Saturday, August 31, 2019

Love Is Never Silent Movie Summary

In the 1985 movie â€Å"Love is Never Silent† it is set during the great depression and follows the Ryder family, Abel and Janice two deaf parents of two hearing children Margaret and Bradley. Abel works for a newspaper company on the printing press, Janice is a seamstress. The parents rely on the oldest child Margaret as their link to the hearing world by being their voice. In the beginning tragedy hits the family as the Ryder’s youngest child Bradley falls from their second story apartment and dies. Now that Margaret is the only hearing child she feels obligated to always be available for her parents when they need her.When she goes with her parents to a Mortuary she has to help them purchase a wood box instead of a coffin for her brother because that’s all they can afford. Anytime Margaret’s parents come into conflict with the hearing world they have Margaret taken out of school or later work to interpret for them. The only friend Margaret has and the o nly person to know that her parents are deaf and elderly store owner named Mr. Patrakis, who usually gives whatever her family needs for free. In the middle Margaret graduates from high school and this is where her classmates, their parents and staff find out that her parents are deaf.Mr. Patrakis gives Margaret radio as a graduation gift, she is so excited that she brings it home, plugs it in and her dad seems to be interested and Margaret and her dad start to dance until her mom unplugs it to cook signing that the radio doesn’t belong. Margaret gets a job as a secretary and is still the only link between the deaf and hearing world for her parents. She has so social life and when a handsome man named William shows interest in her she makes excuses not to go out with him. William is persistent though and Margaret eventually gives in and they go on their first date.Margaret keeps the fact of her parents being deaf from William until he purposes to her and William tells her tha t he doesn’t care that her parents are deaf and that he’d love to meet them. In the end Margaret and William elope and this upsets her parents because they don’t want to lose her not only because she’s their only child but also because she’s their link to the hearing world. William joins the military and while he’s gone Margaret invites William’s mother Mrs. Anglin and brother Marshall to her parents’ house for dinner, which doesn’t go well because Mr. and Mrs.Ryder refuse to sign in an even more awkward silence. William comes back injured but not crippled and they live with her parents until he’s accepted into college. Margaret’s parents are sad to see her go but as soon as they can they go see her and it was unannounced. Margaret’s parents are very upset to see the place where she’s living and go to sign how upset they are that William hasn’t provided better for their daughter. Her pa rents never visit her again. The next time Margaret sees her parents is when she’s very pregnant to let them know that they’ll be grandparents.Lastly William and Margaret move into better housing where they will raise their child till William graduates from college. Margaret and William invite everyone to their baby shower after the birth of their son and her parents show up after everyone has gone. Margaret is upstairs with her son and William answers the door and her parents surprise her. When they see each other all the turmoil between them is gone and they enjoy each other’s company. The movie ends with Janice’s retirement party where Abel, Margaret, William and their son go and Janice’s signs a speech that Margaret interprets.

Friday, August 30, 2019

Flexible Budgets

A flexible budget is a budget statement that shows what the expected costs should have been for any level of output, so that the actual costs can be compared to planned costs for the output that was actually generated. In a flexible budget, the costs are separated into variable and fixed costs. The more information that is provided to explain variances in budgeted and actual amounts, the easier it is for management to make successful decisions about costs and expenses.A flexible budget classifies budget requests by activity and estimates the benefits arising from each activity. It presents a statement of expectations for a period of time but does not present a firm commitment. It also presents the plan for only one level of activity and does not adjust to changes in the level of activity. However it presents the plan for a range of activity so that the plan can be adjusted for changes in activity levels.Flexible budgets are one way companies deal with different levels of activity. A flexible budget provides budgeted data for different levels of activity. Another way of thinking of a flexible budget is a number of static budgets. The information is used for planning and control purposes. The flexible budget responds to changes in activity, and performance evaluation. The flexible budget uses the same selling price and cost assumptions as the original budget.Variable and fixed costs do not change categories. The variable amounts are recalculated using the actual level of activity, which in the case of the income statement are sales units. Each flexible budget line will be discussed separately. In conclusion budgets are complicated and complex tools. Within a budget there are many specific budgets which have to be examined separately. Flexible budgets helps companies set up strategy to assist in predicting positive outcomes for the business.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Enlightened Shareholder Value Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Enlightened Shareholder Value - Essay Example The concept of shareholder value holds that company directors must tailor their policies to be in line with the interests of the shareholders of the company1. Directors are therefore expected to steer the operations of the company with the maximization of the shareholder’s interests as the main priority. The United Kingdom established the Company Law Review Steering Group (CLRSG) in late 1990s and mandated it to come up with a detailed review of English company law. At the end of its exercise, the CLRSG noted that the country’s legal system, like other Western jurisdictions, prefers shareholder value. The CLRSG indicated that the current legal system reflects the reality that business organizations are run in such a way that the shareholders often benefit. That is, the legal system confers upon shareholders absolute powers in the management of the local companies, such that the mandate of the directors is basically to exercise delegated power. Additionally, the CLRSG st ated that the crucial goal of business organizations is to create maximum gains for the investors in the short term as opposed to long-term goals2. This paper examines the argument that the enlightened shareholder value principle is a sophisticated restatement rather than a refutation of the principle of shareholder primacy. ... This is especially true even after the latest repeals to the body of law as envisaged in the Companies Act 2006. It is arguable that, unlike the largely fair structures of company law, English case law has consistently reaffirmed the primacy of shareholders. The courts have traditionally held that any public business organization should be managed to the advantage of the membership or shareholders3. However, the CLRSG has recommended a change of tack. To this end, the reviewing body supported the implementation of the principle of enlightened shareholder value (ESV)4. Section 172(1) of the Companies Act 2006 mainly captures the provision for the ESV. The provision reaffirms the management of every company should be done with respect to the interests of the shareholders. The section basically upholds the principle of shareholder value, but limits the formerly absolute benefits of the group by introducing the rule and the need for due respect for the interests of other stakeholders5. T his is arguably a proposal for a new doctrine in the English law, in the sense that section 172(1) conditionally supports the primacy of the interests of the shareholder. The requirement, which could be interpreted as the enlightened aspect of the shareholder value, underscores the doctrine of due attention to the value of non-share-holders as well. The latest law has brought about far-reaching legal implications in the understanding of the provision. Responses to the new clause among legal opinions may be divided into two categories: supporters and detractors of the enlightened shareholder value rule. It can be argued that section 172(1) is actually a modest but well thought-out principle that will balance the

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Describe the decision making model Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Describe the decision making model - Essay Example There are various decision making models; the pure rationality model, disjointed incrementalism model, rounded rationality model, intuitive model, recognition primed model, ultimate model and the cost/benefit analysis model. The pure rationality model is the most rational model in decision making but unrealistic as it is based on unlimited time, resources and knowledge assumption in its implementation. Cost benefit analysis model is a technique to analyze an opportunity to demonstrate the cost saving benefits towards receiving management support and commitment to implement (Tsl.state.tx.us 2010). It is usually carried out to determine how well or poorly an action will turn out. The model is mostly used in making of financial decisions. It encompasses the addition of positive factors and negative results subtraction in determination of the net outcome. It is commonly referred to as running the numbers. A cost benefit analysis finds, adds and quantifies all the positive factors or the benefits in relation to a decision option. It then identifies, subtracts and quantifies all the negative factors normally referred to as costs. The difference of the benefits and the costs of the related decision option is an indication of the viability of the decision option. To ensure the best option is taken, it is always advisable to include al the costs and benefits and proper quantification procedures are carried out. For example when dealing with healthcare decisions, we may require driver services. Drivers are very vital in the running of a health care services center. They are the ones who are major players in ambulance services therefore their well being should be treated with care. The sobriety of the drivers should be ensured as they are usually permitted by law to drive at very high speeds. A health care manager may be faced with the decision of whether to employ a new driver or pay overtime wages to the current drivers. In doing this the manager

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Leadership Challenges and Practices Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Leadership Challenges and Practices - Essay Example n is considered to be one of the most important factors and all most all the companies look for new methods to motivate the employees and to bring out the best out of them. This paper will focus upon the different leadership behaviors and the best leadership behavior which should be adopted to meet the company’s goals. Good leaders are very hard to find, good leaders know how to get the best out of others and good leaders are those who keep others motivated and focused at all times. These qualities are very hard to get in an individual but the most successful leaders are all well equipped with these great qualities. Leader effectiveness is determined by what people do, not by some inherent personal characteristic... Im not saying personal characteristics dont help; they certainly do. But leaders have to adapt their behavioral styles to fit the situations in which they find themselves" (p. 7).   Howell says the good news is most people can learn leader behaviors and learn to recognize situations in which certain behaviors are most important.   Howell and Costley (2001) argue for the match of leader behavior, leader traits and characteristics, follower characteristics, and the situation at hand.   And there are seven leader types, fit for various behavioral processes and situations in my read of their leader theory: And now we have left the obsession with one best style of leadership. There is no universal style. There is as I have suggested, a dimension of behaviors running between Transactional and Transformational. The behavior school to this point is fixated on the transactional. To find transformational we must sail to the Isle of Situation.† ( Howell and Costley). The same principles of Howell and Costley are elucidates in the paper. There are mainly five major behavior patterns namely, supportive behavior, directive behavior, participative behavior, reward and punishment behavior and charismatic behavior. Every behavior pattern has its own pros and

Monday, August 26, 2019

Communication and Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Communication and Society - Essay Example Crucial to these claims is the position that communication could refer to the most common and the most mundane. This is Carey's way of using the cultural approach to defining and explaining what communication is. This is the case in the sense that human daily activities collectively constitute the meanings and the reality that we perceive. The Mobile Texting Phenomenon To demonstrate Carey’s position, there is the case of the use of short messaging system (SMS) in mobile phones. If one examines how people communicate through this platform closely, one will find a uniquely different lexicon employed. "How are you?" becomes "hw r u?" or "You are late." becomes "u r l8". Words are radically shortened by redacting words or substituting figures to represent sounds in order to accommodate the restrictions posed by the messaging service. Cell phones usually allow only 160 characters per message. According to Lindholm, Keinonen and Kiljander (2003), â€Å"in advanced phone markets, a s in Scandinavia, Germany, or the Philippines, a whole new culture has been born around text messages as a response to the limitations 160 characters impose.† (p115) This is in addition to other variables like the way the messaging application and interface are designed and the way people interact with it. An excellent example to demonstrate the above points is the use of the so-called "emoticons", symbols that convey emotions. For instance, there is the case of the smiley, :-) an emoticon used to express how pleased one is, or an agreement or a greeting depending on the context of the conversation. The resulting communication process and symbols start to create a reality for people that eventually form collectivities that emerge as social, cultural, and even political forces and even institutions. The severely shortened language, for one, has triggered an attitude among people today to prefer simple, fast and mobile way of doing things. Blogs or online journals became popular way back but it never achieved the degree of wide usage that Twitter has achieved today. Dubbed as a micro blogging platform, Twitter lets users use its service to publish details about people's daily lives in short, concise and uncomplicated manner, not unlike the way people would "SMS" or "text" others. This is in contrast to the way users are required to publish elaborate and detailed messages in traditional blogs like Blogger or Wordpress. The implication of this development in the context of communication and the manner by which it could shape reality is the way it affects behaviors. People become increasingly impatient with details and this is reflected in the way they conduct their affairs and what they expect from their interactions with others. The significance of the SMS phenomenon can also be described from a critical point of view. For example, Patajo-Legasto (2010) argued that mobile phones stifle literacy and young people’s ability to communicate in the real wo rld in real time by â€Å"wrecking havoc on spelling and grammar, and its erosion, in tandem with mindless computer games and Internet chat rooms.† (p410) Several other problems and criticisms were outlined. For instance, Clark and Brody stated: Part of the anxiety surrounding texting arises from its perceived tendency to disrupt protocols of recognition and

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Challenges in Capacity and Decision Making Case Study

Challenges in Capacity and Decision Making - Case Study Example As the report declares the Mr. Jones scenario presents one of the many complexities that are experienced in the healthcare practice. Numerous stakeholders are confined into a common ground where objectives are straight and result-oriented. Mr. Jones is facing health complications that the relevant parties must try and resolve in a bid to improve the patient’s health status and welfare. In the Mr. Jones scenario, a number of legal issues emerge. To start with, Mr. Jones is entitled to quality health care just like any other patient. The law provides for indiscriminate care of patients in whatever state. Patient rights are at stake in the scenario.This discussion stresses that choice and consent to care is another critical legal issue observed in the scenario. Although Mr. Jones is entitled to care by law, the caregivers and physicians cannot force him to any medical practice if he does not consent and choose to be treated. A complementing legal aspect herein is the role of guar dian or surrogate decision maker. If Mr. Jones is entitled to one, then the surrogate decision maker can make a choice on behalf of Mr. Jones. However, the legal process that provides this practice must be observed. Another legal issue pertains to the role of doctors and nurses attending to Mr. Jones. They must adhere to the code of ethics and conduct in caring for Mr. Jones. They should work to their level best to ensure that Mr. Jones receives the attention he needs, subject to ensuring that Mr. Jones capacity to make a decision is accounted for.  

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Financial Markets Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Financial Markets Assignment - Essay Example He classified it into three levels based on the definition of available information: weak, semi-strong and strong forms. He further suggested three models for testing market efficiency: the Fair Game model, the Submartingale model, and the Random Walk model. The weak form of EMH attracted all the attention of empirical research in both developed and emerging markets results. This is because if evidence fails to support the weak-from of EMH, stricter forms of EMH would consequently fail (Wong and Kwong, 1984). The weak form of EMH considers a market to be efficient if information contained in past prices is already reflected in current market prices. Information from historical prices would not enable market traders to make superior returns as this information is already accounted for in current prices. The semi-strong form of EMH considers a market to be efficient only if current market prices reflect all publicly available information, such as information on interest rates, dividends announcements, quarter and annual earnings, etc. Thus market traders would not make superior returns from analysis of market information because market prices will immediately adjust to new news. If all market information is immediately reflected in market prices, even private information (inside information) and market participants could not benefit from such knowledge, the market is referred to as strong form of EMH. This assumes that the cost of inside information is zero. This assumption does not exist in reality and thus the strong form of EMH is not likely to hold. Statistical Testing of EMH: The efficient market hypothesis was tested by a number o f statistical test such as autocorrelation, runs test and variance ratio tests. Data: The data used to test for weak form EMH was collected from Yahoo Finance (2008). Historical daily prices for British Petroleum from the British Stock Market were collected 1st of January 2003 to 3rd of November, 2008. This data contains opening price, daily high, daily low, closing price, daily traded volume, and an adjusted close price. Data representing the market is represented by the FTSE 100 British index. FTSE 100 is an index of the largest 100 firms in the UK based on market capitalization. Historical daily prices for FTSE 100 were collected from 1st of January 2003 to 3rd of November, 2008 from yahoo (2008). Daily return is computed by using the following equation: Return (rt) = closing price at any day (pt) - closing price at day before (pt-1) A natural logarithmic transformation is performed on all data of BP and FTSE 100. Daily returns are computed by using the following equation: Return (rt) = closing price at any day (pt) - closing price at day before (pt-1) To generate a time series of continuously compounded returns, daily returns are computed as follows: rt = log (pt) - log (pt-1) = log (pt/pt-1) Where return at some day: rt Closing Price at day (t): pt Closing price at day

Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 47

Journal - Essay Example Nevertheless, it uses captivating pictures that captures the attention of the reader. These pictures show how the protestors are prepared and determined to remain on the streets no matter what happens and regardless of how long it takes to achieve their agenda. The reporters show bias because they seem to sympathize with the pro-democracy demonstrators and condemn the Chinese government for taking a hard stand on the decision not to allow democracy in Hong Kong. This story is timely because of the ongoing demonstrations. The authors use quotes from prominent officials, which gives the story credibility and reliability. Moreover, the reporters gives a background to the issue of Hong Kong demonstrations, and this helps people who have not been following current events understand the context of the story. Finally, the target audience are the Chinese government and world leaders who can bring intervention to help sort out the issue between Hong Kong and Beijing. For the government of China, it aims to show them how resilient the protestors have become, and they are not willing to give up anytime

Friday, August 23, 2019

History class Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

History class - Essay Example In the coast of Long Island, the U.S. Coast Guard saw the wrecked vessel and assaulted it and the mutineers, counting Cinque and some who had paddled ashore in search of water. If Steven Spielberg and his colleagues from DreamWorks restricted their claims regarding the film Amistad to historical precision in the wide-ranging manner only, they could have encouraged a more openhanded reaction from knowledgeable historians. The movie was unsatisfactory in high cinematic art, yet the producers, as innovative creators, have the privilege to assume history and remold it into their desired story bound drama. However, Spielberg and the staff of Dream Works, prior to the December premiere of Amistad, declared their movie to be form of advanced history. They circulated learning brochures for classroom activities in which the film would function, as a motivator of higher critical thinking regarding the importance of history in the perspective of the long-disappeared chapter revived to American past in the movie. For instance, students became aware that the producers exerted immense care to make every feature of this historical tragedy genuine and that both historical tragedy and historical research aspire to depict the reality regarding the past. Most probably, the most interesting scene in the film portrays the slave trade. At the opening of the movie, Cinque, covered with grime and sweating profusely, murky hold of the Amistad uses fingered caked with blood to disentangle himself from his chains. He and his freethinking companions wreaked a box full of sugarcane knives, and then stormed their path to victory. In a violent fight with the captain, Cinque bursts into a primitive fury that permits him to overpower the captain by stabbing him in the chest with his own sword. The camera focused for a long time on a victorious

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Strategy Assesments Essay Example for Free

Strategy Assesments Essay A company strategy is management`s action plan for running the business and conducting operations. (Thompson et al, 2007, p.3). Strategy is a plan-sort of consciously intended course of action, guidelines (or set of guidelines) to deal with the situation. Mintzberg, (1996). According Sanjiv and Stuart, strategy represents managerial commitment to pursue a particular set of actions in growing the business, attracting and pleasing customers, competing successfully, conducting operations and improving the company`s performance. The concept of strategy has been debating issue on our B301 TGF activity 1. 2 to assess the strategic views of two leaders namely Sanjiv Ahuja and Stuart Grief. Both views involve the specification of long-term goals that add value to the organization and propel it to be able to cope with the changing environment. As a practice, it consists of adopting courses of action and allocating resources in ways necessary for carrying out the overall objectives. (Niekerk, C. 2014) post on TGF recommends that strategy is a common theme that runs through both (Stuart and Sanjiv) is that strategy is important for all employees to have a sense of purpose and direction, thereby buying into the companys goals and contributing to the overall success of the organization Sanjiv and Stuart both acknowledge this potent of strategy in the running of business. However they do differ on the implementation, competitive advantages, sustainability and gaining market position. Van Niekerk, C. (2014) posting touched on both views subscribing to some of Mintzeberg’s 5ps models of strategy. Their differences demonstrate the complexity of strategy, how managements intends to grow the business, how it will build a loyal clientele, outcompete rivals and putting together pieces of crossword puzzle of different business units. In agreement with Jordan, W and Uys, R touching on the strategy flexibility, Stuart and Sanjiv if were to change industries so is there strategy is prone to change to suit the new environment. On the same note Grieshaber, D. (2014) has noted similar argument made by O’Sullivan and Wright (2009) to describe strategy as complex and flexible with no one size fits all definition. Both Sanjiv and Stu art acknowledge that businesses or organizations are compelled to make dramatic changes and improvements not only to compete and prosper but also merely to survive. Thompson et al point out that ‘every company must be willing and ready to modify its strategy in response to changing market conditions, advancing technology, the fresh moves of competitors, shifting buyers needs and preferences and emerging market opportunities. Thus to say a company strategy is always a work in progress. They both emphasize the importance of communication in the implementation of strategy. Sanjiv puts planning at the centre of strategic implementation. Sanjiv’s prescriptive approach regards strategy as a systematized and deterministic process where analysis of business performance leads to the formation of a strategic plan. He argues leaders should be in charge in refining the final objective and plan can be put into action through successive layers of the organization. Sanjiv claims that leaders should set the goals, set the strategy to be very simple and understandable to every member of the organization. In this context Sanjiv elevate leaders into supreme level in the formulation and execution of strategy .He presents strategy as a plan that guides organization. Sanjiv’s stand point on is communicating strategy clearly and succinctly – especially in large organization. Strategy must be brief and clearly stated and reduced on one piece of paper. Sanjiv further illustrate that keeping the goals, the objectives in understanding the strategy has to be an inclusive role to play for everyone in an organization. Changing circumstances and ongoing management efforts to improve the strategy cause a company`s strategy to evolve over time, a condition that makes the task of crafting a strategy a work in progress and not onetime event. Stuart Grief also views strategy as an ongoing process to continuously strive to refine and adjustment on yearly basis in order to keep up with the changing dynamics. Stuart seems owes a lot to the concept of â€Å"Kaizen† principles that states, involves every employee from upper management to the cleaning crew. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis. Stuart elevates that strategy as dialogue, the open discussion and debates about specific topic makes more people buying into strategy. Strategy should inclusive of everyone in an org anization so as to better understanding and execution. In a B301 course, (2014, p.22) states that a strategy must be stretched to include employees and organizational arrangements, becomes very virtually everything a company does or consist. Stuart describes strategy as something not durable, don’t last forever Stand must be flexible; strategy cannot be rigid and unchanging in their very nature. The process involves constant learning that leads to the development of another strategy. It goes without saying that practice makes perfect, therefore it applies to a continuous refinements of strategy over a period of time. Every leader has plans that allow for flexibility in formations to adapt to reality. And this sums up that it is not leader or strategists who cause changes in the planning and execution but a reality. Conclusion Both Sanjiv Ahuja and Stuart Grief conception of strategy relates to Mintzberg five Ps plan of strategy. Mintzberg strategy views demonstrate that business or organizations are consciously planning course action and using guidelines to deal with present and future situation. PART TWO. CRITICAL ASSESMENT OF 5P`S OF STRATEGIES OF MINTZBERG TO MAHINDRA MAHINDRA CASE STUDY STRATEGIC PLAN Strategy is a plan – sort of consciously intended course of action, a guidelines (or set of guidelines) to deal with a situation. (Mintzberg, H. (1996). By this definition strategies have two essential characteristics: they are made in advance of the actions, to which they apply, and they are developed consciously and purposefully. Mahindra has been at the fore front looking into the future and therefore provides an opportunity to influence the future, or assume a proactive posture. Mahindra strategic plan was to acquire existing firms that have already existing infrastructure and technology in place but need only direction. For example, the purchasing of struggling and western firms allows Mahindra to gain competitive strategies and gaining market share in specific market segment. Western firm can provide better technology as in most cases they incorporate into research and developments departments. The RD strategy would put Mahindra at the same level of technology advancement with western firms. Effective staffing and leadership provides sense of direction and business continuity and this is seen how Mahindra headhunted Paw an Goenka, veteran of Detroit. Detroit used to be the centre and manufacturing hub for automotives in American history before global financial meltdown. The plan is to plug in every expert, ideas and technology into the system and provides standards of accountability for people, programs, and allocated resources. Diversification is seen as better strategic planning for Mahindra as this help them to control profitable niche markets such logistics and moving away from mass market for conventional cars whereby global giant’s car-making ( Chinese Great wall) are posing threats. Porter, (1985, p.376) comments that diversification strategy can seek to extend any types of tangible interrelations offering the greatest impact on competitive advantage. Strategic planning is the key to helping organization collectively and cooperatively to gain control of the future and the destiny of the organization. Mahindra strategic plan for new pipeline designs for local market and rural distribut ion network that will deter rival as competitive advantage. Porter, (1985, p.3) depicts firm grows fundamentally out of value is able to create for its buyers that exceeds the firm`s cost of creating the plan. STRATEGIC PLOY A specific â€Å"maneuver† intended to outwit an opponent or competitor. Here the strategy is the threat, not the expansion itself, and as such is a ply. In all finance-related activity, diversification means to become involved in a range of different activities or assets, with the goal of reducing exposure to any one particular risk. It is summed up by the saying of not putting all your eggs into one basket. In investing, diversification means avoiding the risk that a particular investment going badly will have serious overall consequences. In business, it covers the risk of being too reliant on one particular element of the market. In this case Mahindra Mahindra for example bought ‘Satyam’ an It-service firm that seemed to lower its market stake but in the end boosted the combined value. Sponsoring of American Bull-riding tournaments seems to be another ploy of eliminating potential rivals. On the one hand the sponsorship creates brand awareness, constantly reminding people to buy Mahindra Tractors. Of course, if they ceased sponsoring such activities people would not immediately bull-riding but their sales would decline with time. Humans attention needs to be reminded, in large part due to being constantly exposed to so much information, so if Mahindra stopped being so present, someone would take their place and with time customers would not think of buying Mahindra tractor. Again Mahindra bought Ssangyong, an ailing South Korean firm in order to boost its presence in pickups trucks but face formidable competitors. Buying out an existing company can be a path to independent wealth, create new growth opportunities for Mahindra that seem to constantly looking for margin expansion. But company buyouts are complex and require considerable investment and attention to detail every step of the way. So to sum up, huge global brands remain highly active in strategic ploy in order to maintain their position atop of the competition. Of course Mintzberg refers this, as strategy of conflict to outwit rivals in a competitive or bargaining situation. Suu Tzu, (2010, p. 10-11) narrates similar strategy by analogy of minuteman, when faced the redcoats on the open battlefield of concord in the traditional frontal confrontation of the time, the minuteman lost. Then, the minuteman made a fundamental shift in their battle tactics and fired on redcoats from behind stones fences as they returned to Boston. This shift in tactics initiated a strategic turn in combat, as the new strategy of skirmishing contributed to the success of the American Revolution. STRATEGIC PATTERN But if strategies can be intended (whether as general plans or specific ploys), surely they can also be realized. In other words, Mintzberg defining strategy as a plan is not sufficient; we also need a definition that encompasses the resulting behavior. Thus a third definition is proposed: strategy is a pattern—specifically, a pattern in a stream of actions. By this definition, strategy is consistency in behavior, whether or not intended. Strategies, in other words, form as well as are formulated and so even good ones need not necessarily be conscious and purposeful. For example Mahindra has demonstrated the consistency of avoiding the risk of graft and cronyism as the order of business in India. Some Luck and good judgments on profitable ventures has steered them away from making bad investment such as ‘Ford’ then opted to invest in its own SUV projects which became successful. Relationship between strategy and behavior is an intricate part of strategic pattern at Mahindra, the enthusiasm to be independent without depending on too mu ch debt, the idea is to be creative in managing cost leadership and use of capital efficiently. Cost advantage gives Mahindra to conserve disposable return by consuming only about one-fifth of the group`s underlying cash-flow. This is evident on their high returns and little debt since most Indian conglomerates are often financial quagmires. STRATEGIC POSITION Strategy is a position specifically a means of locating an organization in an environment. By this definition strategy becomes the mediating force, or match, between organization and environment, that is, between the internal and the external context. But strategy as a position can extend beyond competition too, economic and otherwise. In this case study of Mahindra looks set to dominate India`s market for SUV market. Indian SUV market contributes 55% of operating profit and cash-flow. Indeed this is â€Å"niche† market that needs to avoid competition. Like in military and game theories of strategy or better known as head-on competition where position becomes the sight of the battle, it is a matter of sustainability and survival of the fittest and avoids competition at cost. Mahindra affirms its strategic position as the world largest tractor firm by volume (India and Abroad). Mahindra moved in with speed and accuracy at hand of they have managed to be the 5th biggest Indian family group by sales ($16 Billion) and 17th largest Indian firm by market capitalization ($15 Billion). Sun Tzu point out that throughout history, winning generals in battlefield developed disciplines and systems for moving faster than their opponents to occupy the strategic positions. Napoleon`s is one of the famous warrior in this category. STRATEGIC PESPECTIVE Strategy is a perspective its content consisting not just of a chosen position, but of an ingrained way of perceiving the world. Strategy in this respect is to the organization what personality is to the individual. What is of key importance is that strategy is a perspective shared by members of an organization, through their intentions and / or by their actions. In effect, strategy in this context, it is like entering the realm of the collective mind individuals united by common thinking and / or behavior. Mahindra developed the engineering culture that’s suit the Indian market and it’s noted in the case study that rarely will you find Indian manufacturing success – and Mahindra created its home technology can be regarded as shared perspective. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF MINTZBERG`S FIVE Ps FOR STRATEGY Mintzberg five 5Ps of strategy; plan, ploy, position and perspective are just representative of strategy and does not detail what process to follow. Strategy should consider tactics, and successful tactical implementation requires an appreciation of strategy. The word strategy is widely used in the world of business and uses different meanings for a different purpose. With reference to Mahindra Mahindra case study it does not make sense to applies the theory on each 5P`s of Mintzberg strategy explicitly. It might be understood that all five P`s can make sense together with some underlying internal and external environmental factors that specifically applies the automotive industry. Mintzberg`s paper is data-free and therefore regarded as conceptual, and might not well been defined with supporting empirical base. Mintzberg data follows the analogy of one size fits all and cannot be accepted in empirical study analysis. Strategy as plan needs a well-formulated objectives and purpose, referred to as strategic ambition of the firm. Strategy as ploy needs means of outperforming competition. Strategy as pattern needs to identify what strategic actions have been successful in the past that can be useful and lead to succeed in the future. Strategy as position means to be aware of what the unique sale proposition is and how it compares to competitors in term of positioning and market share. Strategy as perspective needs the development of an organizational culture that can open opportunities to rethink their processes, strategies, and innovative management practices. For instance, Mahindra Mahindra is not at sleep (Case study), is positioning the new SUV models in pipeline and rural distribution network as strategic ploy in its category within the automotive industry. Mahindra Mahindra has used economies of scale, which has allowed them to reduce operating costs (1.9% of its market value) of research and development. CONCLUSION This model has gained adepts including managers prefer Mintzberg’s model to a Porter’s framework for formulation of strategy for its holistic approach as Karl Moore states in his post about whose view of strategy is most relevant today, comparing Porter and Mintzberg. This strategy model allows manager to comprehend a strategy from a wide perspective that involves internal and external analysis and exploit organizations’ core and competencies with the dynamic business environment to achieve superior performance REFERENCES B301 Module course, (2009) â€Å"Making Sense of Strategy: Reading 1 2†. Open University. O’ Sullivan, T and Wright, A. (2009) â€Å"B301 Module Course: Introducing Strategy†. Open University. Thompson Jr, A.A, Strickland, A.J and Gamble, J.E. (2007) â€Å"Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage†. 15th Edn. USA. McGraw- Hill Irwin. Michaelson, G.A and Michaelson, S. (2010) â€Å" Tsu Tzu: The Art of War for Managers†. (2nd Edn). Massachusetts. Adams Media. Porter, M. (1985) â€Å"Competitive Advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance†. New York. Free Press.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

The Social Network Facebook And Privacy Media Essay

The Social Network Facebook And Privacy Media Essay Introduction: We are living in the golden age of technology. Day by day technology is going to be more important in human life. Every aspect of our life like education, medical, business, information, transport, communication etc. demand technological support. It is helping us many ways in our daily life. Nothing is impossible nowadays. Information technology, given us the power to move around the world within minutes. What we got from IT: the communicative world is blessed of IT. There is no community in the modern world which can go through without IT. People nowadays become much more depended on IT. Operating business, financial transaction, entertainment, communicating everywhere we are using IT. In a word the globe is in palm and it happened for IT. As the Information technology playing an important role in our life but sometimes it is affecting our privacy and social life. Privacy: Privacy refers to personal secrecy or private or confidential information or property. In general everyone has some preference, someone likes to listening music and collecting songs and it is his personal privacy or secrecy. If anyone interfere his listening or collecting music that mean it is interfere in his privacy. In the website http://www.privacilla.org, they published, The word privacy has been used to describe many concerns with the modern world. It is a complex concept even before other concerns are lumped with it. The concept of privacy deserves to be carefully examined. It defies easy, and many proposals to protect privacy have gone forward without a clear articulation of what privacy really is. Importantly, privacy is a personal, subjective condition. One person cannot decide for another what his or her sense of privacy should be. (http://www.privacilla.org/fundamentals/whatisprivacy.html) So privacy has no visible size or feature. It actually depends on person and varies community to community and situation. It might be personal opinion, political view, or likings or sensitive information. Day by day the globe is coming closer by influence of various inventions and technological bless. And the word privacy is going to be much more complicated in this technological arena Social networks: Social networking is a grouping of people of same community or people of same neighbour or same likings or we can say it a group of friends. But in the IT world, social network is the best way of communication among people from same institutes or workplace via internet. For example; Facebook, twitter, MSN and many other open networks. Facebook: Facebook is the second largest social network on internet was founded by former-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and launched in February 2004.People using Facebook find their older friends and stay keep in touch with friends and family, make friendship with new people, publish their personal information. Like as, name, gender, interest, study, job etc. people are posting their likings, personal views, or in a word every single moment of our time we are publishing to share with our friends. This information is recorded by the operators in the server. Though sometimes we are deleting from our profile but we cannot delete it from there. How we are affected: According their (Facebook) privacy and policy, Facebook has the right to save our information and to share with third parties if necessary. That mean, with whom they are sharing our information we do not know it. In the same hand the third party, they do not have any obligation to share our information. So the third party can share our information with anyone or can use our information for any purpose. And thats how we are losing our privacy. Our personal preference is going to anyone who is not familiar with us. On the other hand anyone in our friend list can affect us or our social status putting any comment or any post in our wall which result harassment and hamper social status. Again various companies they can use the preference of individuals for their surveys without acknowledging people from their information given at the time of having the account of any social network. Another thing is, as Facebook is an open source network when you sign in you are gett ing a lot of advertisement or application where someone can easily access. And if anyone access in those applications, there is terms that they can access your personal information. By this you are giving your information to them unwillingly. A case study about Facebook abuse/offence: in 28th of August 2010 the popular newspaper METRO in UK published,  £ 10,000 bill for Facebook Jokes'. The news was about two friends. One of them posted a joke about his friend. He said his friend, he likes kids and he is a gay. And it was claimed that about 800 people watched this and that person was so scared to leave home. And their family expressed, it was a horrible and really stressful time for us. [http://e-edition.metro.co.uk/2010/07/28/] This case has been solved by court and the magistrate court fined  £10,000 the person, who commented about his friend. Recent warnings about Facebook: Recently The chief executive of search engine Google has predicted, Web users will one day be able to change their identity in order to escape the traces of their misspent youth available on social networking sites such as Facebook. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/18/google-facebook] Jason Deans guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 August 2010 16.54 BST Article history In the same hand the founder of Facebook cited, The Age of Privacy is over. In a six-minute interview on stage with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Zuckerberg spent 60 seconds talking about Facebooks privacy policies. He said, If he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private. [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_zuckerberg_says_the_age_of_privacy_is_ov.php ,January 9, 2010] So that mean in average everyones privacy is the risk. No one is in secret at least who is using the social networks. Conclusion: Finally we can say that social networks does not only publishing or reciting information about personal but also it is a medium of entertainment. If some steps can be taken to prevent the invasion of privacy all the networks are for our society and our community; to entertain people, keeping them happier and peaceful. On the other hand individuals should be much more aware about their privacy and secrecy. And we can stop to interpret anyones personal life and preference and thus the networks of community will be fruitful otherwise day by day it is going to much worse situation as the founder of Facebook is aware about the privacy and policies of society.

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Origins Of The Bow And Arrow History Essay

Origins Of The Bow And Arrow History Essay Technology has given power to man. The ability to hunt more efficiently, gather and live has all been improved by the innovations of man. At first mans tools were given by nature in their natural form. Rocks and branches can be considered one of the first tools used by Man. After some time and understanding of the resources given. Man was able to manipulate the tools given to provide a more narrow and specific use. For example, the flaking of rocks created sharper edges for cutting. After some time and creation of new tools, man finally invented the bow and arrow. However, the origins and distribution of the bow and arrow can be quite complex. It seems that the origin can be traced back to several locations around the earth and at different times. However, I will only be researching on the origins of the Bow in North America. The origins and studies on the arrow will be brief, but the context of this paper will focus more on the bow. The contents of this paper include the definition and types of bows, the origin locations and distribution of the bows, issues and problems when tracing the bow, and a few case studies that describe how this issue has been applied in the field of archeology. The bow can be simply defined four ways. These definitions are based on the different types that were found when researching the origins of the bow and arrow. The first is the bow consists of a single strip of material that is flexible which was commonly wood (bowR4). This bow definition is the most basic and can be concluded to be the first bow ever created. Second, The bow may consist of two or more materials attached throughout the entire length of the stave so as to form in effect a single piece, (bowR4). This is as if to attach two different pieces of material to create the arch needed. Also these bows can be wood that has a layer of sinew around it, multiple layers of wood, horn used with sinew, or multiple types of wood combined (bowR4). This is a more innovated way of thinking to inventing a bow. Thirdly, The stave may be wrapped with a tough substance such as sinew or rattan, or attached by wrappings to a sinew cable the length of the stave, (bowR4). Lastly, the bow can be d efined by using several segments to piece bound together (bowR4). All these bows are defined in the context of how they were discovered. Describing the types of bows is helpful when archeologists discover and classify found artifacts. However, there are many types of bows. Specifically speaking in the region of North America the types found are the self-bow, composite bow, backed bow and compound bow. However, these types can also be found in other regions around the world. The self-bow is a plain piece of wood that is flexible (bowR4). This is the most common bow found throughout North America. Also we have the composite bow which can be defined as a shaft of which embodies a laminated construction involving more than one type of material such as wood, sinew, and horn, or two woods of different property. Includes the Sinew-linked Bow consisting of a strip of wood and a layer of sinew, (bowR4). The backed bow is a bow that is wrapped in sinew or other elastic material to prevent splitting or breaking of the wood (bowR4). The compound bow is a combination of short segments riveted together (bowR4). These types are the most basic and common bows when discussing the origins of the archery. The first instance and distribution of bows in North America was studied by Mason who established four areas in which the bow types were distributed. What was found was the hard-wood bow, which has a classified type of self-bow, was distributed in the region of east of the Rocky Mountains and south of the Hudson Bay (bowR4). This is one of the simplest bows found and has a much wider range than all the other bows researched. This bow type was also found on the southern border of the Rocky Mountains where it crosses paths with the compound bow (bowR4). The composite bow was found to be in the Northeastern Eskimo and the Siouan tribes (bowR4). The Siouan tribe is also known as the Sioux and they were located in the northern central region of United States. Extending across the Sierra Mountain range and the British Columbia on both slopes is the area where the sinew-lined bow is found (bowr4). Lastly we can find the sinew-corded bow area. When discussing the sinew typed bows Mason is re ferencing to the composite bow type (bowr4). Mason finds three different types in Alaska (bowr4). These types can be argued to be adopted or invented. The first is the South Alaskan, second, the Arctic type and lastly the Western type (bowr4). These types are distinguished differently by their size and form. To see a more visual description of the distribution of the bow types a man named Longman mapped out the world distribution of bows. The study of the North American distribution of bows was mapped out by Longman (Bowr4). He showed a distribution of the types of bows in North America, by displaying the bow type diffusion across the map. Below is a picture depicting the distribution of different types of bows based on Longmans research and facts found after his research (bowR4). This is a good resource when researching the distribution of bows and the areas in which they originated. As you can see the plain bow was widespread over most of North America, specifically running all the way up through Southern North America peaking into what today is known as Canada. There are three different types of composite bows that are described in the picture above, the composite with a closed backing of molded sinews, plain with form allied to composite and the composite with free backing of thongs (bowr4). Northern North America used only the composite free of thong backings, as shown in the picture. However, there is a mix of n early all four types of bows in the Central Western area of North America. This brings up a question of if the bow type were traded among other tribes or perhaps adopted. The second map shown in the picture above depicts the bow areas in which they were found. This also shows a region where many types of bows were mixed concluding that bow types were adopted and the bow evolved. The most basic type of bow found in North America is the plain wooded bow which consisted of a plain stick (bowr4). The other types of bows used the plain bows architecture and evolved the structure to create a more specific and better use for the bow. Another study brought up the question of how and when the bow and arrow was adopted in Eastern North America (bowEasternAmerica). It is commonly accepted that the bow was diffused into the East from the north and west during the late Middle Woodland or early Late Woodland period (bowEasternAmerica). This can be narrowed to a time between 1 CE to about 1000 CE. The concept that the bow was adopted from the north and west was unclear to a specific origin. However, researchers found that the bow and arrow diffused specifically from northeast Asia as well as burial mounds and pottery (bowEasternAmerica). This goes against saying that the bow was invented in North America. However, there is not enough evidence to prove against it. The bow and arrow adoption into North America is assumed since the Mesolithic is proven to have the earliest evidence of bow creation (bowEasternAmerica). The earliest bow evidence in North America started in the north and was spread throughout all of North Amer ica (bowEasternAmerica). The evidence that was provided to prove of this spread and adoption was supported by projectile points. The arrow is considered to be darts that are shortened in length (bowEasternAmerica). It is also well known that the arrow did not replace the dart. This is important because when discovering projectile points one is needed to understand the difference of a dart point and an arrow point which is distinguishable by size. Here is a picture detailing the frequency of the projectile points, their time periods, where they were found and how many were found (bowEasternAmerica). The different shapes and designs are given by the middle columns labeled, for example as A, K, Seq, GvB and GvC (bowEasternAmerica). All of these projectile point types are distinguishable in size and shape. The characteristics of these points usually have a pointed tip with notches on the other end for appending to another material like wood. The discovery of these projectile points suggests the use of the bow and its adoption. Another study questions the origins of the bow and arrow in North America specifically in the region of the Great Basin. Gary Webster states that the origin and dating of the bow and arrow in the Great Basin has been a key issue in a recent debate concerning a cultural hiatus between Archaic and Fremont. To assist in the answer to this debate projectile points that are interpreted are a key factor. Projectile point sequences have aided in the debate among Great Basin pre-historians (bowr3). There is a developmental relationship between the Fremont and Archaic cultures which is also in debate (bowr3). With much debate the dating to the origin of the bow and arrow is assumed to be around 1500 B.P. (bowr3). Researchers have said there is a small link in the argument around the dating of the bow and arrow however, the evidence to date the bow and arrow to an earlier time is insufficient. The evidence from the Dry Creek Rockshelter, which is located in Idaho along the western Rocky Mounta ins, include 13 layers of excavation and is dated between 4000B.P. to 1400 B.P. (bowr3). The excavated site shows a distribution of projectile points which aid in the dating of the bow and arrow. There are a number of arrow and dart points found in this site. The arrow points found were of different types and are defined in the Rose Spring-Eastgate complex (bowr3). From the recovered projectile points it is concluded that there is overlapping of arrow and dart points. The oldest arrow points found are to be dated to 3300 B.P. (bowr3). After much time the largest amount of arrow points found date between 2400 and 1950 B.P. (bowr3). This evidence proves that the bow and arrow did not originate in 1500 B.P., but rather in an earlier time. It is also clear that from this research the bow and arrow did not replace the dart and is evident that bow and arrow was not a dominant weapon till around 1700 B.P. (bowr3). This evidence proves the origin of the bow and arrow in the Great Basin arou nd 2500 B.P. However, it is still in question whether the bow and arrow was adopted by another culture in this region. The study on the adoption of the bow and arrow in eastern North America is reviewed by Michael Nassaney and Kendra Pyle. The debate within this study is distinguishing the difference between arrow and dart points. A quantitative analysis of point form and qualitative reconstructions of bifacial reduction trajectories from Plum Bayou culture sites in central Arkansas indicate that arrow points were abruptly adopted and became widespread about A.D. 600, (bowr6).

Monday, August 19, 2019

The Greek Underwood Essay -- History, The Erinyes, Zeus

THESIS STATEMENT The Greek Underworld can be a dark place, especially for those who have angered the gods, where one can see how the punishments often times fit the crime. PURPOSE STATEMENT Throughout this research paper the Underworld is portrayed as a dark place where those who committed crimes are punished for them which can be extremely brutal. INTRODUCTION The Underworld is often times portrayed only as dark place for criminals, which it is, but it’s where everyone goes after death. â€Å"Souls of the dead who carried an ancient Greek coin in their mouths were ferried across another underworld river, the Styx, by Charon, to begin eternity as citizens of his dark kingdom. Those who did not have a coin remained, lamenting, by the riverside.† (Evans 16). The Underworld is where everyone spent the rest of their afterlife. It was a strict place and there was no escaping. Each person was judged when they entered. â€Å"Osiris became king and judge of the dead in the underworld.† (Ingpen, Perham 18). The Erinyes or the Furies are who punishes the people who have committed crime. Virgil is the one who places them as to where they go. â€Å"The Erinyes – or the Furies – were regarded by some of the poets as his [Hades] daughters, and the three (or sometimes four) of them are often shown standing beside his throne. They were of fearsome appearance, often garbed in black cloaks soaked in blood†¦above all those who murdered their own kin.† (Allen 52-3). The Erinyes ruled with the God of the Underworld, Hades. He was the god who controlled everything that went on in the Underworld. â€Å"Hades was seen as a dark and unattractive god, hard-hearted and merciless.† (Allen 52). Hades was not always the nicest god to be around. But he was ... ...ping from them. They spent the rest of their life being tormented. The underworld has different meanings to it. It’s not just a place for punishment. It is the afterlife for everyone. The underworld is where people go after death. There are different ways to go through it depending on the life that person had lived. They have to sail across different rivers. When they arrive, they are sent to be judged on where they will spend their time in the underworld. If they did not live a good life they will be punished for it. If they lived a good life they go to a place that’s like paradise. Some people who committed serious crimes are sent down right away and they are tortured for all eternity. The underworld cannot always just be a place for those who have not lived the way they should have but also a place for those who did live the life they should live.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

How Bernard Malamuds, The Natural, uses Style to potray Historical events in his era :: essays research papers

Each writer is influenced in many different ways, but, in general, most of their inspiration comes from those events occurring within the era they are living in. They also use various different techniques or styles to portray those events in their writings. Bernard Malamud wrote a novel, published in 1952, called The Natural. This novel used numerous different stylistics elements to reveal the impact sports had in the late 1940s.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One central stylistic element used, in The Natural, to show the impact of sports, in the late 1940s, was structure. The sequencing of the novel is immensely different from the majority of novels. It begins with Roy Hobbs (the main character), at nineteen years of age, when he is aspiring to become a famous baseball player. Almost everyone thinks that he is too young to become a ball player except for one man, Sam Simpson. He became Roy Hobbs’s manager and was taking him too tryout for the Chicago cubs. Ever since he seen him play in high school he believed he had what it took to make it. The ones that didn’t believe in Roy Hobbs Sam Simpson would tell them, â€Å" Well, like I said, he’s young, but he certainly mowed them down in the Northwest High School league last year† (Malamud 14). But, Sam Simpson is killed later on in that chapter, on the way to Roy Hobbs's tryout. No one else is willing to give him a change due to his age, despi te his great high school record for through the most no hitters in high school baseball history. Then, in the next chapter, Batter Up! Part I, it skips to fifteen years later when he gets his first chance to become a baseball player. In the beginning Pop Fisher, manager of the New York knights, did not want to sign him due to his age. Fisher is heard telling him, â€Å" Thirty-four --Holy Jupiter, mister, you belong in an old man’s home, not baseball† (42). But this did not matter because Judge, the owner, had already signed him for a four year contract with the knights. Fisher wanted to contest the contract, yet had no one else to put in his place. So he decided to give him a chance. Finally, the novel reaches the ending of his career, when the Knights are at their peek. Roy Hobbs gets horribly ill and is incapable of playing.

Esther`s Suicide Attempts in Sylvia Plaths The Bell Jar :: Plath Bell Jar Essays

Esther`s Suicide Attempts in The Bell Jar One of the main reasons why Esther tried to commit suicide was the way she perceived her mother's actions, and the fact that she hates her mother: `"I hate her", I said, and waited for the blow to fall.` she obviously believes that hating her mother is wrong, as she expected the doctor to react negatively to her comment. Throughout the novel, her mother has contributed to Esther`s problems. From Esther`s point of view, consequences of her mother's actions have lead to further problems for her. It was her mother who denied Esther the right to go to her father's funeral: `My mother hadn't let us come to his funeral because we were only children then, and he had died in hospital, so the graveyard and even his death seemed unreal to me.` The fact that Esther couldn't really accept her father's death contributed to career problems: she had no idea of what to do with her life, she `thought that if my father hadn't died he would have taught me....` Before visiting New York and getting thrown into the real world Esther had been very successful academically: `I had already taken a course in botany and done very well. I never answered one test question wrong all year.` Because of her perfectionist attitude, Esther was surprised to hear herself say that she didn't know what her career plans were: `Usually I had these plans on the tip of my tongue. "I don't really know", I heard myself say. I felt a deep shock, hearing myself say that, because the minute I said it, I knew it was true.` She claims that she has `always wanted to learn German` although `the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam`. Esther associates the language with her `German-speaking father`, who `cane from some manic-depressive hamlet in the black heart of Prussia'. I think that Esther`s stunt in progress is directly linked to the death of her father, and the little that she knows about him, and that a major factor contributing to her eventual suicide attempt is the fact that she used to be the best and no longer can be. Esther also associates the death of her father with her happiness: `I was only purely happy until I was nine years old. After that - in spite of the girl scouts and piano lessons. Esther`s Suicide Attempts in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar :: Plath Bell Jar Essays Esther`s Suicide Attempts in The Bell Jar One of the main reasons why Esther tried to commit suicide was the way she perceived her mother's actions, and the fact that she hates her mother: `"I hate her", I said, and waited for the blow to fall.` she obviously believes that hating her mother is wrong, as she expected the doctor to react negatively to her comment. Throughout the novel, her mother has contributed to Esther`s problems. From Esther`s point of view, consequences of her mother's actions have lead to further problems for her. It was her mother who denied Esther the right to go to her father's funeral: `My mother hadn't let us come to his funeral because we were only children then, and he had died in hospital, so the graveyard and even his death seemed unreal to me.` The fact that Esther couldn't really accept her father's death contributed to career problems: she had no idea of what to do with her life, she `thought that if my father hadn't died he would have taught me....` Before visiting New York and getting thrown into the real world Esther had been very successful academically: `I had already taken a course in botany and done very well. I never answered one test question wrong all year.` Because of her perfectionist attitude, Esther was surprised to hear herself say that she didn't know what her career plans were: `Usually I had these plans on the tip of my tongue. "I don't really know", I heard myself say. I felt a deep shock, hearing myself say that, because the minute I said it, I knew it was true.` She claims that she has `always wanted to learn German` although `the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam`. Esther associates the language with her `German-speaking father`, who `cane from some manic-depressive hamlet in the black heart of Prussia'. I think that Esther`s stunt in progress is directly linked to the death of her father, and the little that she knows about him, and that a major factor contributing to her eventual suicide attempt is the fact that she used to be the best and no longer can be. Esther also associates the death of her father with her happiness: `I was only purely happy until I was nine years old. After that - in spite of the girl scouts and piano lessons.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Risk Management Failures of British Petroleum

BP is a British global energy company which is the third largest energy company and the fourth largest company in the world. As a multinational oil company, BP is the UK's largest corporation, with its headquarters in St James's, City of Westminster, London. BP America's headquarters is in the One Westlake Park in the Energy Corridor area of Houston, Texas; the company is among the largest private sector energy corporations in the world, and one of the six leaders.In order to project social responsibility and improve its image British Petroleum changed its name into BP in year 2000 with a logo of green and yellow sunflower patterns. Paradoxically the same company symbol is now under derision and the object of controversial attacks from environmentalists and damaging court cases. The company’s predicament further worsened when it was listed as one of the â€Å"ten worst corporations† during the year 2001 and 2006. In fact, BP and its competitors Royal Dutch-Shell were co nsidered by activists to be responsible with the threatening phenomenon of climate change.BP was warned before the oil pipeline leak happened in Alaska, but no action was made by the higher officials to mitigate its possible occurrence and reduce damages. In March 2005, BP's Texas City, Texas refinery, one of its largest refineries, exploded causing 15 deaths, injuring 180 people and forcing thousands of nearby residents to remain sheltered in their homes. A large column filled with hydrocarbon overflowed to form a vapor cloud, which ignited. The explosion caused all the casualties and substantial damage to the rest of the plant.The incident came as the culmination of a series of less serious accidents at the refinery, and the engineering problems were not addressed by the management. Maintenance and safety at the plant had been cut as a cost-saving measure, the responsibility ultimately resting with executives in London. The fall-out from the accident continues to cloud BP's corpor ate image because of the mismanagement at the plant. There have been several investigations of the disaster, the most recent being that from the U. S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board which offered a derisive evaluation of the company.The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation and said management failures could be traced from Texas to London. The company pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Air Act, was fined $50 million, and sentenced to three years probation. On October 30, 2009, OSHA fined BP an additional $87 million— the largest fine in OSHA history— for failing to correct safety hazards revealed in the 2005 explosion. Inspectors found 270 safety violations that had been previously cited but not fixed and 439 new violations.BP is appealing that fine. In August 2006, BP shut down oil operations in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, due to corrosion in pipe lines leading up to the Alaska Pipeline. The wells were leaking insulating agent called Arctic pack, consisting of crude oil and diesel fuel, between the wells and ice. BP had spilled over one million liters of oil in Alaska's North Slope. This corrosion is caused by sediment collecting in the bottom of the pipe, protecting corrosive bacteria from chemicals sent through the pipeline to fight this bacteria.There are estimates that about 5000 barrels (790 m3) of oil were released from the pipeline. To date 1513 barrels (240. 5 m3) of liquids, about 5200 cubic yards (4000 m3) of soiled snow and 328 cubic yards (251 m3) of soiled gravel have been recovered. After approval from the DOT, only the eastern portion of the field was shut down, resulting in a reduction of 200000 barrels per day (32000 m3/d) until work began to bring the eastern field to full production on 2 October 2006.In May 2007, the company announced another partial field shutdown owing to leaks of water at a separation pl ant. Their action was interpreted as another example of fallout from a decision to cut maintenance of the pipeline and associated facilities. On 16 October 2007 Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation officials reported a toxic spill of methanol (methyl alcohol) at the Prudhoe Bay oil field managed by BP PLC. Nearly 2,000 gallons of mostly methanol, mixed with some crude oil and water, spilled onto a frozen tundra pond as well as a gravel pad from a pipeline.Methanol, which is poisonous to plants and animals, is used to clear ice from the insides of the Arctic-based pipelines. From January 2006 to January 2008, three workers were killed at the company's Texas City, Texas refinery in three separate accidents. In July 2006 a worker was crushed between a pipe stack and mechanical lift, in June 2007, a worker was electrocuted, and in January 2008, a worker was killed by a 500-pound piece of metal that came loose under high pressure and hit him.On April 1 2009, a Bond Offshore He licopters Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma ferrying workers from BP's platform in the Miller oilfield in the North Sea off Scotland crashed in good weather killing all 16 on board. On April 20, 2010, a semi-submersible exploratory offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded after a blowout and sank two days later, killing eleven people and causing a massive oil spill threatening the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida. The rig is owned and operated by Transocean Ltd on behalf of BP, which is the majority owner of the oil field.The company originally estimated the size of the leak at about 1,000 barrels a day but later accepted government estimates of a leak of at least 5000 barrels per day. On April 30, BP stated that it would harness all of its resources to battle the oil spill, spending $7 million a day with its partners to try to contain the disaster. BP was running the well without a remote control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producin g nations, Brazil and Norway, as a last resort protection against underwater spills. The use of such devices is not mandated by U.S. regulators. The U. S. Government gave the responsibility of the incident to BP and will hold it accountable for costs incurred in containing the situation. On May 11, 2010, Congress called the executives of BP, Transocean, and Halliburton to a hearing regarding the oil spill. When probed for answers regarding the events leading up to the explosion, each company blamed the other. BP blamed Transocean who owned the rig, who then blamed the operators of the rig, BP. They also blamed Halliburton, who built the well casing.Coming to analyze BP's risk management, it is noted first that BP organization employs the systems of centralized direction and decentralized implementation. The centralized direction system was designed to attain business goals and objectives. The company unifies the corporation by implementing strategic objectives, values, behaviors and standards to be performed and easily understood by their people. On the other hand the systematic objective of BP is decentralized implementation of its operations in order to deliver the best quality of products or services and satisfy the needs of the consumers.The decentralized implementation covered three business segments namely: Exploration and Production, The Gas, Power and Renewable and Refining and Market. As is well known, procedures and controls are a necessary condition for effective risk management, but not a sufficient one. A company’s standards and processes will fail if employees do not feel empowered to follow the standards during times of stress or they fear retaliation for reporting â€Å"unwanted† information. Reading the report of BP and other esources at my disposal I have found that how parts of BP’s culture may have tolerated shortened safety procedures as they fell behind investment schedules and other deadlines. For example, the compan y cut short a procedure involving drilling fluid that is designed to detect gas in the well and skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipe (another buffer against gas) despite BP’s report finding that there were signs of problems with the cement job and despite a warning from the cement contractor company.The experts also concluded that there was not a strong culture of communication across its own team leaders and partner companies. Having multiple players can restrict access to critical knowledge and slow decision-making processes to a dangerous point. Nor did there appear to be a culture where managers were expected to seek out or share contrary information from a different perspective. These cultural elements allowed issues to continue without the application of comprehensive expertise.It seems to be necessary adding more controls, more checks and balances, with auditable risk management processes new minimum standards, and increased self-audits. While some crit eria and thresholds did not exist prior to the accident, it is unclear whether the lack of these controls and audit mechanisms directly caused the accident itself Companies are not able to entirely shift operational or reputational risk to a partner, subcontractor, or supplier. Presumably, BP had in place significant and comprehensive controls and contractual requirements for its contractors and other service providers.However, questions remain about whether these contractual requirements were actually implemented, assessed, and monitored by BP. Anyway, risk management referred to in this paper are the activities related to managing an organization that integrates recognition of risk, risk assessment, developing strategies to manage it, and mitigation of risk using managerial resources. Its primary objective is to reduce the different risks related to threats caused by environment, technology, humans, organizations and politics.Firms usually formulate strategies in order to manage o r mitigate risk by transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the negative effect of the risk, and accepting some or all of the consequences of a particular risk. BP must apply risk management in its corporate financing as the technique for measuring, monitoring and controlling the financial or operational risk on the firm. The commonly used framework breaks risks into market risk (price risk), credit risk and operational risk and also specifies methods for calculating capital requirements for each of these components.In enterprise risk management, a risk is defined as a possible event or circumstance that can have negative influences on the survival of a company. Its impact can be on the very existence, the resources (human and capital), the products and services, or the customers of the enterprise, as well as external impacts on society, markets, or the environment. In a financial institution, enterprise risk management is normally thought of as the combin ation of credit risk, interest rate risk or asset liability management, market risk, and operational risk.All risks can never be fully avoided or mitigated simply because of financial and practical limitations. Therefore all organizations have to accept some level of residual risks. In the case of BP, the following must also be undertaken in addition and consideration of those discussed above. Firstly, it is of major importance to planning how risk management will be conducted must be undertaken: in this regard the plan must include risk management tasks, responsibilities, activities and budget.Secondly, managers responsible for BP will assign a risk officer who will be responsible for foreseeing potential problems. In this respect, it is important also to maintain the risk database and each risk should have an opening date, a title, a brief description, a probability and a suggestion of importance. Once potential sources of risk have been identified, it will also need preparing a p lan for reducing the risk (mitigation plan) for risks that are chosen to be mitigated.In this regard, it is well known that the purpose of the mitigation plan is to describe how this particular risk will be handled what, when, by who and how will it be done to avoid it or minimize consequences if it becomes a liability. BP, in a perspective of reducing the risks described above in the long run as well as in order to optimize and reduce the resources used for that purpose, must eventually summarizing planned and faced risks, effectiveness of mitigation activities, and effort spent for the risk management. Risk Management Failures of British Petroleum BP is a British global energy company which is the third largest energy company and the fourth largest company in the world. As a multinational oil company, BP is the UK's largest corporation, with its headquarters in St James's, City of Westminster, London. BP America's headquarters is in the One Westlake Park in the Energy Corridor area of Houston, Texas; the company is among the largest private sector energy corporations in the world, and one of the six leaders.In order to project social responsibility and improve its image British Petroleum changed its name into BP in year 2000 with a logo of green and yellow sunflower patterns. Paradoxically the same company symbol is now under derision and the object of controversial attacks from environmentalists and damaging court cases. The company’s predicament further worsened when it was listed as one of the â€Å"ten worst corporations† during the year 2001 and 2006. In fact, BP and its competitors Royal Dutch-Shell were co nsidered by activists to be responsible with the threatening phenomenon of climate change.BP was warned before the oil pipeline leak happened in Alaska, but no action was made by the higher officials to mitigate its possible occurrence and reduce damages. In March 2005, BP's Texas City, Texas refinery, one of its largest refineries, exploded causing 15 deaths, injuring 180 people and forcing thousands of nearby residents to remain sheltered in their homes. A large column filled with hydrocarbon overflowed to form a vapor cloud, which ignited. The explosion caused all the casualties and substantial damage to the rest of the plant.The incident came as the culmination of a series of less serious accidents at the refinery, and the engineering problems were not addressed by the management. Maintenance and safety at the plant had been cut as a cost-saving measure, the responsibility ultimately resting with executives in London. The fall-out from the accident continues to cloud BP's corpor ate image because of the mismanagement at the plant. There have been several investigations of the disaster, the most recent being that from the U. S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board which offered a derisive evaluation of the company.The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation and said management failures could be traced from Texas to London. The company pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Air Act, was fined $50 million, and sentenced to three years probation. On October 30, 2009, OSHA fined BP an additional $87 million— the largest fine in OSHA history— for failing to correct safety hazards revealed in the 2005 explosion. Inspectors found 270 safety violations that had been previously cited but not fixed and 439 new violations.BP is appealing that fine. In August 2006, BP shut down oil operations in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, due to corrosion in pipe lines leading up to the Alaska Pipeline. The wells were leaking insulating agent called Arctic pack, consisting of crude oil and diesel fuel, between the wells and ice. BP had spilled over one million liters of oil in Alaska's North Slope. This corrosion is caused by sediment collecting in the bottom of the pipe, protecting corrosive bacteria from chemicals sent through the pipeline to fight this bacteria.There are estimates that about 5000 barrels (790 m3) of oil were released from the pipeline. To date 1513 barrels (240. 5 m3) of liquids, about 5200 cubic yards (4000 m3) of soiled snow and 328 cubic yards (251 m3) of soiled gravel have been recovered. After approval from the DOT, only the eastern portion of the field was shut down, resulting in a reduction of 200000 barrels per day (32000 m3/d) until work began to bring the eastern field to full production on 2 October 2006.In May 2007, the company announced another partial field shutdown owing to leaks of water at a separation pl ant. Their action was interpreted as another example of fallout from a decision to cut maintenance of the pipeline and associated facilities. On 16 October 2007 Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation officials reported a toxic spill of methanol (methyl alcohol) at the Prudhoe Bay oil field managed by BP PLC. Nearly 2,000 gallons of mostly methanol, mixed with some crude oil and water, spilled onto a frozen tundra pond as well as a gravel pad from a pipeline.Methanol, which is poisonous to plants and animals, is used to clear ice from the insides of the Arctic-based pipelines. From January 2006 to January 2008, three workers were killed at the company's Texas City, Texas refinery in three separate accidents. In July 2006 a worker was crushed between a pipe stack and mechanical lift, in June 2007, a worker was electrocuted, and in January 2008, a worker was killed by a 500-pound piece of metal that came loose under high pressure and hit him.On April 1 2009, a Bond Offshore He licopters Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma ferrying workers from BP's platform in the Miller oilfield in the North Sea off Scotland crashed in good weather killing all 16 on board. On April 20, 2010, a semi-submersible exploratory offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded after a blowout and sank two days later, killing eleven people and causing a massive oil spill threatening the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida. The rig is owned and operated by Transocean Ltd on behalf of BP, which is the majority owner of the oil field.The company originally estimated the size of the leak at about 1,000 barrels a day but later accepted government estimates of a leak of at least 5000 barrels per day. On April 30, BP stated that it would harness all of its resources to battle the oil spill, spending $7 million a day with its partners to try to contain the disaster. BP was running the well without a remote control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producin g nations, Brazil and Norway, as a last resort protection against underwater spills. The use of such devices is not mandated by U.S. regulators. The U. S. Government gave the responsibility of the incident to BP and will hold it accountable for costs incurred in containing the situation. On May 11, 2010, Congress called the executives of BP, Transocean, and Halliburton to a hearing regarding the oil spill. When probed for answers regarding the events leading up to the explosion, each company blamed the other. BP blamed Transocean who owned the rig, who then blamed the operators of the rig, BP. They also blamed Halliburton, who built the well casing.Coming to analyze BP's risk management, it is noted first that BP organization employs the systems of centralized direction and decentralized implementation. The centralized direction system was designed to attain business goals and objectives. The company unifies the corporation by implementing strategic objectives, values, behaviors and standards to be performed and easily understood by their people. On the other hand the systematic objective of BP is decentralized implementation of its operations in order to deliver the best quality of products or services and satisfy the needs of the consumers.The decentralized implementation covered three business segments namely: Exploration and Production, The Gas, Power and Renewable and Refining and Market. As is well known, procedures and controls are a necessary condition for effective risk management, but not a sufficient one. A company’s standards and processes will fail if employees do not feel empowered to follow the standards during times of stress or they fear retaliation for reporting â€Å"unwanted† information. Reading the report of BP and other esources at my disposal I have found that how parts of BP’s culture may have tolerated shortened safety procedures as they fell behind investment schedules and other deadlines. For example, the compan y cut short a procedure involving drilling fluid that is designed to detect gas in the well and skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipe (another buffer against gas) despite BP’s report finding that there were signs of problems with the cement job and despite a warning from the cement contractor company.The experts also concluded that there was not a strong culture of communication across its own team leaders and partner companies. Having multiple players can restrict access to critical knowledge and slow decision-making processes to a dangerous point. Nor did there appear to be a culture where managers were expected to seek out or share contrary information from a different perspective. These cultural elements allowed issues to continue without the application of comprehensive expertise.It seems to be necessary adding more controls, more checks and balances, with auditable risk management processes new minimum standards, and increased self-audits. While some crit eria and thresholds did not exist prior to the accident, it is unclear whether the lack of these controls and audit mechanisms directly caused the accident itself Companies are not able to entirely shift operational or reputational risk to a partner, subcontractor, or supplier. Presumably, BP had in place significant and comprehensive controls and contractual requirements for its contractors and other service providers.However, questions remain about whether these contractual requirements were actually implemented, assessed, and monitored by BP. Anyway, risk management referred to in this paper are the activities related to managing an organization that integrates recognition of risk, risk assessment, developing strategies to manage it, and mitigation of risk using managerial resources. Its primary objective is to reduce the different risks related to threats caused by environment, technology, humans, organizations and politics.Firms usually formulate strategies in order to manage o r mitigate risk by transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the negative effect of the risk, and accepting some or all of the consequences of a particular risk. BP must apply risk management in its corporate financing as the technique for measuring, monitoring and controlling the financial or operational risk on the firm. The commonly used framework breaks risks into market risk (price risk), credit risk and operational risk and also specifies methods for calculating capital requirements for each of these components.In enterprise risk management, a risk is defined as a possible event or circumstance that can have negative influences on the survival of a company. Its impact can be on the very existence, the resources (human and capital), the products and services, or the customers of the enterprise, as well as external impacts on society, markets, or the environment. In a financial institution, enterprise risk management is normally thought of as the combin ation of credit risk, interest rate risk or asset liability management, market risk, and operational risk.All risks can never be fully avoided or mitigated simply because of financial and practical limitations. Therefore all organizations have to accept some level of residual risks. In the case of BP, the following must also be undertaken in addition and consideration of those discussed above. Firstly, it is of major importance to planning how risk management will be conducted must be undertaken: in this regard the plan must include risk management tasks, responsibilities, activities and budget.Secondly, managers responsible for BP will assign a risk officer who will be responsible for foreseeing potential problems. In this respect, it is important also to maintain the risk database and each risk should have an opening date, a title, a brief description, a probability and a suggestion of importance. Once potential sources of risk have been identified, it will also need preparing a p lan for reducing the risk (mitigation plan) for risks that are chosen to be mitigated.In this regard, it is well known that the purpose of the mitigation plan is to describe how this particular risk will be handled what, when, by who and how will it be done to avoid it or minimize consequences if it becomes a liability. BP, in a perspective of reducing the risks described above in the long run as well as in order to optimize and reduce the resources used for that purpose, must eventually summarizing planned and faced risks, effectiveness of mitigation activities, and effort spent for the risk management.

Friday, August 16, 2019

Belonging – the Simple Gift’ by Steven Herrick and Ort – the Ugly Duckling’ by Hans Christian Anderson

To belong is to fit in, or to be rightly placed in a specified position or environment. The idea of belonging is a dynamic and an essential aspect of human life which can come through, due to the connections made with the concepts of identity, place, relationships, acceptance and understanding to oneself and other people. These aspects of belonging are demonstrated through the free verse novel, ‘The Simple Gift’ by Steven Herrick, and the fairy tale of ‘The Ugly Duckling’ by Hans Christian Anderson. In the very early stages of ‘The simple gift', Herrick displays sixteen year old, Billy Luckett’s, sense of alienation by using his first person character to highlight social issues such as hostility within his family, leading it to break down, and his feeling of loneliness and worthlessness of identity. This is conveyed in the poem ‘Long lands Road’, where billy’s internal conflict is shown through his un-satisfaction of his original community in which he lived in and was a part of, leaving him disappointed and also a sense of embarrassment towards his identity. He states this clearly with the words, ‘My Street. My Suburb. ’, showing terms of ownership of the place in which his identity currently belongs too, but does not like, giving us a sense of in closure and displacement. This continues as he describes his street, as he throws rocks on the roof â€Å"of each deadbeat no-hoper shithole lonely downtrodden house in Long lands Road, Nowheresville†. The use of colloquialism of Billy’s vulgar language, further demonstrates Billy’s displacement, dislike and disappointment towards long lands road, symbolising a decaying and depressing environment. Billy then ends up taking control of himself and moving out of home. Billy then finds himself on a freight train, in search of a new place to go to, to try and gather a feeling of belonging. After travelling â€Å"two kilometres down the track†, he finds himself freezing cold. The harshness of the cold on the train indicates billy's insecurity about belonging and this indicates that Billy desires to feel warm and needed instead of cold and isolated. He then encounters the train driver, Ernie. Ernie see’s billy and has a conversation with him. He tells him to â€Å"make a cuppa if you want, and here’s some sandwiches, too much salad for my liking†¦ Keep warm; I’ve got a train to drive. † This making Billy feeling accepted and belonging, and being made feel at home by Ernie and a sense of warmth. Herrick has used juxtaposition to demonstrate how Billy has gone from being cold, to feeling a sense of warmth that he is now being comforted with Ernie to the town of Bendarat. Herrick also creates a contrast between billy’s dad and Ernie, â€Å"There are men like Ernie and there are other men, men like my dad. emphasizing Billy’s like for Ernie’s character, as Ernie makes Billy feel like he belongs. In the chapter of ‘Locks and Keys’ Old Bill gives the keys to the old home to Billy and Caitlin. This scene symbolises Old Bill giving over ‘the simple gift’ to Billy. It also gives Billy the feeling of being accepted by Old Bill and belonging. He also learns no t only to understand himself but to also understand Old Bill and Caitlin. Billy also understands how to identify his identity and sense of placement by realising â€Å"I can decide what I really want to do here in Bendarat†. In the last chapter, Denouements have been made, and loose ends have been tied up, where the relationships between Caitlin and Old bill are now stronger and reconnected. The relationship is symbolised through the motif of Old Bill and Bill sharing the Weet-Bix for breakfast. The words â€Å"and I looked up into the sky, the deep blue sky that Old Bill and I shared†, demonstrate that belonging can go far, and the relationship between Old bill and Billy can grow together stronger, as well as the identities of both characters are enabled to grow further, to enrich the self-worth, self-esteem and self-growth of the individuals. Similarly, In ‘The Ugly Duckling’, when the last duckling was hatched, the other ducks took a look at him and stereotyped and judged the duckling, â€Å"It is very large and not at all like the others. I wonder if it really is a turkey†. The duckling was left out of society, with the same sense of loneliness and displacement, because it was not the same as the rest of society. The mother duckling then took her ducklings down to the moat, to prove that the ugly duckling was a normal duckling. Despite all the judgment of the others, the mother took pride of her son, â€Å"see how nicely he uses his legs, and how straight he holds himself. The mother then tried to include her son into the community, â€Å"I’ll lead you out into the world and introduce you to the duck yard. † But there too, the duckling got mocked and taunted, â€Å"what and ugly looking fellow, He’s too big and strange†, lowering the ducklings self-esteem and self-worthiness. And again the mother stuck up for her son, â€Å"let him alone, He isn’t doing any harm. † The ugly duckling that, â€Å"looked so ugly was pecked and pushed about and made fun of†. Anderson has created a sense of sympathy from the audience from using emotive anguage and alliteration. It got so bad, that the ugly duckling got â€Å"chased and buffeted† by everyone including his brothers, sisters and even his own mother. He was â€Å"nipped†, â€Å"pecked†, and â€Å"kicked by the girl who fed him†. â€Å"So he ran away; and flew over the fence. † The use of action verbs create the scene of the duckling being a defenceless creature being forced to flee, as a result of the social rejection on all fronts. Similarly to Billy, as he left home as he was abused by his drunken father as well. After running through a great hunt, the ugly duckling had encountered a flock of birds that appeared out of the reeds. â€Å"The duckling had never seen birds so beautiful. They were dazzling white with long graceful necks. They were swans. They uttered a very strange cry as they unfurled their magnificent wings to fly from this cold land, away to warmer countries and to open waters† The use of bucolic language used by the composer to describe the swans triggers us to gain an insight of how much love the ugly duckling has for the creatures. Like the change in temperature Billy experiences on the train, the magnificent birds fly from the cold land that the ugly duckling is stuck on as it experiences unacceptance by others and not being able to belong in society, as the swans move into a more accepted, belonging environment together. He then had to go through â€Å"the hardships and wretchedness† of the cruel winter, to make it into the â€Å"beautiful springtime†. He swept through the air much strongly than before. He flew over the water and re encountered the â€Å"splendid swans†. Bowing his head, thinking he would be attacked and killed, seeing his mirrored self. And was â€Å"no longer the reflection of a clumsy, dirty, grey bird, ugly and offensive. He himself was a swan! † The composer has shown us that after all the hardships the ugly duckling had endured that, he finally found where he belonged. It was a place of acceptance amongst the other swans. After a life time of torcher and alienation he could be happy, because he belonged where he was loved. Belonging is not a set list that must include a connection to people, places, objects and to the wider world, but everyone’s idea of belonging is different but it involves a deeper emotional sense of fulfilment and connection made with yourself, the relationships you have, and with the wider world, but this is different for each person depending on their needs and life experiences, thus forming the foundation of an individual’s self-image, self-worthiness, self-esteem and self-growth.