Food Insecurities Essay

Have you ever seen a person yell at his colleague or his partner, overreacting on a particular matter that has caused not only the person who got yelled at to feel annoyed, but also third parties who know about it or have witnessed the scene? For the many who do not wish to get into the mess, or has enough logic sense to not judge immediately, they will most likely give out a fair statement and try to reason out that person’s overreaction by saying he probably had a bad day or he probably has dilemma at home. However, if we take a bit closer and look closely, all of us will eventually realise that it all goes down to one matter; insecurity. Insecurities are not something new and unfamiliar to the human kind. Everyone has insecurities, regardless of whether they realise it or not. The Oxford Dictionary defines insecurity as the uncertainty or anxiety about oneself or lack of confidence. Insecurities exist in every living soul on this planet. Till today, it is still seen as a negative matter as not many have addressed this issue in proper ways using proper mediums. Most parents don’t even talk about it and shove it away when their children decide to speak up about it. Little do people know that the slightest things in life are the ones that add up to our insecurities. The amount of insecurity in a person differs from one to the other. The types of insecurities that one possesses also vary. The most common type of insecurity is physical insecurity. Let’s face it; human beings are never satisfied. Even when you have all the parts of the body needed to sustain and go through your daily routine with ease, you still beg for more. Some want healthier and shiner hair, some want to be taller, but most importantly, everyone wants something. It is not just human beings as an individual who face insecurities, but also countries and states. Currently, the world is looking at the issue of food insecurity, which is also classified as a type of insecurity. Food security may be said as the availability of food and one’s access to it. Hence, the United Nations have defined food security as all people at all times having both physical and economic access to the basic food they need. For more than 2 billion of people on this planet, they are lucky to not worry about this form of insecurity. However, we might not realise this but this matter is more complicated than it seems. Food securities may result from many different causes. It is imperative that we focus on why are the food insecure, and why are the people are food insecure. Among the most common causes of food insecurities are drought and extreme weather changes. This setback, which is very commonly faced by third world countries, usually ranges from overnight floods to droughts. In short, the climate changes faced by these countries are extreme. In most African countries, like Nigeria, droughts are not new to them. It has been a setback since the time of their ancestors; nonetheless, they are helpless at it and have no comeback on solving this matter. In many comparisons throughout time, some of the most severe food crises were all preceded by drought or by other similarly extreme weather events. These extremities result in poor and failed harvests which in turn results food scarcity and high prices of the available food. As mentioned in the Climate and Development Knowledge Network report entitled ‘Managing Climate Extremes and Disasters in the Agriculture Sectors: Lessons from the IPCC SREX Report’, such force of nature causes impacts which will include not only food insecurity, but changing productivity and livelihood patterns, economic losses, and impacts on the infrastructure. Besides that, the natural resource base for the poor and food-insecure is invariably narrow and, in many areas, fragile. With the exception of Uganda only 4 to 10 percent of the land area is classed as arable, and just a small area of land suitable for rainfed cultivation. The greatest numbers of poor people are concentrated in the arid and semi-arid ecosystems and on marginal land in the higher rainfall parts of the region. It has become axiomatic to say that poverty is one of the main causes of environmental degradation. This can be seen all too clearly in the farming of steep slopes, which takes place as an increasing population is forced to cultivate marginal land. The falling crop yields that characterize the marginal areas are a result of the loss of massive quantities of topsoil throughout the region, declining soil fertility as fallow systems are replaced by continuous cultivation, reductions in soil organic matter as manure is burnt for fuel, and shrinking holding sizes. However, the poor are also the most vulnerable to environmental degradation because they depend on he exploitation of common property resources for a greater share of their incomes than richer households do. In the rangelands, the evidence for long-term secular environmental degradation is ambiguous. The successive cyclical growth and decline of herds reflects cycles of rainfall and rangeland productivity, and is perfectly normal. As animals die in large numbers, the rangelands recover remarkably quickly. However, when there i s a major drop in the number of animals, the people who depend on them for their livelihoods also suffer. Development programmes that have sought to increase animal production on rangelands through water development and animal disease prevention have all too often failed to find, at the same time, sustainable ways of increasing animal nutrition, so the resulting increased numbers of animals may wreak havoc on the range itself. Many of the available freshwater resources are in river basins and lakes that extend beyond the boundaries of individual nations. Shared water resources include lakes Victoria, Albert, Edward, Kivu and Turkana and major rivers such as the Blue Nile, White Nile, Atbara, Awash and Shebele. The potential for developing irrigation from these sources is constrained by the problem of achieving agreement on sharing the resources and avoiding conflict. Although natural climatic factors have played their part in the process of desertification, in general, it is increased population and the related development of unsustainable production systems that have had most negative impact on the fragile natural resource base. Wood and manure have remained the main sources of domestic energy, even in urban centres. This situation has contributed to depleting the forest and range resources, resulting in an overall decrease in biomass and biodiversity, reduced water infiltration and increased runoff and soil erosion. These factors, which contribute to the impoverishment of ecosystems, have led to a vicious circle of environmental degradation, lower system resilience to erratic rainfall, decreased agricultural productivity and increased poverty and food insecurity. Not only that, the cause of food insecurity in these third world countries are also caused by the poor state of development and maintenance of roads and transport, energy sources and telecommunications in the marginal areas of countries in the Horn of Africa makes it difficult for these areas to become integrated into the national and regional economy. As with all other indicators of development, the countries of the region have some of the worst figures worldwide with respect to access to roads and water supply. A recent report suggests that, in terms of access to infrastructure, the gap between Africa and the rest of the world has widened over the past 15 years. The sparse road and communications network hampers emergency relief operations as well as the commercialization of the rural economy. The density of the road network in the countries of the region gives an idea of both how difficult it is to reach people in rural areas with services and the problems such people face in participating in the market economy. For example, in Ethiopia, every kilometre of road serves 72 km 2 and 3 000 people, compared with only 8 km 2 and 850 people in North Africa. Even after strenuous efforts by development agencies and NGOs, access to a clean water supply is still an unobtainable luxury for most rural inhabitants in the Horn. Piped systems are uncommon in rural areas and protected wells and hand pumps are the best that rural communities can expect. The burden of collecting water, as with so many other menial tasks, falls almost exclusively on women in the communities, who must spend many hours each day collecting water from unsafe sources. The statistics on access to water and sanitation reveal wide differences within the region. In three countries, namely Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, only one-quarter of the population has access to safe water, and in two others (the Sudan and Uganda) the figure is less than 50 percent. Access to sanitation is as low as 13 percent and, except for Kenya, barely exceeds 50 percent anywhere. In addition to that, the indicators of access to social services in the countries that face the setback of food insecurity are also among the lowest in the world. While the average figures are bad enough, they mask fundamental inequalities in access to services within the region. Again, rural areas, especially remote, low-potential areas are the least well served. Nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralists are the most difficult populations to provide services to and, consequently, they are invariably the ones with the poorest health services and least education. All these indicators, combined with malnutrition and poor access to safe water, have adverse consequences for productivity and for the long-term physical and cognitive development of people in the region. Also, let us not forget the fact that crop and plants as well face diseases. Diseases affecting livestock or crops can have devastating effects on food availability especially if there are no emergency back-up plans in place. For example, an epidemic of stem rust on wheat which was spreading across Africa and into Asia in 2007 caused major concern. A virulent wheat disease could destroy most of the world’s main wheat crops, leaving millions to starve. The fungus had spread from Africa to Iran and may already be in Pakistan. A different threat, on the other hand, has attacked the African continent’s second biggest crop; wheat. In 1999, 50 years since the last outbreak, a contemporary and virulent strain of stem rust attacked the Ugandan crops. Its spores then travelled to Ethiopia and Kenya, before appearing in Iran last year. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nation (FAO) has given warning to six other countries in the Central and South Asia to be prepared and keep an eye for symptoms of this new strain while scientists in the United States of America are working diligently in searching for a resistant that combats this problem. It is important that the remedy for this will be obtained quickly as in India alone; more than 50 million small-scale farmers are at risk because they depend on wheat for their food and earnings. Most importantly, we must not overlook that politics and dictatorship also play a role in food insecurity. Many do not realise that politics play a part in something as serious as this. As mentioned by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amarya Sen, â€Å"There is no such thing as an apolitical food problem. It is more often than not that the administration of the country that determines its severity, or even whether the famine will occur. If truth be told, the 20th century is full of examples of governments undermining the food security of their own nations. Let us take a look at Nigeria, Africa’s most densely inhabited state, where a legacy of corrupted governance and an economy based primarily on oil exports has left the agriculture sector significantly undermined, leaving millions of N igerians in deep hunger. True, the neighbouring countries export food to Nigeria in exchange for money, but remember; the people in these neighbouring countries need food too. And they are much poorer than those living in Nigeria. It was reported by the United Nations that thousands of children in countries neighbouring Nigeria died because of malnutrition. These kids paid the price not because of food shortage in their country, but because of food shortage in Nigeria. The distribution of food is often a political issue in most countries. The government will always give priority to urban areas and cities, since most influential and powerful families and enterprises are located there. The ruling government over and over again for generations overlooks the subsistence farmers and rural areas in general. In other words, the more rural an area, the less likely the government will pay attention to solving its needs. What’s more is that the governments of these countries would normally keep the price of basic grain at extremely low levels that subsistence farmers cannot accumulate sufficient capital to make investments to improve their production. Hence, they are prevented from getting out of their precarious situation. In addition, food has always been a political arsenal by the dictators and warlords, where they reward their supporters and deny food supplies to those areas that are against them. Under this condition, food has become more like a currency instead of a basic need that cannot be denied rights of. Food has become the money to buy support and used against the opposition. Even in Guatemala, income inequality is amongst the worst in the world, with indigenous communities at a disadvantage. In some areas, an estimated 75 percent of the children, ranging from infants to children ages six and seven years old, are severely malnourished. And this is a shocking statistic relating food scarcity coming from a country that is merely a four-hour flight away from the USA. Furthermore, it was pointed out in William Bernstein’s 2004 publication entitled ‘The Birth of Plenty’ that individuals without property will lead to starvation and it is much easier to bend the fearful and the hungry to the will of the state. If a farmer’s property can be arbitrarily threatened by the state, that power will inevitably be used to intimidate those with different political and religious opinions. It is fundamental and crucial that we understand and be aware of the consequences of this global food scarcity. The effects might be similar to the effects of malnutrition and hunger, where, at the outset, the human population will be affected greatly in the sense where stunted growth may occur. The stunting starts in when the baby is still in the mother’s womb and happens till the age of three. Once stunting happens, giving proper nutrition to these helpless children will not help in reversing the damage or improving the child’s condition. Pregnant mothers who do not receive the correct amount of nutrition needed may risk of having a higher chance of infant and child mortality later on, which is, of course, a very heartbreaking circumstance. Apart from that, severe malnutrition during one’s early childhood also leads to defects in cognitive development. Stunted individuals also have a higher chance of getting diseases and illnesses as compared to those who have not experienced stunting. It must also come to the attention that food insecurity is also associated with various developmental consequences for children in the United States. A research was conducted by Diana F. Jyoti, Edward A. Frongillo, and Sonya J. Jones to prove that food insecurity is linked to specific developmental consequences for children, and whether these consequences may be both nutritional and nonnutritional.

Functional Areas of Business Paper Essay

The role that one should play as a manager in the functional areas of human resource management is making sure within my organization that I focus on the recruitment of the best workers they need in our organization success. I want to make sure that each person can work comfortable and safe environment. Human resource management it gives you three reasons why it is important. â€Å"First, it can be a significant source of competitive advantages as various studies have concluded. Second, HRM is an important part of organizational strategies. Finally, the way organizations treat their people has been found to significantly impact organizational performance† (Robbins & Coulter, 2012, p. 312-313). A manager in the functional area of human resource management is my responsibility to ensure the organizational objectives are fulfilled. Strategic Planning is another functional area that I am interested in. As a manager my purpose is to achieve and clarify the results of an organization. As a manager I must ensure that we work together in achieving the same goals. Strategic planning â€Å"are plans that apply to the entire organization and establish the organization’s overall goals† (Robbins & Coulter, 2012, p. 207). Which I know that strategic planning is a process where I will have to make choices and decisions to help develop the necessary approaches to achieving the organizational goals. Human resource management is very important to an organization. To help me with my statement I read a peer reviewed article that had some interested things about human resource management and why it is important. According to the article â€Å"the modern role of human resources management is recognized in the following range: newly defined aims which this scientific discipline, and practice as well, appoint as direction of relevance, redesigned processes by which it implements its activities and of course, new demands in the â€Å" palette† of managerial competencies of its experts† (à urović, 2012, p. 87). As a manager it is my duty to ensure the best for and organization. To fulfill these objectives it cannot be done alone we have to work together so we can reach those goals. Strategic planning is very important as well to a manager. I read another peer-reviewed article that I could relate and  use for my own benefits. In this article, â€Å"So good strategic planning is not about predicting the future, it is about shaping the future and developing the intellectual agility and alertness to recognize the future as it goes by in order to respond in a agile and appropriate fashion† ( Blatstein, 2012, p. 33). I know as a manager that both human resource management and strategic planning are both helpful within an organization. I cannot see why any manager would not use these functional areas too their organization advantage. Reference Page Robbins S.P., and Coulter, M. (2012). Management (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Prentice Hall. à urović, M. (2012) Human Resources Management-Strategic Aspect. Management (1820-0222). Issue 62, p83-88. 6p. Blatstein, I. M. Summer (2012) Strategic Planning: Predicting or Shaping the Future. Organization Development Journal, Vol. 30 Issue 2, p31-38. 8p. 3 Graphs.

Maple Leaf Foods Essay

In the summer of 2008 there was a widespread outbreak of listeriosis linked to deli meats produced in a Maple Leaf Foods, Inc. (Maple Leaf) plant in Toronto, Canada. The outbreak claimed over 20 lives and sickened hundreds. This reaction paper will take a deeper look at the crisis, analyze the company’s response, and address ethical issues related to the case such as responsibility, honesty, and transparency. Similar cases involving recalls made by Menu Foods, Tylenol and Mattel will be discussed as a contrast. Listeriosis is an infection caused by the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. Listeria is a common bacterium found in all sorts of food plants but is dangerous at high levels, especially for adults over fifty, pregnant women, newborns, and people with a weakened immune system. The listeria at Maple Leaf was found in two of its industrial sized slicers. The experts believe it was buried deep inside the machines where it couldn’t be cleaned during sanitation. Hospitals and retirement homes were providing the contaminated Maple Leaf meats to their patients and residents respectively. Seniors, vulnerable to the bacteria, became ill and some eventually died. Michael McCain, Maple Leaf’s CEO, offered a sincere apology immediately after the officials confirmed the link between the outbreak and Maple Leaf products. He described the crises as â€Å"the toughest situation we’ve faced in the 100 years of this company’s history.† He then, as a precaution, expanded the recall to include all 220 products produced at the Toronto plant. The costs were estimated at $20 million. So who was responsible? Obviously, the listeria was linked back to Maple Leaf, but what about the regulators? Shouldn’t they have set more stringent policies to prevent such occurrences? Or maybe situations like this can’t be avoided since listeria can’t be fully eliminated from food plants like Maple Leafs. Maybe the hospitals or retirement homes should be more careful with the food they provide to people with weak immune systems. Some of the points given might be stretching it but they are valid arguments, nevertheless. Maple Leaf had a choice to make; it could have tried to defend itself and divert responsibility by pointing fingers or it could have taken responsibility. Mr. McCain made the choice to take full responsibility. â€Å"We had a breach, and we took accountability† he says in an interview with Maclean’s magazine. He expanded the recall to include all 220 products produced at the plant, which cost an estimated $20 million. He committed to implementing safety standards that are amongst the most conservative in the world. Finally, he decided to handle lawsuits as promptly as possible by giving people what they wanted for the most part. The decisions that Mr. McCain made seem to be costly ones, at least in the short run. It can be argued that Maple Leaf, being a public company, has an obligation to maximize shareholder first and foremost. Increased costs could negatively impact shareholder value. So did Mr. McCain make the right choice? To answer this question we use Menu Foods, Tylenol, and Mattel as examples and summarize using Tucker’s five questions. In March 2007, Menu Foods, a manufacturer of over 90 brands of dog and cat food, recalled 60 million cans of pet food after it was discovered that the pet food contained wheat gluten tainted with melamine and cyanuric acid. The combination of the chemicals caused kidney failure and death in some cases. The source of the toxic chemical was traced back to Chinese pet food manufacturer, ChemNutra. The company did not handle the recall in a timely manner and it failed to assume full responsibility. Rather the CEO tried to portray the company as a victim. Ultimately, the recall cost Menu Foods an estimated $53.8 million and the company faced multiple lawsuits. The company’s stock price fell as much as 91% within a year of the recall and was eventually purchased by Simmons Pet Food in August 2010. In 1982, several people died as a result of taking Tylenol, which was contaminated with cyanide. After investigation it was discovered that the Tylenol were tampered with. Johnson and Johnson, the parent company, recalled all 31 million bottles and created a tamper-proof bottle. The recall and the new bottle design cost Johnson and Johnson over $100 million. It was a costly move for the company in the short-run but it was a smart and ethical strategy in the long-run as it helped rebuild costumer confidence in the company’s products. Similarly in August 2007, Mattel recalled 20 million Chinese manufactured toys that had potentially toxic lead paint and magnets that could be dislodged. Mattel’s CEO took personal responsibility and the company aggressively notified the public about the recall. Mattel handled the recall quite well and was able to maintain a good brand reputation. From the three examples provided above, the observation can be made that consumers react much more favourably to companies that take full responsibility when they make a mistake, work quickly to resolve the problem, compensate those affected fairly, and act in an honest and transparent manner. Tylenol and Mattel might have made costly decisions in the short run but were able to restore customer confidence and improve shareholder value in the long run. Tucker’s five questions is a useful way to assess Mr. McCain’s decision to take full responsibility and take costly measures to improve the safety program of Maple Leaf. First, was the decision profitable? In the short run no, but in the long run yes the decision was profitable as sales levels were maintained. Two, was it legal? Yes. Three, was it fair? Yes, for the most part it was fair. The people that lost family members will not get them back, but impacted individuals were compensated as fairly as possible. Furthermore, the consumers and shareholders were communicated to in an honest, genuine, and transparent manner. The fourth question asks, was it right? Yes, the right thing to do in a sensitive situation like this was to admit to the mistake and act in the most virtuous way possible to correct the wrong. The final question asks, was it sustainable? Maple leaf committed to making its safety standards among the most conservative in the world. This commitment was a long-term decision that has helped foster a culture of high standards that will enhance sustainability in the long run. In conclusion, Mr. McCain’s decision to take full responsibility and act in an honest and transparent manner was the right and ethical decision to make. He was able to restore customer confidence in the company and increase shareholder value in the long run.

Research paper on the author Dylan Thomas Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

On the author Dylan Thomas - Research Paper Example J.M. Kertzer has already noted that Thomas’ critics have made two conflicting claims: â€Å"some insist that he is "the least intellectual poet of the century" because his poetry does not appeal to or depend on reason; others hold that his work displays "rigorous intellectual organization" which provokes a subtle play of thought† (295). While the first assertion implied that the wild poet has created his poems spontaneously without resorting to logic; the second claim employed that Thomas had a rigorous intellectual control over his creations, although he was inspired by â€Å"the cult of irrationality†. Dylan Thomas, paradoxically, acknowledged both views and tried to reconcile them. On the one he asserted that his poems’ â€Å"form was consistently emotional† and â€Å"illogical naturally† (cited by Kertzer 295). On the other hand, he defined himself as a "painstaking, conscientious, involved and devious craftsman in words† (295). He advocated â€Å"passionate ideas† in order to reconcile both views. For him those â€Å"‘passionate ideas’ come to life ‘out of the red heart through the brain’ (EPW, p. 165). Both thought and feeling must be engaged in ‘the antagonistic interplay of emotions and ideas ... brain chords and nerve chords’† (295). Thus, he focused on mind-body relationship while he tried to synthesize rational thoughts with emotions as they are engaged in a battle. Furthermore, for him, a poem must be both intellectual and emotional â€Å"adventure† for the reader. Dylan Thomas’ notion of â€Å"adventure† must be examined more closely in order to have a better understanding of his poetics. According to Thomas, adventure is movement and â€Å"all poetical impulses are towards the creation of adventure† (296). For him, a poem does not reflect life; but itself must be part of life, as he described a poem in terms of action, and

Different Ways to Wear a Scarf Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Different Ways to Wear a Scarf - Essay Example Fashion has not only become a determining factor of what or who is beautiful, but has also become a status symbol. The more accessorized or hip and trendy one looks, the better. And while some women can afford to have the expensive and latest fashion products by world-class designers, some have to do with the little accessories available on the market. So for these women, here are a few steps on how to accentuate their looks and become more fashionable by using one of the most common and cheap accessories- the scarf. During the Renaissance period, scarves were worn as badges of military rank. It is worn from the left shoulder to the right hip, as a baldric (Hand Made with Care, n.d.). But today, it can be worn as a headdress, a blouse, a belt, etc. Today, I am going to teach you how to make a halter-style blouse and a headdress called a crown out of a scarf. For the halter-style blouse, what you need is a square scarf at least 120 cm2. First, take the square scarf and tie a small knot in the center of the scarf. If the scarf has an apparent front and back, make sure the knot is tied on the back side of the scarf. Next, fold the scarf diagonally so that the knot is on the inside of the fold. Wrap the folded edge of the scarf around your waist, letting the unfolded points hang down.

Gun Manufacturer's Liability Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Gun Manufacturer's Liability - Essay Example It was due to these persistently occurring firearms caused mortality incidents that spurred the application of legal remedies to regulate the purchase and use of firearms. Regulatory statutes in the past 15 years focused on mandating the legal responsibilities of gun manufacturers in an effort to reduce firearms related deaths. According to former Attorney General Robert Kennedy, "It is a responsibility to put away childish things - to make the possession and use of firearms a matter undertaken only by serious people who will use them with the restraint and maturity that their dangerous nature deserves - and demands" (US Department of Justice 2). Deterring firearms deaths require a holistic solution that targets two major sectors for gun regulation, gun owners and gun manufacturers including the channels of distribution between the two sectors. Every regulatory measure have been met with opposition and criticism from one sector or the other due to the public interest issues involved in gun manufacture and ownership. Strict regulation of gun manufacturers led to the enactment of laws providing the responsibilities and corresponding liabilities of gun manufacturers. An analytical discussion of the responsibilities and liabilities of gun manufacturers, the controversies surrounding the s... In terms of the responsibilities for firearms production, manufacturers hold the duty to design and assemble their products for safe use so that in case of defects they hold liability for injuries and damages subject to the provisions of tort law. The purpose of liability is to motivate gun manufacturers to consider optimum safety in firearms design. This is important since guns together with tobacco are exempt from safety oversight by the federal government. (Low 43) Under tort law, the failure of gun manufacturers to perform their duty of care in ensuring that the firearms they sell to the public are free from foreseeable design defects opens them to liability for negligence based on claims for damages and physical injuries. Penalties for negligence range from suspension and cancellation of businesses licenses to payment of compensation for damages depending upon the extent of link to these incidents. (Cook and Ludwig 2) Responsibility for product design fell upon gun manufacturers because of the significant number of deaths and injuries caused by faulty firearms designs together with recognition that gun manufacturers hold the best position in identifying potential defects and ensuring that the firearms they sell to the public are free from faulty design. Moreover, gun manufacturers have a certain degree of control over the use of the firearms they produce. They can implement certain control mechanisms over the distribution of their products to the criminal market. (Low 43) In relation to the accountability of gun manufacturers for the distribution and sales of firearms, their statutory responsibility is enshrined in the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act 1993 as strengthened by the Youth

The Neutron Electric Dipole Moment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

The Neutron Electric Dipole Moment - Essay Example A concise introduction and explanation of the different experimental techniques used in the study of neutron EDM are provided in this research work. These techniques include the room-temperature experiment, Ramsey’s technique, and the mercury magnetometer. A brief discussion of the prevailing systematic uncertainties such as the geometric phase effect is also included. A recent neutron EDM experiment, which is more sensitive and still in progress is also incorporated and detailed in this study. For over 50 years, the quest for an electric dipole moment (EDM) of a neutron has been a great endeavor in the field of physics.3 4 5 Ramsay’s search for a permanent EDM in the 1950’s leads the way to what seems to be an endless pursuit. Experimental sensitivity has increased significantly; in fact, it improved by more than 106 factor.6 An impressive breakthrough in improving the experimental sensitivity, accountable for every eight years or so, is shown in Figure 1.7 Despite such remarkable accomplishment, there was no EDM ever observed. The reason for this apparently obsessive behavior by a small group of dedicated physicists is that the observation of a nonzero neutron EDM would be evidence of time reversal violation and for physics beyond the so-called standard model of electroweak interactions. An essential point is that the standard model predictions of the magnitude of time reversal violation are inconsistent with our ideas of the formation of the universe; namely, the production of the presently observed matter-antimatter asymmetry requires time reversal violation many orders of magnitude greater than that predicted by the standard model. According to Steven Weinberg, the electric dipole moments may offer one of the most thrilling prospects for progress in particle physics; a bright future awaits prospective experiments because calculating electric dipole moments have been progressive recently.

Figurative Language versus Literal Language Assignment

Figurative Language versus Literal Language - Assignment Example Amphiboly An amphiboly is a misleading notion that relies on either a vague word or a grammatical formation and meant to puzzle or give a wrong impression to an audience. In essence, amphiboly is created from fallacies through modification of sentence structures in such a way that the sentence will have two or more meanings. A speaker may choose to create a sentence in a careless manner in order to arouse peoples’ attention for instance in an advert. An amphiboly is best demonstrated in the advert below. â€Å"Four rooms apartments for rent inclusive of; cooking room, private phone, river sight and bathroom†. Someone might e tempted to think that the advert talks about a four bed roomed house that has a private phone, a private kitchen and a private bathroom. But in reality, the only thing that is private in this room is private phone. The other utilities are to be shared somewhere within the apartments. Analogy This is a logical argument which shows similarity between two things or situations while pointing out that if two things or situations are similar in one way, then they should be similar in others. Example; after John was jailed, he felt like a fish out of water. This means the conditions under which John was is comparable to the conditions a fish moved out of water would be. It means that he was very uncomfortable as a fish would die outside water. Flame word Flame words are words that give an impression of an insult in their use. Flame words are used in conjunction with other figures of speech when a speaker wants to give an insulting comment. Example, â€Å"You are such a snob†. The phrase can often be misused to mean that though the speaker is a liar, the subject is a better liar. This phrase may sometimes be misunderstood to mean an intentional accusation and cause a conflict. Metaphor It is a figure of speech that uses one thing to mean another. It is used to make a comparison between two things. For instance, â€Å"the old l ady cried until he became a child†. Literally the audience may be tempted to think that the lady cried until he changed into a child but this is not true metaphorically. In fact, it means that he cried like a child. Hyperbole This is the use of exaggeration to produce a comic effect. Hyperboles are therefore comparisons that are excessive and outrageous in nature. Example, â€Å"The comedy was so funny the crowd died of laughter†. The above sentence does not mean that anybody died. It rather means that fun was extreme so people laughed a lot. It is used to show extremity of actions or events. Simile â€Å"A simile is a figure of speech that gives a comparison between two dissimilar things to give a different meaning† (Myers & Smith, 2008). It uses the words â€Å"like or as† in comparison. For example, he is a coward like a hyena or he is brave as a lion. The first example compares the cowardice of the subject to that of a hyena while the second example co mpares the subject’s gallantry to a lion’s bravery. Similes are used in speech to arouse the attention of the audience. Euphemism It is a polite term that is used in place of other words or phrases to pass harsh or unpleasant information to the audience. It can also be used to pass a harsh or bitter truth in a friendlier manner. For instance, the old woman passed away yesterday. The words ‘passed away’

Analysis of Legalization of Marijuana Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Analysis of Legalization of Marijuana - Article Example If one were to analyze the legislation and initiatives of the past few years it will be evident that public favor to legalize medicinal marijuana has increased and this in return has propelled some states to decriminalize medicinal marijuana. Only a few weeks back, the Joint Mental Health and Substances Abuse Committee of Massachusetts removed criminal penalties for possession of less than one ounce of marijuana by a 6-1 vote ("Massachusetts: Decrim Bill Advances", 2006). The Joint Committee on the Judiciary was scheduled to begin deliberations on it in March. The legislation aimed to decrease penalties for the minor possession i.e. less than an ounce of marijuana to a civil offense instead of a criminal offense as custom and sought to reduce a fine of $500 to $250. This legislation, however, was quashed by the state legislature and medical or otherwise use of marijuana in Massachusetts still remains illegal. In February, this year, Congress, hitherto immovable and unbending on all marijuana-related issues, took a significant step by allowing students, previously charged with marijuana possession, eligibility to apply for student aid. Enacted in the year 1998, this ban - commonly known as "drug offender exclusionary provision" of the Higher Education Act - has refused financial aid to some 175,000 students until now. To some, this has been landmark legislation in the fight for marijuana decriminalization and a tentative admission of the Congress about the futility of penalizing citizens for the possession of a recreational drug ("Congress Scales Back Ban On Student Aid For Drug Offenders," 2006). More evidence of growing support for marijuana legalization came to view in 2005 when the US House of Representatives voted against the lifting of a ban on medicinal marijuana. The most important point, however, was that despite the vote going against marijuana legalization, 161 House members ha d voted in favor of marijuana, which was the record highest. In November 2005, the population of Denver voted to eliminate penalties for the possession of one ounce of cannabis by citizens more than 21 years of age. Fifty-four percent of voters decided in favor of legalization ("Denver Votes To Abolish Pot Penalties," 2005). In 1998, voters in Oregon had voted in favor of a law that allowed patients to possess and grow marijuana for medical reasons. In August 2005, the voters of Oregon further amended the law in favor of marijuana users by allowing marijuana-dependent patients to grow and own 24 ounces of cannabis as opposed to previous 3 ounces ("Legislature Amends Oregon Medical Cannabis Law," 2005).The most important point of objection raised by those who oppose decriminalization of marijuana is the type of message it will send to the citizens of America in general and to the youth and children in particular. They hold that although some medical reports reveal marijuana to be the least harmful of all drugs, yet it cannot be denied that it is a drug and harmful as well. In addition, if marijuana use and possession were to be legalized for medicinal purposes it will only be available through two means.

Consulting to Organisations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Consulting to Organisations - Essay Example The understanding of learning, the workshops and their technicalities are dealt with, accordingly and put into practice. The aim of the essay was to get the clear picture that what was the purpose of the student to learn this module, what was the objectives and the learning techniques that student used in order to get the full benefit of the module. I am writing this essay to express my views, my thoughts about this module. Sharing is learning, and I want to share with everyone, the experiences I have gone through while writing this essay, the tools and techniques that I have learned while I took this module. The competencies I felt inside, which was never there before, and the level of knowledge that I gained while learning this module, is way better than before. It feels so different to write this essay after all this learning, and I wish that I have an opportunity to write a whole another comparative essay to give the clear insight that what I have achieved after enrolling in this module. One another main reason is to share my experience of this module, and its learning, so that other students and people may get the full benefit of this module by reading this essay. My feedback on this module will help many others to understand the module better and the effectiveness of this module as a student, and as a learner. One of my learning objectives to enroll in this module was to learn about management consultant, and how to be an effective management consultant. Since my secondary school, I was good in consulting, and suggesting ideas and novelties to others, effectively. So, I was concerned to see how well I can be after this module, and how can I be a good management consultant in future. My second objective was to learn about leadership and team work. Although, I was cooperative and friendly, but somehow I was lacking the true spirit of effective team skills and team

The effects of war on a soldier Essay Example for Free

The effects of war on a soldier Essay War will never be pretty or fun. It will always be gruesome and will cause the loss of many lives. Everyone grieves over those lives that were lost, but what about the people that live? What about the people that are in the military hospitals who are now amputees? How about the ones that have psychological problems? What about those who have physical and mental issues? People are often not informed of this. One type of a mental disease is known as PTSD, there is a cause, effects, and treatment to this often carried war disease. Through out history, war has been defined as a state of open, armed, often-prolonged conflict. We have fought in these many wars over such things as oil or different beliefs. A good example would be the World War 1. Most wars the men where young, ranging from ages of eighteen to twenty-six. These are the men that got these two terrible disorders. These are where the most terrible psychological issue occurred, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The two terrific disorders PTSD and Shell Shock, may have some similar symptoms, but have completely different effects and long-term issues. PTSD results from exposure to an overwhelmingly stressful event or series of events, such as war, rape, or abuse. It is a normal response by normal people to an abnormal situation. The traumatic events that lead to PTSD are typically so extraordinary or severe that they would distress almost anyone. These events are usually sudden. A good example of how a person would get this disorder from war would be seeing your friend being killed, being in the trenches too long, and possibly the constant artillery bombings. This entire trauma that they experience will have a dramatic effect. The amygdale, a structure in the brain, is part of the limbic system that is involved in the expression of emotion, especially fear, increased heart rate and blood pressure, the startle response, and emotional memory. It is said that with long-term exposure to these traumatic experiences your brain functions are changed or altered. The area of the brain that releases chemicals to cope with stress releases chemicals like opiates. Since the subject is repeatedly exposed to this trauma, this part of the brain goes  into overdrive and keeps producing these chemicals even when it may not need them. These chemicals are suspected of causing some of the symptoms of PTSD. Dissociative states, flashbacks, intrusive emotions and memories, nightmares and night terrors avoiding emotions, relationships, responsibility for others, and avoiding situations that are reminiscent of the traumatic event often occur. Exaggerated startle reaction , explosive outbursts, Irritability, panic symptoms, and sleep disturbance also occur. These are all the symptoms of PTSD. As you can see, there are vast amount of signals or signs that people exhibit who have PTSD. Men who have PSTD caused by war, have showed more of the hyper arousal and intrusive symptoms. The reason is that you read all the time about how war veterans have flash back and how they are startled very easily. There are many types of treatments along with drugs they can take to help cope with this disorder, one being psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is used to help the victim confront these painful memories to which the memories will no longer affect the way they live. There are certain steps within this process where the therapist walks the victim through the trauma and help he/she understand the feelings. Another type of treatment is EMDR, is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Supposedly, stimulating rapid eye movement helps the victim cope and process the traumatic event. This is usually added into psychotherapy, it is rarely used alone. Along with these two treatments a lot of pharmaceutical agents are used to help the victim cope. For example, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and anti-anxiety agents can be used. Overall, PTSD is somewhat treatable but most likely the victims are going to lapse into another psychological disorder.

Crime Control Essay Example for Free

Crime Control Essay Crime has become as multifaceted as human nature, impinging on communities and threatening human rights and freedoms. Has the impact of criminal activity become extremely intense, that we as society members have strayed away from honesty and justice? Are individuals no longer valuing integrity and fairness? Criminal justice organizations both public and private sectors goals are to reduce crime within the communities and regain the trust and confidence in a fair and just system for law-abiding citizens. In the process of achieving a fair and just society, due process and crime control tactics must adhere to the ethical dimensions of the criminal justice system. I am prepared to introduce a synopsis that highlights key ethical issues in the justice system that is directly affected by ethical motives. Honesty versus Justice within the Communities Trust is a factor that is lacking within the communities, and the question in mind is how will the criminal justice organization rehabilitate the issue and let justice prevail. Justice is often defined as fairness or the suitable rewards or retribution. Justice focuses more on a person’s rights more than the needs of an individual. So how can justice prevail if community members are fighting against law enforcement, and honesty among officers and the community is obsolete? In many cases, even when people notice a crime, they often turn the other way. According to NPR (2010), â€Å"Witnesses to crimes involving things like gang activities can often be scared away from giving information to police. It does not help that a stop snitching philosophy has been promoted by some hip-hop artists and many urban communities† (para 2). After past incidents of bad treatment by the outside world and law enforcement, it has become a mainstream thought in many minority communities law enforcement is not to be trusted. And if the community cannot trust police officials, the people in the community will not step forward and be honest and aid in the investigations. Police Departments are committed to working with the communities to recognize and resolve community problems. There are departments of employees dedicated to working collectively through an assortment of programs. These programs and services are created in hope that trust and justice will be incorporated back into the community and law enforcement agencies will be able to optimistically impact the community’s quality of life as well as highlight the strengths of neighborhoods. Due Process and Crime Control Tactics Law enforcement has integrated strategies into the communities to prevent and solve crimes that are affecting citizen’s quality of life. Crimes such as theft, burglary, and vandalism are a few areas law enforcement has turned their focus on. Local law enforcement organizations will have to become accustomed to existing policing programs to fulfill the requirements of security. The goal of due process and crime control is to enhance the effectiveness of the community. When the community trusts and believes in the justice field, community members will be more prone to assisting law enforcement. Due process ensures the law is being incorporated in the tactics to prevent and stop criminal acts. Another way for law enforcement to gain the trust and respect of the community is to offer up incentives that demonstrates community enhancements. increased involvement from groups in public decision making increases access to material resources and financial opportunities for underprivileged groups changes in public policy to achieve greater and meet the needs of diverse groups increases in suitable, available community services and common interest groups developing more early childhood and youth programs within the communities Law enforcement organizations have sought to investigate the causes of crime within the communities and lower the level from the hearts of the people being affected by criminal acts. Through the construction of successful joint venture with the community and public and private sectors problem solving procedures are being implemented and ethical standards and being followed. In the awaken of September 11th incident, law enforcement agencies discover that they are understanding that it is important to identify the responsibilities and create goals goals that will reduce crime within the communities and regain the trust and confidence in a fair and just system for law-abiding citizens. According to Lane Henry 2010, ‘People argue for longer term strategies aimed at dealing with the political, social, economic and cultural factors associated with crime. In doing so, we explore the potential of community development to contribute to crime prevention, particularly community or street crime and violence. Theoretical and practice intersections between community development and certain crime prevention approaches are identified notably those which link crime and violence with dis-empowerment, poverty, inequality, exclusion, the learning of violence within families and communities, and lack of opportunity for children and young people to develop their potential† (para 1). Conclusion Crime has become as multifaceted as human nature, impinging on communities and threatening human rights and freedoms. The impact of criminal activity has become extremely intense, that we as society members have strayed away from honesty and justice. Law enforcement agencies are working extremely hard to rebuild the union that has been broken. Individuals are no longer valuing integrity and fairness, but with the support from law enforcement, trust will be regained and community members will be more prone to step up and offer assistance. Criminal justice organizations both public and private sectors goals are to reduce crime within the communities and recover the trust and confidence in a fair and just system for law-abiding citizens. In the process of achieving a fair and just society, due process and crime control tactics must adhere to the ethical dimensions of the criminal justice system. I have identified ethical issues in the justice system that is directly affected by ethical motives and come to the conclusion that dedication from both parties is the answer to rebuilding a broken society.

Performance Management In Lloyds Banking Group Management Essay

Performance Management In Lloyds Banking Group Management Essay Corporations organisations look for individuals with potential techniques to develop their management skills, who in current market conditions are facing many challenges to gain skills, qualification, qualities competencies that would make them better leaders managers. Both organisations individuals looks to make investment that can get the best return. One way to achieve this is through the Management Development Program that seeks to set out the purpose of management development by considering what managers do in various contexts, and how they learn. As per Cannell. M (2008) Management development is a process through which individuals gain managerial skills through learning in turn helping themselves organisations. Management Development is an important aspect in an organisation as in house development gives employee a chance to utilize or develop their skills, make them feel loyal to the company and saves cost in the long term. Growing management talent means increased effi ciency profitability for organisations. [www.cipd.co.uk] Value of Management Development (MD) As per Mumford, A and Gold, J (2004) MD is valued as it has to be linked determined by the business needs as per strategic plans and also provide inputs to strategic plans. This top down approach can be contrasted with the one that lays emphasis on the way managers learn develop through actual opportunities. (Garavan et al, 1999; p.193) In relation to MD, a key consideration for many organisations is to show the improvements in performance of managers leading to success of organisation. Effective Management Development As per Mumford (1993) Management Development is an attempt to improve managerial effectiveness through a learning process. Effective Management Behaviour Development Focused on Effective Learning Effectiveness Process The purpose of this effectiveness triangle is that management development is not only focused on development or learning processes but these directly affect the management behaviour. John Kotter (1982) described effective behaviour as building networks for colleagues, executing by working and developing multiple objectives and maintaining relationships spending time with other people to achieve those objectives. This can then help managers to assess their development needs based on the meaning of effectiveness that is important to them or organisations. This then looks at the activities that are carried out by managers, meet their requirements to carry out their work, leading us to the second point of triangle which looks at the needs depending on the desired results from managers and action to achieve those results. The organisation then looks at the needs for learning and development depending on the processes through which those needs can be met effectively to help individual/org anisation. Measuring MD through Management Development Audit (MDA): MDA is a tool for organisations to find out what managers want, how they feel about what they are getting is management development effective, adding value and in line with organisation requirements and goals. MDA is a continuous activity of gaining a broader view of management development needs, assessing its value controlling costs in constantly changing environment. for e.g. in Lloyds banking group there is a Group Operations team which deal with gathering of data by means of interview, surveys, observations documentation. They look after the needs for management development and perform assessment gathering data on individual request and offer relevant courses that can be done online or class-room based to develop required skills and measure those in line with the organisation goals or achievements. Approaches to Management Development (MD): As per Mumford, A and Gold, J (2004) Organisations have different approaches towards management development, the four stages of management development in any organisations are: Unplanned experimental Management Development: This informal approach is based on learning by practical experience while working/experimenting things and situations. In past individuals were promoted based on the product knowledge they possessed regarding an organisation who had little training about supervision, e.g., about delegating, interpersonal skills, stress management, career developments, etc. Unplanned reactive Management Development: This approach is based on immediate situation or pressure. for e.g. the survey of IFA satisfaction report shows dissatisfaction, requires raising awareness or doing courses in respect to those skills. Another example is handling change in difficult situation, where companies like LBG have brought effectiveness by reducing costs. Planned Management Development: This approach is based on planned structured procedure of an organisation where appraisals, performance reviews identify the needs of development. for e.g. Formal Development/learning, a job change will identify the skills possessed required to do the particular job, which will identify the needs of development. An individual with expertise across various management topics is an effective manager. Effective management gives systems view of an organisation, reviewing how major functions affect each other. Strategic Management Development: This approach looks at the longer term issues with the management development for e.g. the development of managers required to handle mergers acquisition over the coming years. Organisations respond to the environmental changes such as customer demands, globalisation and technological changes, here MD could prove to be vital in acting as a tool to achieve implement the strategy and business performance for e.g. The EFQM Model. [www.efqm.org] Learning Development at Lloyds Banking Group There are quite a few different definitions of learning. The one provided by Kolb (1984), has been of particular importance in MD. Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. The definition has further two implications, firstly if managers have achieved knowledge, skills and/or insight, learning is an end result or outcome. Secondly, to achieve an end result requires a process by which mangers acquire knowledge, skills or insight. As per Pedler and Boydell (1985) learning was more concerned with increase in knowledge or a higher degree of an existing skills, whereas development was, in their view a move towards a different state of being or functioning. At LBG, executives are committed to the development of every colleague, including themselves, so as one team the organisation is well-positioned to deliver against the strategic priorities. Learning at LBG is as follows: Your Learning web portal available for all colleagues to manage learning activities online. Effective Performance Management Leadership Management at Glance [Lloyds Banking Group Internal Database] Performance Management in Lloyds Banking Group Holbeche (1999) refers Performance Management is about setting clear and measurable objectives, taking time to regularly monitor performance, having open and honest conversations and coaching colleagues on their performance and development. Organisation like Lloyds banking group concentrates more on their performance management which is a key driver to keep track of improvements, skills achievements. Effective Performance Management to LBG means that colleagues are clear about what needs to be done and this is communicated in regular conversations throughout the year. These conversations may be formal, for example 1-2-1 meetings or annual reviews, or informal, such as quick chats with managers. Staff can also discuss their performance with colleagues other than line managers, such as peers or colleagues whom they work regularly with. These reviews provide an opportunity for colleagues and managers to identify any areas of improvement or development required, where colleagues have th e capacity to stretch themselves in their role. LBG performance management comprises of five elements as shown in the figure below: 1 Effective Performance Conversations Across the whole Business we act As one 5 Clear Simple Actions for 2 Clear, Consistent and For Development and Aligned Objectives Improvements 4 Effective Differentiation 3 Performance Ratings Based of Performance on Overall Contributions [Lloyds Banking Group Internal Database] Effective Performance Conversations (EPC) As per London and Smither, (1995), the purpose of EPC is to enable an improved understanding amongst managers and employees. Managers strengths or weaknesses could be recognised via staff feedback, thus needs for development are recognised where MD can play important role. EPC could be of any form between staff, managers or colleagues; like informal chats about the aspirations frustrations or a formal chat regarding a particular objective its achievement progress. EPC should be conducted regularly so they form an integral part of the daily activities. One of the major drawbacks for EPC is, can mangers take criticism in a positive manner or would they act defensively. As per Meyer et al, (1965) research suggested that it is a very sensitive issue and the key findings from a research carried out onto the impact of feedback on managers during performance appraisals was that, the more criticism a manager received the more defensively they reacted by denying shortcomings and blaming others. It was further found that criticism continued to negatively affect performance after reviews. [Lloyds Banking Group Internal Database] Clear, Consistent and Aligned Objective LBG (Lloyds Banking Group) objectives ensure that the deliverables are aligned with overall objectives of business where all employees actively work and contribute to deliver the organisational strategic goals by appropriate approach. LBG uses Balanced Scorecard approach for clear, consistent aligned objectives. The Balanced Scorecard: The balanced scorecard approach focuses on the clarity of organisations overall business strategy and objectives and the will to work towards them as per Kaplan and Nortons (2001, p52). LBG focuses its development activities on the whole of its workforce because of the importance of high quality customer service. In seeking to develop the talent and capability that are key to its future growth, it is interested in mapping the skills and attitudes of employees at all levels. Balanced scorecards are set at the beginning of each year and have structured objectives with clear metrics, covering five categories. Each category represents elements essential for long term growth and success. Every colleague will have their own balanced scorecard and the content should be appropriate to their role. This means that every scorecard supports individual, team and organisational objectives. The use of balanced scorecard in LBG is to support delivery of business objectives and values in the context of prudent risk management, and ensure that all colleagues work together to achieve this outcome. [Lloyds Banking Group Internal Database] Effective Differentiation of Performance (EDP) LBG staff is distinguished through their performance and thus recognises those individuals who would require more support for better performance. This would imply that ratings are fairly and consistently applied throughout the organisation. Peer Comparison Approach for EDP: LBG uses peer comparison as a technique to differentiate performance. In particular, it helps to ensure that the performance ratings provided are fair and accurate reflection of colleagues performance in relation to the rest of the organisation. For example, it helps prevent one colleague from receiving the same performance rating as another when the evidence shows that they have contributed less during the year. As part of regular reviews, line manager will consider staff performance in relation to their peer group. This could be members of team at the same level, or other colleagues performing a similar role at the same level in another part of the organisation. Bettenhausen and Fedor (1997) found that peer comparison was viewed positively when used for development but negatively when used for evaluation. For example, because managers often have to work closely and associated with other managers, their peers, they tend to give positive feedback bec ause they do not wish to disturb the relationship or damage careers. Peers may require making comparisons between individuals, and this may harm the working of team. Clear Simple Actions for Development Improvements Colleagues should constantly look for opportunities to develop themselves. For example, staff can be thinking about how to improve performance in current role or even what they need to do to move into a new or promoted role. If everyone focuses on development at an individual level, this will in turn have a positive impact on the success of organisation. Businesses tends to change and therefore even colleagues who have been in their role for a significant period of time will find that they need to develop in order to meet the objectives set at the beginning of the year. Every colleague should have a Development Plan, which they will discuss with their line manager. This should include: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ What staff needs to do to develop them in current role (closing any skills gaps you have). à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ What behaviours you need to develop. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ What aspirations you have for your long-term career and how you will work towards this. Our approach to Performance Management also allows us to identify at an early stage where colleagues may need support/development to help them meet their objectives, for whatever reason. If you are experiencing difficulty in meeting your objectives at any point in the year, you and your line manager will work together to recover your performance via an Action Plan. Action Plans are required for all colleagues who are considered to be underperforming. [Lloyds Banking Group Internal Database] Case Study: This case study is about LBG undergoing change due to acquisition of HBOS and the employee engagement survey indicated that the change was poorly managed by the organisation and the line managers. There was a very low level of employee satisfaction with both the organisation and management behaviour. Customer satisfaction was worse/lowest to such an extent that LBG was top of the customer complaints with 22,242 complaints in first half of 2010 (Jill Insley 2010 Guardian.co.uk). Analysis of questions used in employee survey showed that the crucial elements of satisfaction were: From Employers/Organisation: Employees wanted job security, generalised market pay and decent conditions for working environment. From Team Leader/Managers: Employees wanted to be kept informed about organisation changes, realistic targets, clear direction, notice taken of their views and setting SMART goals. From Team: Employees expected team bonding/socialisation, fairness of system for deciding duties and opportunities to influence decision. The response for many of the items on this satisfaction index can be influenced by changing management behaviour (i.e. upward appraisal approach Jones, 1996 and conducting workshops). The key aspect was to develop management/organisation behaviour which was linked to effectiveness. LBG provided workshops for senior managers on process skills and their application in developing staff, input of ideas for quality improvement, vision building team problem solving. These workshops were then cascaded down to lower managers and then all employees. As a result of these workshops many new processes were put in place (e.g. People Voice Going for Gold), most of them for solving the problems associated with change. The effect of this was then monitored on employee satisfaction through quarterly surveys. The results from survey were compared with high average scores to those which had lower scores for effectiveness. LBG improved communication to ensure colleagues are kept up to date on the integration programme and other projects within organisation. Managers held daily team huddles to provide information on the current changes within organisation, suggestion boxes were placed in each teams for employees to have their say. The feedback from employees/managers implemented change into infrastructure that provided small pods for meetings, group discussions and appraisals within group areas to give managers and staff more privacy. Meeting rooms were designed with new technology for managers to present clients/customers with product information building relationship. Relaxing areas were introduced for staff and managers with facilities like TV, Xbox, reading rooms message chairs for time out from b usy working environment. Executive managers hold quarterly meeting with teams, using the sessions to provide update on organisation, also expectations reflections on teams followed by QA sessions for colleagues to put forward their views on current issues. These sessions provide management team with useful feedback from the business and enables them to take action accordingly as to what colleagues want to make organisation a great place to work. The result of which provided employees to socialise with other teams and learn their processes/ways of working, it also provided teams to have quarterly business lunch to enable better bonding between teams. This change implemented a People voice team which would now collect data from staff members and understand their requirements or any achievements that were made by them. The Intranet published stories about staff members providing excellent customer service and feedbacks from customers to make colleagues feel as one team. Rewards were offered to staff members providing excellent service or the best recommendations made, this helped to manage changes/improve things in working environment. Staff suggestions helped LBG to implement these strategies and help them to boost motivation, efficiency performance and as a result it had the highest level of sigma scores for IFA satisfaction in October 2010.The overall effect was staff innovation, working as one team increased loyalty of staff towards organisation. [Lloyds Banking Group Internal Database] Conclusion The management development programme demands a lot of commitment and desire to participate in learning process. This requires an evaluation of the situation and thus formulating the appropriate strategy or plan for effective development to work in any given organisation. The techniques used for development in the above case study have effectively achieved the strategic goals of the organisations thus proving to be successful. Provision of the facts or the realisation of short comings could not improve the situations in this case; some sort of strategy was required to be implemented to effect all these changes. The timely implementation of these development learning plans implemented across all levels in LBG lead to better customer relations, improved team bonding and achieving target objectives of the organisation.

Race and the Zone System Controversy :: Free Essays Online

Race and the Zone System Controversy You get in the cab; you are white and well dressed showing your social status. The cab driver is friendly and takes you directly to your destination. The little map in the backseat of the cab tells you the cost of your trip; however since you, like most people, never even read it, the cabbie tells you the price, and you go ahead and pay without question. You are a resident of the District and have gone the same route many times and for some reason the price varies occasionally. You only traveled through one zone from your upper-middle class neighborhood of Foggy Bottom to Capital Hill where you go about your busy life. For you the zone system of taxicab fares is no big deal. You have the money to pay for each ride and a cab driver will always pick you up. A change to the metered system would only be a slight adjustment to your daily routine. However, other residents of the District would be greatly affected by a change to the metered system. Would a change in the zone syste m benefit the upper class, the tourists, the drivers or the lower income residents of DC? Is the city watching out for its lower income black residents? Will changing from a zone system to a metered payment system segregate Washington, DC even more than it is today? The zone system that is used today has been in effect since the Great Depression and has changed very little since then. With the zone system, passengers pay according to the number of zones they pass though with all of Downtown, the Mall and Capital Hill encompassing one zone. DC is the only major city that still utilizes this zone system; there are only a handful of areas that continue to use the system and all are smaller towns without the tourism that DC has. Hanbury president and CEO of the Washington Convention and Tourism Corporation stated that the, â€Å" hospitality industry, which employs more than 260,000 individuals in the Washington area pumps fourteen billion annually into our economy† (Hanbury). Having the second largest taxi industry in the country supports the substantial tourism in DC; the taxi fleet is second only to New York City, with a fleet of over 6000 cabs and 8000 drivers.

Guide to Becoming a Jerk Essay -- Expository Process Essays

Guide to Becoming a Jerk Being a jerk can be fun. It gives you a feeling of dominance over others; you are more important then the rest. You are the wolf among a flock of sheep; people fear you, and therefore look up to you. Being a jerk is not hard; all you have to do is think about yourself and your own feelings, and forget that everyone else has emotions. There are various ways of achieving this perception of importance; you can put people down and belittle them, pretend you’re better than everyone, or just be plain mean, unpolite, and nasty. Sure, there might be some little voice inside saying that you are no better than anyone else is, but you can drown out that nagging reminder with constant insults to others. Nothing replaces that great feeling of emotional triumph over one of your "peers". The fact that you have engaged in and won a verbal war (however one-sided it may be) makes you feel as high as the sky, while the opposing party will probably sink like a rock in quicksand. They will think t hat you are mean (and you are), and they won’t want to befriend you or have respect for you, but you won’t care because you perceive yourself at a higher standing than they are. The foremost aspect of being a jerk is to make people feel inferior by way of your comments and actions; this also gives you a sense of superiority, which makes you feel important. Also, insults can be spiced up by adding sarcastic and witty remarks. Degrading someone is easy; just greet them with a "Hey, loser", or a cynical "What do you want, _______?" (fill the blank in with your favorite witty obscenity), instead of "Hey, how’s it going" or "What have you been up to lately?". Start off by being sarcastically mean, and you have already got the jump ... ...you need to be disrespectful and insulting to others; you need to make everyone else feel lower, and if these people around you feel lower, then you feel higher. That’s what this world is about, getting to the top by stepping on others; the ends justify the means. While you’re working your way up, you’re also having fun at someone else’s expense; belittling others makes you feel good, doesn’t it? Maybe you won’t be the most respected and liked person in the world, and the only friends you have will be jerks; they could turn their cruel ways against you at any time, but you’re ready for them; you’re a jerk too. Fight fire with fire. Even so, that’s just a small price to pay to have the feeling of massive importance born at the expense of others. Besides, you don’t care if those other people are your friends, or if they respect you; they’re not as good as you anyway.

The Global Drinking Water Shortage Essay -- Potable Water Scarcity

" We never know the worth of water till the well is dry." -- Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia #5451 (1732) While it is the single most important substance on earth, we usually don’t think about water other than when we’re thirsty. Most homes have at least two indoor faucets. Almost every public building has water fountains conveniently placed for easy, instant refreshment. Water is simple; it’s always there. Yet despite all this convenience, simplicity, and lack of excitement, water is the most essential part of life. Water is part of every step of the life cycle, every food chain and every organism. Perhaps the effort associated with getting a drink of water is too little to bring to our realization the magnitude of water’s significance. After enough contemplation, it begins to seem too good to be true. Perhaps it is. In Ethiopia, famine due to drought claimed 1 million lives in 1984 (Thurow A8). While Ethiopia has the right temperatures for good agriculture, it lacks consistent rainfall, and crops can only be grown through the wettest season. All of this adds up to a lot of starving, thirsty people (A1). When I say â€Å"Nile†, you think â€Å"Egypt†. When I say â€Å"Ethiopia†, you think â€Å"famine.† The Nile River, which brings life into the hot dessert of Egypt, starts in Ethiopia. In fact, 85% of the water in the Nile River comes from tributaries in Ethiopia (Thurow A1). Ethiopia has a wealth of water running through it; why not use that water to grow food for one of the most impoverished parts of the world? Politics. For years, Egypt has str... ...ntal Psychology. 24 (2004): 91-103. Thurow, Roger. â€Å"Ravaged by Famine, Ethiopia Finally Gets Help From the Nile.† Wall Street Journal. 26 November 2003, eastern ed.: A1,A8. United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Water-Efficient Landscaping. Washington, D.C.: GPO, September 2002. ---. ---. National Management Measures to Control Nonpoint Pollution from Agriculture. Washington, D.C.: GPO, July 2003. ---. General Accounting Office. Water quality [microform] : key EPA and state decisions limited by inconsistent and incomplete data : report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives / United States General Accounting Office. Washington, D.C.: GPO, March 2000. Weiss, Rick. â€Å"Threats Posed by Water Scarcity Detailed.† The Washington Post. 5 March 2003: A3. The Global Drinking Water Shortage Essay -- Potable Water Scarcity " We never know the worth of water till the well is dry." -- Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia #5451 (1732) While it is the single most important substance on earth, we usually don’t think about water other than when we’re thirsty. Most homes have at least two indoor faucets. Almost every public building has water fountains conveniently placed for easy, instant refreshment. Water is simple; it’s always there. Yet despite all this convenience, simplicity, and lack of excitement, water is the most essential part of life. Water is part of every step of the life cycle, every food chain and every organism. Perhaps the effort associated with getting a drink of water is too little to bring to our realization the magnitude of water’s significance. After enough contemplation, it begins to seem too good to be true. Perhaps it is. In Ethiopia, famine due to drought claimed 1 million lives in 1984 (Thurow A8). While Ethiopia has the right temperatures for good agriculture, it lacks consistent rainfall, and crops can only be grown through the wettest season. All of this adds up to a lot of starving, thirsty people (A1). When I say â€Å"Nile†, you think â€Å"Egypt†. When I say â€Å"Ethiopia†, you think â€Å"famine.† The Nile River, which brings life into the hot dessert of Egypt, starts in Ethiopia. In fact, 85% of the water in the Nile River comes from tributaries in Ethiopia (Thurow A1). Ethiopia has a wealth of water running through it; why not use that water to grow food for one of the most impoverished parts of the world? Politics. For years, Egypt has str... ...ntal Psychology. 24 (2004): 91-103. Thurow, Roger. â€Å"Ravaged by Famine, Ethiopia Finally Gets Help From the Nile.† Wall Street Journal. 26 November 2003, eastern ed.: A1,A8. United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Water-Efficient Landscaping. Washington, D.C.: GPO, September 2002. ---. ---. National Management Measures to Control Nonpoint Pollution from Agriculture. Washington, D.C.: GPO, July 2003. ---. General Accounting Office. Water quality [microform] : key EPA and state decisions limited by inconsistent and incomplete data : report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives / United States General Accounting Office. Washington, D.C.: GPO, March 2000. Weiss, Rick. â€Å"Threats Posed by Water Scarcity Detailed.† The Washington Post. 5 March 2003: A3.

Multiprotocol Label Switching Networks

IP networks were initially designed with network survivability in a decentralized networking as the central goal. Thus the Internet infrastructures and protocols were intended from the very beginning for this purpose. As the Internet is evolving into a general-purpose communications network, the new realities require the development of new Internet infrastructure to support real-time-sensitive and multimedia applications such as voice over IP and video conference calls (Smith & Collins, 2001).Back in the mid to late 1990s, when most routers were predominantly based on software forwarding rather than hardware forwarding, a number of vendors devised proprietary mechanisms to switch packets far more efficiently than was possible with forwarding based entirely on hop-by-hop longest match IP address lookups. Various aspects of these proprietary mechanisms were effectively merged and developed by the MPLS working groups at the IETF and produced what we know today as MPLS (Edwards, Syngress , McCullough, & Lawson, 2000).MPLS is a key component of the new Internet infrastructure and represents a fundamental extension to the original IP-based Internet with changes to the existing infrastructure (Wang, 2002).Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)MPLS introduces connection orientation and packet switching in IP networks. IP datagrams are forwarded by MPLS routers along pre-established paths, based on a short label. This reduces the amount of routing computations, which are carried out only at the times of setting up new paths. MPLS allows introducing new traffic engineering techniques which apply for connection-oriented networks can be applied to MPLS networks. One of these techniques is dynamic routing.Another important application for MPLS networks is the configuration of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) over a public IP network. The benefit of MPLS for this application is that private IP addresses, which may be not unique, are separated from the world-wide valid public IP addresses used in the public IP network. The separation of addresses is realized by building MPLS tunnels through the public IP network. The MPLS protocol can also be run on ATM networks and frame relay networks. This simplifies the interworking between these networks and IP networks (Smith & Collins, 2001).MPLS connections are well suited to the fast-forwarding (also called switching) of any type of network layer protocol (not just IP), hence the word multiprotocol in the name. it will be widely used for two main types of application:First, it adds controllability of IP networks. As already noted, an IP network is much like a â€Å"free-for-all† highway without traffic control, to use the analogy of a highway system. All the traffic can be crammed onto the highway at once, and each router along the way tries its best to get the traffic through without any guarantee of succeeding, MPLS marks ‘lanes’ with labels for the IP highway, and each packet flow has to foll ow a predefined lane or path. Once the ‘lanes’ are marked, a set of traffic parameters can be associated with each lane to guarantee the service delivery. It reduces randomness and adds controllability to the IP network (Edwards et al., 2000).Second, MPLS adds switching capability to the routing-based IP network. The traditional Internet structure has every router along the way examine the destination address inside a packet and determine the next hop. In a switched network, each switch routes the traffic from the input port to a predetermined output port without examining the contents of each packet. This is also called route once and switch many times, since the packet contents are examined only at the entry of the MPLS network to determine a proper ‘lane’ for the packet. The benefits of this change include speedup of network traffic and network scalability(Smith & Collins, 2001).Summary and ConclusionLabel switching is something that has been significant interest from the Internet community, and significant effort has been made to define a protocol called Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS).MPLS involves the attachment of a short label to a packet in from of the IP header. This effectively is like inserting a new layer between the IP layer and the underlying link layer of the OSI model. The label contains all the information that a router needs to forward a packet. The value of a label may be used to look up the next hop in the path and forward to the next router. The difference between this and standard IP routing is that the match is an exact one and is not a case of looking for the longest match (that is, the match with the longest subnet mask). This enables faster routing decisions within routers (Wang, 2002).The expansion rates for Internet protocol (IP) interchange and users persist to be very remarkable. What once was a technology principally used within the territories of academe and leisure is now being utilized around th e world for conventional commerce submissions, like e-commerce, Web-based industry in the development of the carrier system as service contributors around the world concentrate on optimization and benefit efficiency (Edwards et al., 2000).In many ways, MPLS is as much of a traffic engineering protocol as it is a Quality of Service (QoS) protocol. It is somewhat analogous to the establishment of virtual circuits in ATM and can lead to similar QoS benefits. It helps to provide QoS by helping to better manage traffic. Whether it should be called traffic engineering protocol of QoS protocol hardly matters if the end results is better QoS (Wang, 2002).References:Edwards, M. J., Syngress, R. F., McCullough, A., & Lawson, W. (2000). Building Cisco Remote Access Networks. Rockland, MA: Syngress.Smith, C., & Collins, D. (2001). 3G Wireless Networks. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional.Wang, H. H. (2002). Packet Broadband Network Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional.

Fredrick W Taylor Essay

Frederick W Taylor was one who led a life of earnest development in the production and manufacturing sectors. His life was one the spurned on time study and one that advanced America and the world in scientific management. Taylor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 20, 1856. He lived an eventful and noble life for 59 years and one day dying on March 21, 1915. Throughout his lifetime he was a great inventor with over 40 patents and a brilliant engineer (Britannica). In his early years Taylor was always learning and creating. At age 12, Taylor created a harness that would keep him on his back to try and prevent nightmares (www.stfrancis.edu). In 1872 he went to the Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Here he led his class scholastically. After his completion of studies at Philips Taylor started working as a machine shop laborer in a steel plant named Midvale Steel Company. Quickly Taylor started to grow in position; he became a successful shop clerk, machinist, gang boss, foreman, maintenance foreman, head of drawing office, and finally chief engineer. It is evident to see that Taylor was a man of wisdom and drive, who never settled for anything less than the best. In 1881, at age 25 he introduced time study at the Midvale Plant. The project was a great success and as a result the profession of time study was started. While working at Midvale, Taylor studied at night to get a degree in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. As can be seen even from an early age Taylor had successes in new areas of study which spurned on his later life accomplishments. Throughout Taylor’s mid and late life he continued to advance and spread his knowledge of time study. He retired at age 45, after that he, his wife and their three adopted children lived in Philadelphia from 1904 to 1914. He continued to devote money and time to promote the principals of scientific management through lectures at universities and professional societies (Britannica). In 1906 Taylor was elected the president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and that same year was he was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree by the University of Pennsylvania (Britannica). Taylor was a man of expert wisdom and foresight and it is seen throughout his life as we just discussed but these characteristics primary shine when you look at his theory and successes of time study. He realized that production could be increased by standardizing this system of work (smallbusiness.chrono.com). Taylor’s time study theory was that he would break each job down into specific tasks and timed how long it took a worker to complete each task (smallbusiness.chrono.com). Then he specified exactly how each task was to be performed and what tools to use, then the workers were trained to complete the task in a certain way (smallbusiness.chrono.com). He did this because he believed that there was one and only one method of work that maximized efficiency as he said, â€Å"And this one best method and best implementation can only be discovered of developed through scientific study and analysis.† (Vincenzo Sandrone). He proved this theory at the Bethlehem Steel Works where they had 500 men shoveling coal. He performed his time and motion studies and found out that using a different shovel for different size coal that it increased the amount you could shovel. So as a result of these two studies men could shovel more coal for a longer period of time. Thus he effectively reduced the number of men shoveling coal to 140 (smallbusiness.chrono.com). This is the reality of his theory and the results speak for themselves. Also, Taylor worked alongside Henry Ford to create the first assembly line (smallbusiness.chrono.com). Taylor also used his expertise and applied it to moving pig iron. He increased the amount moved from 12.5 tons per a day to 47.5 tons of pig iron a day. This leads to another point of Taylor’s theory and it was that he believed that you had to choose the right people for the task. Relating the example just mentioned, Taylor said that not all workers were fully capable of moving 47.5 tons of pig iron per a day, perhaps only 1/8 of the pig iron handlers were capable of doing that. This is because their physical capabilities were well-suited for moving pig iron. This is Taylor’s point, that workers should be picked according to how well they suit a particular job. Taylor also had a motivational theory, called the economic man (Business Studies). This was that workers were motivated or encouraged by money alone and the only factor that could stimulate further output or work was the chance of earning extra money (Business Studies). Taylor always said that workers should be paid a ‘fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’ and that the pay should be directly linked with output (Business Studies). This leads to a further point of Taylor’s, and it is called ‘piece rate’. To encourage this, workers were pay by each unit that they produced, and the first unit were paid at a low rate and the more the worker produced that higher the pay they received. He also believed that incentive wages were of no use unless they were coupled with efficient tasks that were carefully planned and easily learned (www.stfrancis.edu). Thus is Taylor’s main motivational suggestion; to link pay with output. Taylor also standardized the role of management. This included setting managers apart from operations and giving them more authority to set the tasks workers do (smallbusiness.chrono.com). Taylors’ attitudes toward workers were laden with negative bias â€Å"in the majority of cases this man deliberately plans to do as little as he safely can.† The methods that Taylor adopted were directed solely towards the uneducated (Vincenzo Sandrone). Taylor believed that the secret of productivity was finding the right challenge for each person, then paying him well for increased output (www.stfrancis.edu). He believed that incentive wages were no solution unless they were combined with efficient tasks that were carefully planned and easily learned (www.stfrancis.edu). Throughout this passage it is evident to see what a work Taylor accomplished. He is the father of scientific management and the one who spurned off time study. Taylor spent his whole life increasing efficiency in the workplace, working with making people and companies, most notable, Henry Ford. He and many others of his time like Henry Ford did work that put the United States on the leading edge during the Industrial Revolution. Bibliography 1. Frederick Winslow Taylor, Mary Ellen Papesh, www.stfrancis.edu/content/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/bbios/biograph/fwtaylor.htm 2. Britannica, Frederick W Taylor, www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/584820/Fredrick-W-Taylor. 3. Herzberg & Taylor’s Theories of Motivation, Lisa Magloff, Demand Media, www.smallbusiness.chrono.com/herzberg-taylors-theories-motivation-704.html 4. Frederick W Taylor: Master of Scientific Management, www.skymart.com/resources/leaders/taylor/asp 5. Business Studies second edition, Peter Stimpson and Alastair Farquharson, Cambridge University Press 2010

Procter and Gamble Company Essay

Background Procter and Gamble was formed by James Gamble & William Procter in 1837 by a candle manufacturer Procter and a soap manufacturer Gamble. This consumer product company started with a vision to grow to a $33 billion company and by 1879 it started selling its products directly to the consumers, by 1890 it has gained its legal corporation and ever since it has doubled it sales every ten years. P&G growth was driven by innovation not optimization. Radical innovation served as their backbone to success with other factors such as geographic expansion, product line extensions and acquisitions contributing to its growth. Some of its famous and successful acquisitions were, Duncan Hines, Clorox, charmin Paper mills, Folgers Coffee, NorwichEaton, Vicks (NyQuil), Noxell and Max Factor. It also recieves  the credit for developing innovative and advanced technology based products during 1940’s such as Tide, Crest,Pampers, Bounce etc.By the end of 1980’s P&G had its operations in 58 countries,its reputation was built with its new product development strategiesÍ ¾ they produced varied range of consumer products such that these products should meet â€Å"basic consumer needs† and create â€Å"superior total value† creating a brand image for the company. As noted in Kevin Kelly’s quote â€Å"Wealth in new regime flows directly from innovation and not optimization†, i.e. wealth is not gained by perfecting the known, but imperfecting the unknown. P&G successfully used this strategy to earn its reputation as one of the largest company in Cincinnati in 1895 and in 1995 earned the National Medal of technology, the highest given award in United states. P&G was also known for its strong ethics, values and recruiting the best and brightest. R&D was a major focus of P&G. In 1995 P&G spent 1.3billion on R&D,and emphasis was laid on combination of multiple R&D competencies and there were a lot of cross fertilization of technology. They also had an attractive work culture, employee compensation and had a structure in place which assured employees of growing within the organization with its up through the rank approach which fostered innovation. In the process of growing, P&G moved out of their old tradition of new product development and concentrated completely on the global expansion and development of existing products. With structured product  sectors in place, P&G had some difficulty fitting some new product idea into any of the available category which led to the rejection on various novel ideas. In 1993, the company started the Strengthening Global Effectiveness (SGE) with the goal of increasing profits through cost reduction which was achieved by reengineering  and reformation of distribution and manufacturing. This led to a successful increase in profits from 10% to 17% in a year. In the same year, CEO John Pepper said that their was an urge for developments of new brands in order to fulfill the companies longtime goals of increasing their sales. Mark Collar, Vice President and General Manager of New Business Development and a part of SGE said that a breakthrough is required to manage and accelerate the company’s innovation process. In addition, the concept of cross fertilization was fading out gradually so their was a requirement of a new innovation team that can incorporate the old traditions followed by the company during the 1960’s. Therefore this lead to the formation of Innovation Leadership Team (ILT) in 1993. The top seven officers of the company were a part of this team: John Pepper(Chairman and CEO)Í ¾ Durk Jager(President and COO)Í ¾ Wolfgang Berndt(Executive VP North America)Í ¾ Gordon Brunner(Senior VP Research and Development)Í ¾ Gary Martin(Senior VP Information Services and Product Supply) and Eric Nelson(Senior VP and CFO)Í ¾ Robert Wehling (Senior VP Advertising and Market Research). The ILT’s responsibility is to investigate the portfolio of the projects under development and projects on shelf, select valuable projects that add value to the firm. Soon Corporate Innovation Fund(CIF) was established for the funding the research on new products developments. The employees can report projects irrespective of their sector and obtain approval at very fast pace on appropriate projects.