human’s who were owned as slaves were treated worse than animals. For the first time, Paul D reveals his 18-year struggle, the endless running and hiding. To him, slavery is worse than being an animal: â€Å"Mister [the rooster] was allowed to be and stay where he was.But I wasn't. † We learn of the cruelty of the schoolteacher's two nephews, who sucked on Sethe's milk as if she were an animal. The pain of watching his wife abused by the owners school teacher and his nephews, drove Sethe’s husband Halle mad. (Beloved). The strong desire for ownership can also be seen, later on in Sethe, Paul D, Beloved and Denver, when they are living in â€Å" House 124†. Their relationship is also a struggle in the claim of ownership and struggle to find that strength to make the claim.The biggest hurdle in their claim for love and ownership is the heavy burden of the past which they carry as haunted voices and dark clouds. The powerful game of love and seduction makes this struggle for power more complicated. The significant role of the heart wounded, locked away and bleeding reinforces the need for love and ownership. The exposed breast as the source of milk, a sign of nurturance indicates the power of protection and possession. Sethe controls the chief events within her household; she is the nurturer as well as the killer.Her love is possessive and strong. She has survived and wishes to hold on to the chords of the future. Sethe’s possessive love is challenged by Beloved, the ghost of the dead baby overshadows the life of people living at â€Å"House 124†when she reveals herself as a woman, 19 or 20 years of age, c oming out of the marsh fully dressed. She is tired and thirsty, but her shoes are new and her skin is flawless except for three scratches on her forehead. It takes her more than two days to drag herself to 124 With a harsh voice, she pronounces that her name is Beloved.Beloved brings back many memories, especially those regarding the horrors of slavery (Beloved). The existing contrasts reveal her out of world characteristics. Much of the imagery in Beloved is dedicated to the picture of the cellars of a slave ship, with implications that this is the place Beloved was before she was born. The description is one of a womb, not of a cramped slave ship. The past has been forgotten, and there is a strong feeling of being trapped in the darkness (Beloved). Beloved is a dangerous mix of human traits and ghostly characteristics. Though hungry for love, she can smother love with revenge.She is a schemer and a parasite, which arrives in the â€Å"House 124† to fulfill her unfinished de sires and urges. She is only centered on herself, which intensifies her fears and terrors. The horror of the obscurity, the pangs of hunger and the fear of death immobilizes the mind and the body. The self, the spirit within is gradually overpowered by the agony of physical torture. The memories haunt the living as well as the ghost, as a shadow of all the experiences. The imagery of loudness and sound also plays a significant role to describe that â€Å"House 124 was spiteful† (Beloved).Here the spite is alive – it is, as Stamp Paid realizes, the roar of â€Å"people of the broken necks, of fire-cooked blood and black girls who had lost their ribbons† (Beloved). What roars is the dead, the injustice dealt to more than sixty million, all alive in Beloved. The loudness betrays a sinister part of Beloved which has not yet surfaced. The loudness is the cry, the despair and the frustrations of life’s experienced by people in shackles and chains, with no freed om to live, think or feel. It is self crying to be saved from this mortal combat of pain and anguish.The deep imprint of slavery is once again brought into play when Paul D reminisces about â€Å"Sweet Home† (Beloved) Even death does not deter the human soul and human self from the desire for freedom. Though the mortal bruises hurt the body and mind, they do not completely destroy the sanctuary of the self, however fragmented and withered. This light within is what keeps humans, such as Sethe and Sixo, to keep going and to find the way to freedom, either through escape or death. The helplessness experienced as a victim of slavery tarnishes the self deeply, leaving a person dirty and unclean from within.â€Å"That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up†¦ The best thing was, was her [Sethe’s] children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing†(Beloved). The inner strength of Sethe is very strongly portrayed in the lines above, showing she is willing to go to any length to protect her children and save them from getting dirty.The possessiveness and the protective aspect of maternity are very powerfully expressed in this comment. Mother love is the protector and the nurturer, but also a killer. â€Å"Slavery is not just an institution; it is a philosophy and mindset which is far-reaching in its consequences† (ROTHSTEIN The horrific memories of the past hold a powerful influence on the present life of Sethe and Denver. The re-emergence of Beloved on the scene as half human and half ghost, half child and half adult adds complexity beyond comprehension.All the powerful feminine emotions play a critical role in adding drama and despair. The entanglement of the relationships between Denver and Beloved, though sisters, expos es the deep jealousy and bitterness. The dependence and immaturity, is characterized by their selfishness and insecurity. The overcast clouds of wounds, scars and shackles, are too heavy a burden to carry from one life to another. The past is a burden, the present is a struggle and future is so foggy that the road to freedom seems lost.The insatiable desire of the fragmented self to rise in spirit to face the world is the beautiful message hidden in the heaps of ashes of the past. The message is to bury the past, loosen the shackles of the present bindings and look to future with the hope and courage. Works Cited ROTHSTEIN , MERVYN. â€Å"Toni Morrison, In Her New Novel, Defends Women. â€Å"Books. August 26, 1987, . The New York Times Company. 1 Mar 2007 . ( ROTHSTEIN ) â€Å"Beloved. † Beloved. 1998-2007. Homework Online Inc. 1 Mar 2007 . (Beloved)

Organizational Behaviour Case Study Essay

Cases: Automation in the Book Store and The Night Owl Answering Service Part 1) The field of Organizational Behavior is one that is very important when it comes to managing people and to make them work effectively. This begins with training. In order to understand these cases it is important to look at both the structure and environment of the company. In the case of the Automation in the Book Store, the company is a medium sized bookstore. Because this company is a bookstore with very few employees there is not a high level of formalization, less specialization and less authority. Therefore, it has an organic structure. Employees don’t have a lot procedures and rules that they must abide by while doing their jobs. In fact the initial company policy required employees to stay with the customer they were serving from the time they walked into the store until the sale was made. Also, there was not a great deal of standardization in that there was not a set procedure on how emplo yees did their work, rather it was a freer organization because there were very few employees and this resulted in greater flexibility. Look more:Â  starbuck problem essay These facts all changed once the new computer system was implemented. This system presented employees with some degree of formalization and standardization in their jobs because now there were precise rules and procedures on how to deal with customers. This includes entering an ID number every time a sale was made and closing the store with the system. Also, because this bookstore was not use to high levels of formalization in the past, the implementation of the training program was affected. There were no instructions on how to close at the end of the day in training. The manager had to come in and prepare a hand-written set of instructions about this routine. This is a sign of bad design and implementation. Also, because the company is more centralized than decentralized, the management must follow head office’s requests. This is the exact same thing with employees who must listen to the manager even though the employees were apprehensive, particularly the older staff, about new system. Again, the design of the training program, which was quoted as pretty skimpy and patronizing, was another sign of poor design. However, because the structure of the company was somewhat centralized they had to the training according to the way head office and management wanted. The structure of The Night Owl Answering Services was that it was between mechanistic and organic. This call center was more mechanistic because it was more centralized and more specialization where each individual had a specific role. Bob was responsible for technology, sales and marketing. Mary was responsible for training. This type of structure affected the training because of specialization. Nobody else was responsible for training, so when Mary passed away, everyone else specialized in a different area which left training to be an open mess. Only Mary knew the system the best because she specialized in this. This left the company scrambling to recover and in turn designed a training program that proved to be ineffective and poorly implemented. There was only one lady responsible for training. In the case of Automation in the Boo k Store and The Night Owl Answering Service it is important to look at the organizations environment. In these two cases, the organizations both faced environmental uncertainty. Every organization has the potential for environmental uncertainty. This uncertainty created a poor design for training. This was one of the major similarities in both of these cases. This is when management or people of the organization can’t really predict what is going to happen. The cases with Automation in the Book Store and The Night Owl Answering Services had faced environmental uncertainty that prove to be frustrating and challenging. However, because both of these companies had static environments, that is a company that remain fairly stable over time and had the least amount of uncertainty, they were sensitive to change. In The Night Owl Answering Service the head of training, Mary, passed away. This was an unpredictable event. It was clearly evident that there was no back up to Mary. Because this company was so used to certainty, it caught them off guard, particularly Bob. In the medium size bookstore the company had followed the same procedures to ring up sales until it introduced its new system. It took one month for the company to adapt. Again, both companies trained employees in such a way that proved to be ineffective. This means these two organizations ability to adapt to environmental change was poor. It’s also important to discuss external environmental factors or outside factors that have a direct effect on the company, which in turn affected training. The answering services company had a good reputation for customer service but when the senior operators started leaving they hired new people and trained very quickly to get people on the phone and take calls. Therefore, the external factor here would be the customer. In The Night Owl Answering Services the customer was always the number one priority because they had a prestige reputation on customer service they wanted to continue providing services in a timely manner. This directly affected the training design and implementation because trainers wanted the trainees on the phone as soon as possible to serve the clients of the company because they were short staffed. As a result of this, the trainers wanted to get trainees on the phone quickly which resulted in an implementation and design that proved to be ineffective. Trainees were expected to learn through trial and error style of training. Senior operators were forced to take calls and train at the same time. This resulted in slower operators and higher errors and more complaints to the call center, which lead to clients (external factor) leaving the call center and find business elsewhere. This company was so focused on getting trainees on the phone, they ignored the fact they lacked the basic phone etiquette and computer skills. Senior Management was continuously on the phone, with out breaks. In The Automation in the Book Store the external environment component that should be discussed is technology. Like every other company, it must keep up with technology and accept current business practices. They were entering an era where technology was becoming widespread and they needed a system to calculate the GST. This is a reason why the bookstore decided to take on the new computer system. The organizations employees were reluctant to have it but didn’t have a choice and had to keep up with external technological factors. The company was highly sensitive to this environmental change, which was external, but when the system was implemented, it became an internal factor. There was systematic turbulence in this organization. There ability to adapt to systematic change, the new computer system would be considered systematic turbulence. Systematic turbulence looks at how a company deals with a change in the environment change. This is evident is the case with Automation in the Bookstore. . Part 2) Motivational effects are very important aspects of an organization. People have to be motivated to join and remain in organizations. They also have to carry out their basic work reliability in terms of productivity, quality, and services, requirements and should always interact to accomplish their goal. These are some examples that if were missing in an organization, employees and members of the company began to lose interest and be less motivated. This was the case with these two organizations. One of the major similarities was that both companies faced poor training design and implementation. In Automation in the Bookstore the training was boring and ineffective, which had motivational effects. Lisa was an employee who worked in a medium sized bookstore and was completely dissatisfied with the design of the training. Unfortunately, the training was a mandatory requirement to understand the new system. The first two days started off by having to watch two half an hour videos which Lisa found to be boring and insulting. On the third day of training it went downhill. The computer system was not on training mode the way it was suppose to be. Also, there were no instructions on how close at the end of the day. The manager had to come in and prepare handwritten set of instructions. This caused a lot of problems and created frustration for all members of the organization including management and head office, who wanted to assign blame to someone. The operation of the system was not going according to plan and this got the trainees upset and confused about the policies of the system. Some parts of the training were vague and the continuous frustration had negative motivational effects. Similarly, The Night Owl Answering Services faced great training problems when Mary died, that evidently created negative motivational problems. Bob was forced to take over training without much knowledge o f how to do so, which was also a big problem. Senior operators were forced to work extra hard with no breaks, while at the same time train a new person. New operators were poorly trained and did not know how to handle calls. All these factors started showing in the office environment. These factors inevitably caused negative motivational effects. For example, intrinsic motivations were clearly not met in this organization. Intrinsic is defined as the direct relationship between the worker and the task. In the call center the task was frustrating and created anxiety. If these factors weren’t here there would be more interested in the position. However, because the training was so poorly done, the intrinsic motivation factor was not being met and created less motivation. It is also important to discuss the Maslow’s Need Theory and how it applies to these two cases. The needs theory states: NEEDS BEHAVIOR INCENTIVE AND GOALS. Both of these organizations both fit the physiological needs, which include the basic human needs. In safety needs it includes freedom from anxiety, and a structured ordered environment. The safety ne eds were not being met. Both organizations faced stress and anxiety, particularly the call center, which effected motivation. Results of poor motivation create poor quality of work. The training was poor and it would reflect on the quality of work being performed because they are no longer motivated to work with all the stress factors. Hertrzberg theory should be looked at as well. The first factor is the hygene factor. This includes relationship with fellow employees, security and other various factors. In order for employees to not feel less motivated or dissatisfied is if all these factors are in place. If all these factors are in place you will not feel unsatisfied but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be satisfied. It just means not being unsatisfied. Both companies didn’t even get past the hygene factor of just not being unsatisfied. The second factor of Hertzberg’s theory talks about is motivation. This is a sense of achievement and recognition, which would play different in each company. This doesn’t have a great effect on the bookstore because their situation w as short term in compared to the call center. If the company can’t even properly trained there is no chance of being recognized or feel a sense of achievement. The cases state that the trainees felt like they were being under attack by the senior staff. That would have a negative affect and create decrease motivation. There is no room for job enrichment that in turn means no enhancement in intrinsic motivation. Overall the similarities with respect to the training and the two companies were that of implementation and design. The training program was poor due to various reasons as stated in the report. One of the major differences to note was that the call center issue was a more complex problem and more of a long-term problem. The bookstore training was more of short-term problem. The problem only lasted about a month. Also another difference to note is that the bookstore had a smaller number of employees, so controlling the problem was a bit easier. In the call center there were various problems that were even more difficult to control because they had to meet client needs. In these two organizations there was lack of leadership. Particularly transformational leadership. This is when a leader makes his/her representative look beyond the task, or in this case the training, by observing the bigger picture or goal. Not doing this would negatively effect motivation because the individual will then began to purse his or her own self-interest. In the case of the The Night Owl Answering Service, when Mary passed away, nobody was able to step up and show leadership. Because this particularity affected training, the person responsible for training should have demonstrated leadership ethics to make them feel more positively motivated. Nobody had the leadership to motivate people to put forth their best efforts. There were no directive and supportive people in these organizations. The coaching was ineffective and the trainees had no proper direction. Automation in the bookstore did not face a great deal of leadership problems because again, it only employed about 6-8 people.