Munchausen Syndrome A Mental Illness Essay - 1470 Words

Munchausen syndrome, also referred to as factitious disorder, is a mental condition in which sufferers cause or pretend to have physical or psychological symptoms that are not actually occurring. Munchausen syndrome is considered to be a mental illness because it is associated with severe emotional difficulties that are present with the illness. Due to the fact that there are no reliable statistics regarding the number of people in the United States who suffer from Munchausen syndrome, it is considered to be a rare condition to have. Even before getting its current name, this condition has been described since the biblical times. For example, sufferers of this syndrome during the Middle Ages went as far as scraping off their skin and putting leeches in their mouths to induce bleeding. This illness was named after Baron Karl Friedrich von Munchausen who lived from 1720 to 1797 and was known for claiming to ride cannonballs and traveling to the moon. The reason why I choose this psychological disorder was because it was brand new topic to me. I was very interested in the fact of not knowing anything about this topic previously so I was able to go into this research with a blank slate. After researching what this syndrome was, my main topic of interest was that Munchausen Syndrome is a largely unexplained phenomena, as it is both quite rare and difficult to diagnose. It is also practically impossible to treat, as most people will emerge with negative results. Most of theShow MoreRelatedMunchausen Syndrome By Proxy Is A Mental Illness And Form Of Child Abuse1856 Words   |  8 Pages Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a mental illness and form of child abuse that claims the lives of 9% of its victims (Heffner, 2004). It is defined as, â€Å"a psychological disorder in which a parent, typically a mother, harms her child (as by poisoning), falsifies the child s medical history, or tampers with the child s medical specimens in ord er to create a situation that requires or seems to require medical attention† (Merriam-Webster, 1977). In most cases, the mother is the abuser and plaguesRead MoreMy Search For A Mental Illness I Came Upon Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy1490 Words   |  6 Pages In my search for a mental illness I came upon Munchausen Syndrome by proxy which is a stem from regular Munchausen Syndrome. This mental illness was deep and caught my interest by the complexity of the disease and that cases that have been studied. The horrific cases of said mental illness caught my eye and I knew instantly I had to explore in depth the condition. The love between a mother and her children is an unbreakable bond, until Munchausen Syndrome by proxy takes a role in the relationshipRead MoreEssay Taking a Closer Look at Mà ¼nchausen Syndrome1026 Words   |  5 Pages Mà ¼nchausen syndrome is a psychiatric disorder that is distinguished by the patient causing or faking physical or psychological ailments for the sole purpose of being admitted to the hospital. A psychiatric consult nurse sees about one or two Mà ¼nchausen cases a month (Interview with John Hauber, RN). Out of the entire United States population, only half to two percent of people have the disorder (med icinenet.com), but the number is probably higher than that because the statistic shown only representsRead MoreTaking a Look a the Munchausen Syndrome816 Words   |  3 PagesMunchausen!!! If you know someone with munchausen syndrome, you know how bad the disease is. If you dont know someone with the disease, I will tell you all about it. the disease isnt very big or popular anymore, because not a lot of women dont have this disease anymore. I have done a lot of research, and most of the diagnoses were done in the 1900s, but the disease is still around some places. This disease is mostly diagnosed to women, because most men dont feel the need to these kind ofRead MoreMental Health1329 Words   |  6 Pagesï » ¿Mental Health Essay Mental health is all about how we think, feel and behave. It refers to our cognitive, and/or our emotional wellbeing. It describes a sense of wellbeing. Mental health ‘problems’ or ‘difficulties’ are terms used to describe temporary reactions to a painful event, stress, or systems of drug or alcohol use, lack of sleep or physical illness. It can also be used to describe long-term psychiatric conditions, which may have significant effects on an individual’s functioning. SomeRead MoreMunchausen Syndrome : A Rare Mental Disorder And The Most Severe Type Of Factitious Disorder3346 Words   |  14 Pages Munchausen Syndrome Stephen Balka Medical Careers Institute â€Æ' Abstract Munchausen syndrome is a rare mental disorder and the most severe type of factitious disorder. Those afflicted with Munchausen syndrome fabricate or cause injuries and illness in order to seek attention even to the point of undergoing painful, intrusive and unneeded medical and surgical procedures. Psychotherapy is the main treatment option for Munchausen syndrome, however there are no standard therapies or medicationsRead MoreHistory Of Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy2014 Words   |  9 PagesHistory of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy The term Munchausen Syndrome by proxy was named in 1951 by Asher after a well-known German Baron story teller (Campbell V, McDougall, Justice G., 2015). Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy was defined as an acute illness which is supported by dramatic and plausible history by Asher (Campbell V, McDougall, Justice G., 2015). Asher characterized Munchausen Syndrome’s condition as an intense desire to deceive people as much as they can in order to be the center of attentionRead MoreEssay on Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy: Sick Kid or Sick Parent?(4)1262 Words   |  6 PagesMunchausen Syndrome by Proxy: Sick Kid or Sick Parent?(4) In relating the details of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP), the initial reaction is usually shock, followed quickly by fascination. The reason for the latter is that the medical community has yet to make up their minds about what exactly MSBP is. The debate: psychiatric disorder v. child abuse. Essentially the arguments for both create a divide between the brain and behavior, though not relating the two. Munchausen Syndrome isRead MoreA Brief Note On The Medical Child Abuse1929 Words   |  8 Pagesabuse Denise Eversole Lord Fairfax Community College Abstract Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome (MBPS) is a disorder of which should bring awareness to the medical field. It is not well understood and brings a lot of controversy. This disorder is when a parent, usually the mother, who purposely causes illness to her child rather physically or emotionally. The disorder was named after Baron von Munchausen, from the 18th century who gained fame from his tales. The child only becomesRead MoreFactitious Disorders1539 Words   |  7 Pagesand Factitious Diseases. Most aggressive study of the disorder began in 1950s, when an article published by a British psychiatrist, Richard Asher who initiated use of the term, Munchausen’s Syndrome[i], to describe a subtype of factitious disorder. The term factitious disorders (FD) refers to â€Å"any illness deliberately produced or falcified for the sole purpose of assuming the sick role.   Patients waste valuable time and resources with lenthy and unnecessary tests and procedures at a cost, accor ding

Economic Analysis - 795 Words

A lot has changed over the past year in The United States (U.S.), the US has a new President, the Republican party leads with most seats in Congress, and the U.S. Economy is on the rise. The first two factors have a hand in how well the economy is doing. With a new president in office, there have been some recent changes to policies and government regulations. Currently, a new tax reform is being proposed for the 2017 tax year, which looks to cut 1.5 trillion dollars towards business and individuals (Rappeport Kaplan, 2017). The tax break for individuals and businesses will influence the U.S. economy in one form or another. In the following pages the current state of the economy will be discussed, explore an environmental scan of today’s†¦show more content†¦64). With the individuals and organizations receiving a higher tax return under the new tax reform bill it provides marketing departments an opportunity to sell them their products. There are five sources used to evaluate the environmental scan: social, economic, technological, competitive, and regulator forces (Kerin et al., 2016). The demographics of the consumer enables the marketing team to target specific groups for higher sells (Kerin et al., 2016). With technological advancements products that were once out of reach of the average consumer are now obtainable. Together with the economy on the rise, companies have seen an increase in sells with their products. Today’s market is filled with competition between businesses in every sector. Although this may be true, organizations that practice poor social and environmental responsibilities can suffer loses in revenue and consumer loyalty (Kerin et al., 2016). Under the new tax reform bill, small business will receive more of a return on their taxes which encourages more individuals to start their own business in the future (Rappeport et al., 2017). Interpreting and identifying trends are easier for marketing departments when the ec onomy is strong because individuals are not just buying the necessary items. Future Markets Future markets with the continued growth in the U.S. economy should have an increase in consumer spending. Government involvement and federal regulations can hinder orShow MoreRelatedArticle Analysis for Economics1636 Words   |  7 PagesUniversity of Phoenix Principles of Microeconomics ECO/365 Professor James Harris III Aug 7, 2008 Article Analysis The article that will be used for this analysis is â€Å"Supply, demand, and the Internet-economic lessons for microeconomic principles courses† by Fred Englander and Ronald L. Moy. There will be definitions for the following economics, microeconomics, Law of supply and the Law of demand. 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By gathering information in a logic structure, the report states the previous and current impact of external factors and the way in which internal factors take place in the company. Using several figures from reliable s ources, the report aims to give an apparent economic picture andRead MoreEconomic Analysis Essay851 Words   |  4 Pagesï » ¿ Tahania Rashid MBA 6008 – Global Economic Environment September 14, 2014 Unit 3 Assignment 1 Chapter 9 - Problem 3, pg. 219 Q: You are a newspaper publisher. You are in the middle of a one- year rental contract for your factory that requires you to pay $ 500,000 per month, and you have contractual labor obligations of $ 1 million per month that you can’t get out of. You also have a marginal printing cost of $ 0.35 per paper as well as a marginal deliveryRead MoreBusiness Proposal Economic Analysis1552 Words   |  7 Pagesplans for single people or the disabled offering specialty services (Economics Online, 2010 - 2014). 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Economic Analysis Essay2122 Words   |  9 PagesApple, Inc. Economic Analysis Daniele Ligons Southern Weseleyan University  Table of Contents apple, inc. history 3 Microeconomic factors 4 macroeconomic factors 4 supply and demand 5 competitors 7 Apple, Inc.’s Future 8 recommendations 10 summary 10 References 12 Apple, Inc. History In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computers, Inc. The young founders did not finish college and had a vision of making computers smaller and easier to use. Initially, they began theirRead MoreEconomic Cartoon Analysis Essay618 Words   |  3 PagesIn today’s grim economic climate, cartoonists across the country have taken pen to paper to satirize and make light of the gloomy situation the United States is currently in. This particular cartoon deals with several major economic principles, such as the idea that people face tradeoffs (Raj). To illustrate, in society, there is a tradeoff between efficiency and equity. Efficiency means society is getting the most it can from its resources, whereas equity is distributing economic prosperity fairlyRead More PEST Analysis (Political, Economic, Social Technical Analysis)636 Words   |  3 PagesPEST Analysis (Political, Economic, Social Technical Analysis) A PEST analysis (also sometimes called STEP, STEEP or PESTLE analysis) looks at the external business environment. In fact, it would be better to call this kind of analysis a business environmental analysis but the acronym PEST is easy to remember and so has stuck. PEST stands for Political, Economic, Sociocultural and Technological. (Technological factors in this case, include ecological and environmental aspects - the second E inRead MoreMalaysia Economic Analysis1404 Words   |  6 Pages Malasyia Country Report 3/7/2013 By: Zara Khurram Economic Analysis of Malaysia Malaysia is a multi-cultural Southeast Asian country with a federal constitutional monarchy. Malaysia originated from the Malay Kingdoms which were subject to the British Empire for a long time. Malaysia gained independence in August 1957. Today, Due to Malaysia’s natural resources, it has an average GDP growth rate of 6.5% for around 50 years. Malaysia has a very attractive GDP growth

Manage Remuneration and Employee Benefits Theory of Compensation Stra

Question: Discuss about the Manage Remuneration and Employee Benefits for the Theory of Compensation Strategy. Answer: Develop organizations remuneration strategy Remunerationis still a critical issue in the managing of human resource. How organizations remunerates its staff has an impact on its capacity to interest the right staffs and to motivate them to remain focused on critical business administration. Remuneration is what staffs get in exchange for their work. It also helps to strengthen important organization culture and fundamental standards and to enable the accomplishment of its business strategy objectives (Stone, 2008, p.4) Employment is of a different type. However, the remuneration of employees is a factor that has always not been communicated officially or even feasible for human resource departments and has its cons. For instance, it has this method of compensation in which paymentis through unit price produced by an employee. If remuneration adopted by an organization does not support their vision, direction goaland culture, they may need to close down business. The teams ideas, leadership, and goal drive the business. Objectives of the proposed remuneration strategy Supports business and human resource strategy. Attract and motivates staffs in their duties. Provides incentives first performance Reward past performance Provide the best return expenditure Design the best rewarding system for workers Staff remuneration and compensation structure Remuneration benefits Overtime compensation Future income reviews/increases Life insurance Paid holidays vacations Company day-care facilities List of Legislations considered in the remuneration strategy Fair Work Act 2009:This act creates a national workplace relations system that is fair to working people, promotes productivity, flexible for business and economic growth. Workplace Relations Act 1996 : It t provides the continuation of the federal award system which provided a minimum set of terms and conditions for employment and helps in maintaining relations at work place Workplace Agreement Act 1993: This is an individual written agreement on terms and conditions of employment between an employer and employee in Australia, under the Workplace Relations Act 1996. Evidence for research on market rates and comparison with other organization According to the government of Australia education department the salaries of a teacher starts at level 2.1 with $66 and reaches to level 2.9 with experience. It is shown in the table below Level Salary as in Dec2015 (per annum) 2.1 $66,475 2.2 $72,937 2.3 AU$79,824 2.4 AU$82,953 2.5 AU$86,206 2.6 AU$89,584 2.7 AU$93,096 2.8 AU$96,744 2.9 AU$100,536 Table 1: Salary as in Dec2015 (per annum) (Source: www.decd.sa.gov.au) The salary range of some of the private educational Institute in Australia is given below: Name Starting Salary(per annum) George Brown College AU$92,312 Humber College AU$ 60,807 Trinity College AU$ 67,407 Marist College AU$65,000 Table 2: Salary of few private colleges in Australia (Source: www.decd.sa.gov.au) Table 2 shows highly competitive rates of different educational institute for the teachers. However the rates vary on the basis of their brand name and facilities provided. The Sai Educational Institute need to compete with them to get quality teachers at competitive price. Motivate employees through proposed strategy The remuneration strategy will motivate the employees as it has given importance to incentives and rewards for the employees. The strategy has taken care of the working conditions of the employees and desires to provide them benefits for their hard work. The employees medical care and family trip, life insurance and other related benefits are taken care of in the strategy. It will motivate them to work better and improve their performance. The Institute has also provided good learning environment in the institute by providing informative library and easy access to resources for their research works. All this benefits will surely motivate the employees and will make the workplace desirable for them. Proposed strategy linkage with organizational strategic objectives. Universalistic approach indicates that some human resource activities such as incentive pay, is always better than others and that all organizations should implement these good practices (Pfeffer, 1994) The basic theory of contingency is that, for any organization to be effective policies must be consistent with the business policy of the organization. (Schuler and Jackson, 1987) Basic salary Every employee should receive his or her salary in time; this should correspond with the pay agreement and policy. The college strives to offer fair consideration remuneration and incentives to all staffs undertaking the contribution to the college. The college aim to achieve this by means of development of appropriate reward and incentives mechanism which are guided by: Fairness and equity (both internal and external) Guarantee to pay equity and gender balance The competitive environment inside which the organization works Balanced against the industrial and wider employment scheme offered tothe team. Health and wellbeing programs for staff members. Factors to consider when developing a remuneration strategy Budget Allocation The strategy should have an approach on how to allocate funds into salary and benefits. They should have clear guidelines on how much will be spent on wages and the percentage to be devoted toremunerations and other incentives. Budget allocation eases control of labor, healthcare and other miscellaneous costs that may arise. Develop Salary Ranges Developing salary ranges makes sure that employee pay is competitive with other organizations. For organizations to remain competitive, scaling of jobs within the same industry must be done so as to determine the kind of work done and be able to establish salary ranges that match with the job descriptions. Set a plan Having a plan on how the payments will be administered to provide for individual pay increases. Performance-based increases, promotions, raises for time spent with the organization or general increases to compensate for the changing economic factors and to remain competitive. Communication Communicate the plan to staff members. Describe how the program works so that expectations are defined. Communication will help build goodwill and good relations with your employees. Appraisals Perform employee performance evaluations under the plan. Explain how workers efforts relate to pay and provide responses to help employees understand job responsibilities and required expectations. Implementation of a Remuneration Strategy This is known a the turning of policies and plans into actions to achieve strategic objectives and set goals. The implementing of strategic plans is very critical more than the implementation of the strategies. Incentive compensation payments are based on achievement of a fixed set of objectives, formula or criteria. If results are realized, payment is made and if not, payment is not effected. The following steps will be considered in the successful implementation of the remunerations strategy. Have a detailed understanding of the knowledge and the background that the plan intends to support. Analysis of the firms professional goals, mission, and aims, the Human resource approach, and the reward philosophy. These forms the basis of the firmsorganization framework that the motivation benefit strategy will be aligned to and reinforced. Identifying core causes that drive the need for improving performance, cooperation, or employee commitment. It can be done by challenging whether there is a problem with payment methods, or any other factors that need more input. Identification of the businesss key tactical objectives. Know the areas that need improvement and allocate different weights to thetargets centered on impact, meaning, and your degree of self-relianceand the ability to measure results. Form a combined set of both fiscal and strategic objectives.There needs to be a range of economic and policy performance and compensation level and a payout opportunity that is consistent with the performance value and meaningful to staff. Define clear objectives for staff. The workers need to understand the goals clearly so that they have clear measures which will impact the sales and ensure production cost are lowered and profits achievable Remain engaged. The plan should be an ongoing process; It should be reviewed each and every year inline with the business settings and new goals and objectives. Communication channels. Use the plan as one way of communicating with staffs by providing feedback. Acknowledge the small and big wins and any other reinforcement or results achieved. Salary Package for Academic and non-academic staff The salary package for Academic and non-Academic staff includes basic pay, dearness allowance, house rent allowance, leave travel allowance, employer provident fund and children educational allowance Salary details of Academic Staff Amount Basic Pay AU$50,000 Dearness Allowances (5% of BP) AU$1,750 House Rent Allowances (10% of BP) AU$ 3,500 Leave travel allowances (3% of BP) AU$ 1,050 Employer Provident Fund( 5% of BP) AU$1,750 Children Educational Allowance(6% of BP) AU$2,100 AU$60,150 Table 3: Salary Package of Academic staff per annum Source: Author Salary details of Non-Academic Staff Amount Basic Pay AU$20,000 Dearness Allowances (5% of BP) AU$1,000 House Rent Allowances (8% of BP) AU$ 1600 Leave travel allowances (1% of BP) AU$ 200 Employer Provident Fund( 3% of BP) AU$600 Children Educational Allowance(3% of BP) AU$600 Total AU$24,000 Table 4: Salary Package of Non-Academic staff per annum Source: Author Outline the steps to implement the proposed remuneration strategy successfully. A company that has salary structure is able to manage their salary spending. It is also a good way of maintaining current employees and makes hiring and recruitment of employees easier. The following can guide in the implementation of a good salary structure. Establish value for every position in the firm When determining avalue for every position in the company, market prices have to be considered. Research on different organizations and how they pay for like jobs will help in establishing where Sai Educational Institute competitive posture The competitive position of a Sai Educational Institute is its global salary level compared to the market average across the scale jobs. The wage rates should be comparative to prices of other competitors. Compensable leverage This is how much more or less pay rate increases in your company, overall, as compared to the market rate increase for higher-paid positions in the organizational ladder. It helps in striking a balance between paying salary increases to staff when they get promotions. Outward inequalities Determine if some of the employees salaries are inconsistent with the firms relationship in the market across all the jobs. When the salaries are inequitable, it will be perceived as unfair Development of salary structures Decide if the salaries will be specifically based on minimum and maximums or if you will have pay grades whereby multiple positions are grouped together with same range Outline how you will review and update the remuneration strategy Review recent methods of reviewing salaries Interview workforce and management to scale how workers perceive the organization Come up with a way of reviewing salaries Define salary ranges that suit the firm Conduct workshops and training and integrate them with the human resource systems Considered factors and procedures during the review of the remuneration strategy The factors and procedures that should be that should be considered and followed when reviewing the remuneration strategy are discussed below: The pay review policy should have linkage with HR process so that the business needs are met. Planning should be done in advance about the review dates and effective connection should be made between the functions of HR, rewards, finances and business. Data should be gathered on inflations and cost of living of the country so that dearness allowance can be changed accordingly. The procedure of calculation should be simple with keeping in mind the requisite requirements. The management tools and technical back-ups should be used for completing the procedures effectively. The review of previous process should be done to understand it better The roles and responsibilities of the concerned people should be clearly defined in the procedure so that no loopholes emerge. The risk of reducing the incentives should be minimized and rewards should be given importance. Conclusion A firms strategy is a critical factor for a company, and it can last four many years. If an organization does not monitor the efficiency of the approach, it may lead to failure instead of success. There may be deviations in the result, which can be corrected as time goes. Normally, it is easy to fix errors is differences are found early Superannuation Superannuation is a savings plan whereby funds accumulateover a given periodto provide an income during retirement. It allows money to be reserved aside on a fixed interval basis for a specific duration of time. The money can be invested activities that will earn interest or in projects. The objective of this scheme Facilitate consumption smoothing over the course of a persons life. To help people manage financial risks during retirement. Help a person to be fully funded from savings To provide income in retirement Invest resources in the best interests of superannuation fund members Be straightforward and efficient, and provide safeguards to people during retirement. Method of implementation Employer contributions Compulsory superannuation guarantee (SG) contributions amounts must be paid to a selected pension fund for their workers at a rate of 9.5% of their earnings. Personal contributions Voluntary contributionscan be made by people towards their superannuation and in return get they get tax benefits for doing so. Benefits to employees A person's funds are combined with other investors, letting them make investments which are impossible for a single investor. Having a person's savings inaccessible for a set period is an attractive benefit to the individuals who might be drawn to "dip" into their superannuation fund. Itsa tax effective way of saving. Superannuation is the best tax effective way of saving for a longer duration. Governments have a concern about people who will retire without savings and depend on the government for support. Due to that, they have developed ways to encourage people to save within Super funds. Recent changes $1.6 million limits on the total amount of super that can be transferred into a tax-free retirement account The annual concessional contributions limit reduced to $25,000 and allowing catch up contributions of good caps over five years for balances of $500,000 or less A lifetime cap of $500,000 will be applied to after-tax concessions on super to reduce the capacity for superannuation to be used for capital accumulation effective immediately and backdated to 2007. Performance Based Remuneration ( PBR) Performance-based remuneration provides companies with the flexibility to attract and retain great staff. Performance payments are one-off payments made to employeesbya documented performance-based compensation plan, based on set performance targets. Payment is non-recurrent and based on achievements within specific timeframes Outline the concept of performance based remuneration Research indicates that performance-based compensation leads to the opposite of the desired outcomes when it is applied to any work involving reasoning rather than physical skill. The objective of this remuneration strategy A performance-based plan employs objective criteria to decide the incentive to be paid. These ideas form precisely known goals that the organization must achieve to receive the benefit. It is objective oriented and designed to identify specifically and incrementally reward the top performers. Method of implementation in the organization PBR methods tie the reward directly to particular business goals and management objectives. Firms must deliver competitive pay for the people who show reults, and low pay for low performers.For companies to achieve, this, they need to match quantifiable and manageable performance targets to company objectives. The common variables include: - Equity - the quantity and amount to be paid is normally centered on a part of value additional as determined by the system measuring performance of workers. Improvement sharing The company may adopt a system of distributing a portion of results to employees, based on performance versus plan. Bonuses These are awards in form of cash paid to the employees for amazing accomplishments or other activity-related deliveries; Benefits to employees Increase in Earnings: - It allows employees to increase their income since they are in control of their earnings. Over holiday seasons, workers can increase production to earn more money. Benefits to employers The increase in retention: - There is a positive link between effort and performance, and employee retention is enhanced since the staff that performs best is rewarded for his/her efforts. This makes them retainable to an organization. Less Supervision: - Organizations that use PBR experience a decrease in the need to supervise their staffs since they know their work output translates to their pay. Disadvantages of this remuneration strategy Less Input by employees: -This makes employees to fear giving managers their contribution for changes. Employees shelve their ideas even if they think they are right for fear of reduction in earnings. Various firms value and depend on their employee's input in order to make decisions concerning the company. Conflict among employees: - A disadvantage of pay based on performance policies is that they can create conflict among workers. An employee may that a supervisor displays partiality to other staffmembers and assists them to attain bonuses. Distrust and conflict create hostile working environments, which lessenefficiency. Fringe benefits- These are additional benefits provided to workers other than usual payment in the form of salaries. They offer a measurable value to individual employees. Fringe benefits are not connected to the performance of workers since they are an indirect form of reward and are given to staff because they are members of the company. Outline the concept and objectives of fringe benefits They create and increase good working relations. They promote the welfare of They act as a form of security to employees Help to motivate the employees Employees health is protected. Benefits to employees Contributeto boosting the morale of workers and pride in a company. Employees who have personal life policies enjoy additional protection. Employees have a peace of mind which ensures increased productivity. Benefits to employers Helps attracts and retain high-performing employees: - Fringe benefits play a significant role in keeping present employees content with their work environment while maintaining the competition from poaching top talent. Financial advantages: - employers pay premiums which in turn are tax deductible as an insurance expense to the company. Recruiting Talent: - There is much competition among companies. Thus they may find it difficult to attract a workforce based on salaries alone. Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) and calculating FBT Fringe benefits tax- This is atax that companies pay on certain benefits they provide to their workers. The family members of the employee may also be included. The benefit may be a top up to, or part of, the employees income. Calculating FBT Assume a company pays the manager $500,000 P/a and provides a car benefit with a taxable value of $30,000 during the 2015/16 FBT year. The $500,000 is taxed at the applicable PAYG withholding rate which is withheld and pays to the ATO. The $20,000 car benefit is taxed as follows: Taxable Value $20,000 Multiplied by Gross-up rate x 2.1463 Grossed-up taxable value $42,926 FBT Rate 49% FBT Payable (rounded) $21,033 References Leow, LP Murphy, S 2008, Australian master superannuation guide, 12th edn, CCH Australia, North Ryde, New South Wales. Balkin, D. and Gomez-Mejia, L. 1987. Toward a contingent theory of compensation strategy. Strategic Management Journal, 8, 169-182. Beal, D 2008, Superannuation and retirement income planning, John Wiley Sons, Milton, Queensland. Ellig, B. 1981, Compensation elements: market phase determines the mix. Compensation Review I Third Quarter, pp. 30-38. Gupta. C.B. 2005, Human ResourceManagement, Sultan Chand Publishers, New Delhi Kerr, J. 1985, Diversification strategies and managerial rewards: an empirical study. Academy of Management Journal, 28, pp. 155-179. Lawler, E. 1981, Pay and Organizational Development. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Pay, wages and salaries | Department for Education and Child Development. (2016). Decd.sa.gov.au. Retrieved 1 August 2016, from https://www.decd.sa.gov.au/working-decd/working-department/pay-wages-and-salaries Pfeffer, J. (1994), Competitive Advantage Through People, Harvard Business School Press, Boston Schneier, C.E., Beatty, R.W., Baird, L.S. 1987, The performance management sourcebook. Massachusetts: Human Resource Development Press. Stroh, E.C. 2001, Personnel Motivation: Strategies to stimulate employees to increase performance. Politeia, 20(2), 5974. Wils, T. and Dyer, L. (1984). Relating business strategy to human resource strategy: some preliminary evidence. Paper presented at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. Boston, MA.

Contemporary Issues In Human Resource Management †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Contemporary Issues In Human Resource Management. Answer: Identification of the key messages about Google as an employer Google is an American company of technological goods and services. Google primarily deals with internet services or products. Google has an innovative recruitment system. It is widely known for the space and encouragement it provides for the employees in the company. The HRM policy of a company always helps recruits the right individuals, helps them to adopt the situation and motivate them by allowing them to provide their innovative ideas to the management. Lopes, (2006) uploaded a video of Google recruitment policies. In the video, Jim Fitzpatrick plays the host in the recruitment video. She showcases the audiences about the advantages of an employee of Google. The video is an advertisement for the advantages an employee of Google possesses unlike the people of the employees of the other corporations. She interviews few of the employees who have worked outside Google and have joined Google for a fair amount of time. They have shared their transformed lifestyle after joining their jobs in Google. In the video, the host meets Garang Capito who was an engineer from Purdue University joined the Google after he worked in many other corporations. However, he describes the positive work culture and enthusiastic employees as a positive influence in his life (Maslow, 2013). As the work is so well arranged and organised every employee seems to be very productive for the company. Forbes, (2016) stated that the work culture of the Google is good because of psychological safety. According to Maslows Motivation theory, safety is one of the key issues which play a key role in the employee motivation (Tanner, 2016). The stability in the job profile of the Google is displayed with clarity in the recruitment video. The video also mentions about official and unofficial mentors. The new employees are always helped by a senior employee or official in the Google. An official mentor is allotted to every new comer in the company whereas, other senior employees also helps or mentors other employees according to requirement. Later the video also includes the fact that Google has allotted 20 percent of the work time of the employees to work on their own projects. The video also showcases that many of the employees are working with their specific ideas. Google allows such innovative ideas to flourish in their own backyard. It is quite uncommon among other leading companies in the United States. This innovation is a part of democratic decision making of the company (Strandburg-Peshkin, 2016). The company maintains this process in order to help the employees perform better and enhance their job satisfaction. As a company, Google believes in taking care of its employees. Google also provides a schedule of the employees to maintain the balance between work and life. The company has provided the facilities like Gymnasium and new child centres for the families of the employees. The video also introduces the viewers with the initiative called Google 15. In this innovative initiative, the organisation provides 15 pounds of organic vegetables for its employees. As organic vegetables are good for health, the snacks made up of it are good for the health of the employees. Hence, Google has applied this strategy in order to help the employees to stay healthy and fit. This is a magnificent incentive scheme which is unlike any other type of motivating initiative in the market. Generally the initiatives either deal with monetary incentives or paid leaves (Campbell Smith, 2015). However, this strategy makes the employees feel that the company thinks and feels for its employees and every employee is im portant for the organisation. Incorporation of the Human Resource Management theory and literature The video clearly showcases that Google is more interested in the creative minds. Technological innovation is the key to the business Google is involved in (Lopes, 2006). Hence, it tries to recruit the employees who are driven towards creating something new, the individuals who has the urge to innovate and find something new for the world. The HRM policies mainly include various motivational models and theories which are often utilised in the organisations. The theories like Herzbergs two factor principles, Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, the Expectation theory, Rensis Likerts participative Decision Making Theory and Gregorys Theory X and Theory Y. The recruitment policies and Human resource management of Google is quite innovative and has been positively working for the last decade. According to Herzbergs two factor principle, the de-motivating factors and motivating factors in the professional life of the employees are indifferent from each other (Beardwell Thompson, 2014). Herzberg was the first to differentiate between the motivational and the de-motivational factors of the employee. Herzberg categorises these factors as Motivational factors and the Hygiene factors. The motivational factors are achievement, recognition, advancement, work, responsibility and others whereas the hygiene factors are policy administration, micromanagement, relationships, job security, working conditions, status and personal life (Elliot, Dweck Yeager, 2017). In Google the management has kept both these factors in mind. The employees are well paid, they are provided with enough recognition and fame according to their achievement. Google also provides them with the opportunity to take responsibility to innovate and present new advices to the management. On the other hand, Google h as initiated micro management with the help of official and unofficial mentors for the new recruits. The hygiene factors like job security have been a major boost for the employees. It has an impact on the minds of the employees. It helps them to work faster and harder and feel for the company. Google also provides facilities like child care programs and gymnasiums as hygiene factors in the personal life of the employees. Hence, it can be understood that according to Herzbergs theory Google has a very successful HRM policy. Maslows theory of hierarchical needs showcases that employee motivation is primarily divided into five stages (Cherry, 2014). An employee feels a certain way according to the working conditions and appreciation he gets from his company. The five stages of needs are biological and physiological needs, safety needs, love requirements, esteem needs and self actualisation. The primary factors for the employees are physiological needs. The physiological needs include food, shelter, clothing and salary. After this, the employee requires safety followed by belonging, esteem and self actualisation. In Google, the employees are provided with a good salary structure, help and support from the other employees, safety and security by organisational structure and the allotted time for family and personal lives and status. Hence, it is much easier for teh Google employee to reach stage of self actualisation. Likerts Participative Decision making theory supports the democratic decision making process. It is is important to involve every employee in a company by asking them explore new ideas and work on it for the company (Irawanto, 2015). Google implies this process in order to remain successful in retaining the important employees in their system. Highlight the challenges organisations such as Google would face in their recruitment process. Schimdt, (2016) stated in his report that employee retention and employee recruitment is going to be a huge challenge for the leading companies in the United Sates. The report of Forbes mentions about a constant conflict between recruitment and Human Resource department of the same organisation. Ryan, (2017) stated in his report that five primary problems of the recruitment in the leading companies are unreal job advertisements, long procedures of job application, robotic communication by the recruiters , irrelevant tests and examinations of the participants and bad behaviour during the interviews. These problems often conclude into negative results. The recruiters should keep these aspects in mind before recruitment. The leading companies like Google and Microsoft often faces few challenges in recruiting the best employees in the market. The core problems are : The Hiring Managers are often not completely acquainted with the job role and recruits employees according to their personal choice (Williams et al.,2015 ). This creates havoc problems in the future for the company. It takes a long time to understand the quality of the candidates. The yardstick of educational qualification does not work all the time. The assessment of talent is impossible through the educational qualifications of a candidate (Breaugh, 2017). Good candidates often expect a lot from the companies. They often expect that the company will provide huge incentives along with monetary and non-monetary benefits for the employees (Breaugh, 2017). The companies often want to recruit employees who will stay for longer time periods. The loyalty of the employees is very important for the company (Breaugh, 2017). Hence, they recruit these aspects in the recruitment processes of the company. The problems of recruitment faced by the organisations like Google are to search for a creative mind and try to compete with the other leading corporations in recruiting the best employees. Google tries to recruit employees who are best suited for their work culture and will be able to innovate. According to Antoun et al., (2015), Google has a secret trick through which it recruits the best employees in the business. This report mentions that the company conducts the recruitment process through an elongated process. According to the report, the employees were asked to answer six challenging questions with in 1 hour and 48 minutes. The interview process is an elongated procedure through which it recruits better employees. References Antoun, C., Zhang, C., Conrad, F. G., Schober, M. F. (2016). Comparisons of online recruitment strategies for convenience samples: Craigslist, Google AdWords, Facebook, and Amazon Mechanical Turk.Field Methods,28(3), 231-246. Beardwell, J., Thompson, A. (2014).Human resource management: a contemporary approach. Pearson Education. Breaugh, J. A. (2017). to Recruitment.The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Recruitment, Selection and Employee Retention, 12. Campbell, A., Smith, C. (2015). Corporate Styles.Wiley Encyclopedia of Management. Cherry, K. (2014). Hierarchy of needs.The Five Levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. About. com Guide.| Link. Elliot, A. J., Dweck, C. S., Yeager, D. S. (Eds.). (2017).Handbook of Competence and Motivation: Theory and Application. Guilford Publications. Forbes.com. (2016).What Does It Take To Excel In Google's Culture?.Forbes.com. Retrieved 1 August 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/09/07/what-does-it-take-to-excel-in-googles-culture/#2892fb22325f Irawanto, D. W. (2015). Employee participation in decision making: Evidence from state owned enterprise in Indonesia.Management: Journal of Contemporary Management Issues,20(1), 159-172. Lopes, N. (2006).Google Recruitment Video.YouTube. Retrieved 1 August 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcXF1YirPrQt=15s Maslow, A. H. (2013).A theory of human motivation. Simon and Schuster. Ryan, L. (2017).Five Ways Your Recruiting Process Drives Talent Away.Forbes.com. Retrieved 1 August 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2017/03/11/five-ways-your-recruiting-process-drives-talent-away/#7a4904e7789f Schmidt, L. (2016).Why Retention Will Be The Biggest Talent Challenge Of 2017.Forbes.com. Retrieved 1 August 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/larsschmidt/2016/12/16/why-retention-will-be-the-biggest-talent-challenge-of-2017/#37e9ce396ae4 Strandburg-Peshkin, A., Farine, D. R., Couzin, I. D., Crofoot, M. C. (2015). Shared decision-making drives collective movement in wild baboons.Science,348(6241), 1358-1361. Tanner, R. (2016). Motivation: Applying Maslows hierarchy of needs theory. Williams, K., Golding, S., Mackie, A., MacQueen, G., Kiss, Z., Ramasubbu, R. (2017). Deep brain stimulation for treatment resistant depression: challenges in recruitment.Brain Stimulation: Basic, Translational, and Clinical Research in Neuromodulation,10(2), 533.

The Grandmothers Tale Essay Example

The Grandmothers Tale Essay EXTENSION ENGLISH The Grandmothers Tale Speech Fairy Tales are short stories that have been passed through cultures and generations, usually adapting to fit the social restrictions and morals of the time. The Grandmothers Tale, which most of us would recognize as Charles Perrault’s adaptation, Little Red Riding Hood, has been passed through different cultures, countries and many variations of the text are prevalent in different societies around the world. The Grandmother’s Tale tells of how a young girl, who is nameless, ventures through the woods to visit her sick grandmother. On the way she meets a wolf, and because of her naivety, tells him where she is heading. The wolf beats her there, eats the grandmother and when the girl arrives, the wolf simulates the grandmother’s voice in order to eat the girl too. The girl how-ever escapes and the wolf ends up getting dropped in the river by laundresses and drowns. Because the hero of the story, the young girl is kept nameless throughout various variations of the text, she is then seen as a representative of all children who read the text, making her a role model for those children. We will write a custom essay sample on The Grandmothers Tale specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Grandmothers Tale specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Grandmothers Tale specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer By giving her an identity this would no longer apply, lessening the effect that fairy tales are designed to have on children. The text has undergone a number of transformations, both simple and complex, thus leading to a variety of versions. By analyzing the text and applying reading practices, approaches and other methods of deconstruction, namely those of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s cycle and Vladimir Propp’s deconstruction of folk tales, it is possible to create a complex transformation of the text. Vladimir Propp and Joseph Campbell both theorized the idea that in divulging into a fairytale text analytically, one can establish certain analyzable elements which are present in a majority of folk tales in unvarying order. Propp studies fairytales by examining their most basic plot components. He devised a list of 31 generic functions, proposing that they covered all of the plot components from which fairy tales were constructed. Joseph Campbell however, discovered one standard plot that has been repeated throughout mythology and fairytale genre. The invited reading of this text is not dissimilar to Bruno Betlelheim’s theory that â€Å"Children know that there are monsters – they need to know that they can be defeated. † The young girl is able to subvert the power relationship between herself and the wolf by using her wits to outsmart him, becoming the heroine of the story and saving herself rather than being passive and becoming a victim. The ideal reading is to not challenge the status quo, thus agreeing with the ideologies presented in the text. By doing so, the reader would be then deemed by Eco to be what he theorized as the ‘Model reader’. The Model reader responds, comprehends, embraces and respects dominant ideologies and discourses promoted in the text. Though the model reader is not born with that socio-cultural understanding, it is imbedded into varying aspects of their culture, like fairy tales, thus molding them into the â€Å"Model reader†. By using characters such as Ogres, witches and, in the case of the grandmother’s tale, a wolf, to portray evil, children are able to easily distinguish between the good and bad. One reason for this is because of the depiction of such characters in folk tales. Usually the good characters are represented as being beautiful, gold hearted beings while the evil are ugly animalistic creatures that are rarely human. The purpose of many fairy tales is to support the status quo. By repeating this practice fairy tales are able to convey the idea that society is portrayed how it should and that it should not be challenged or questioned. They are inherently conservative and portray the dominant ideologies of the time and the society of which they support. They are written by those in power in order to position us in favor of the already powerful. When analyzing The Grandmother’s Tale, it is necessary to have considered the cultural understandings of the time period of which it was written and to understand the discourses which shape that particular society. A discourse is not just a way of speaking or writing, but the whole ‘mental set’ and ideology which encloses the thinking of all members of a given society. That is why transformations of the text can occur. French Philosopher, Michel Foucault is post-modernist in his approach to defining power. He theorized that â€Å"Power works through language by presenting a certain type of knowledge as if it were reality or truth. The discourses of power which exist in society, are those promoted in fairytales. These are people who are wealthy, mainly those born into wealth, and the biologically powerful, men. In The Grandmother’s Tale, the power is, to my cultural understanding, decentralized, by subverting the power relationship to favor the young girl, though in the transformation, Little Red Riding Hood, the power is attributed to the patriarchal male. By referring to Joseph Campbell’s Hero cycle and Vladimir Propp’s analysis of folk tales, the characters can be categorized by the roles of which they play. The heroine of the story is the young girl; she would be labeled as the hero. This operates under a socially acceptable discourse, that of femininity and youth. She is portrayed as genuinely light hearted, a discursive trait that is generally attributed to the hero of the tale. The wolf is the villain of the tale, portraying evil, dishonesty and a cunning manipulative personality. In Norse mythology, Fenrir is a wolf that is bound by the gods, though destined to grow and kill Odin, only to be slain by Odin’s son . Anthropomorphism is the attribution of uniquely human characteristics to nonhuman beings, inanimate objects, or natural or supernatural phenomena. This is something that is repeated in many fairy tales, though in most cases the object or animal is portrayed as something positive. Examples such as the little bird or the bull, existing in transformation of the Cinderella text are seen as the agents of transformation, helping the unrecognized hero, as labeled by Joseph Campbell, to break free of the restraints which hold the hero back from transformation. Readers readily embrace the negative connotations attributed with wolfs, not just because of representations in Norse mythology and other tales, legends and stories, but also because of the biological factors. The wolf is an ice age survivor, stalking its prey in packs. They hunt in packs and for many years have deprived farmers of their livestock, leading to starvation. By attributing human traits to the wolf, a creature that is feared in societies around the world and often portrayed as evil, the children reading, or listening to the text are subconsciously connecting those fearful manipulative traits seen in humans, with evil. This particular representation has supported society’s constraints and still exists and operates in societies of today. Though the wolf is portrayed negatively, it can still be seen as the agent of transformation. In the tale, the girl is naive and disorientated to start with, though with the second encounter of the wolf the girl realizes that he is negative, taking it upon her self to flee. The wolf or villain is then killed, leaving the reader with a sense of satisfaction, knowing that the good character of the story prevailed. The wolf is not human so the power discourse is shifted then by that fact and the fact that he is evil, putting the young girl in power, making it socially acceptable for the wolf to be slain. In some variations of the text the wolf is slain in a gruesome manner yet is still seen as acceptable. By introducing the Woodcutter into an adaptation of the text, Little Red Riding Hood, the power discourse is then, in my opinion, centralized, due to the society of which I live in. In the text, the dominant discourses operating are that of gender. A middle aged working man is now seen to be the hero of the story, subverting the power relationship away from the young girl. He rescues the two women from the wolf, portraying the women as passive and dependant. Both of these ideals are crucial in understanding both texts and without them the text would convey little meaning. This naturalizes the dominant discourses operating in the society of when the text was written. Post-Structuralism suggests that the reader will attribute their own attitudes, values and beliefs to a text whilst reading it. They make links based on the social context of which they exist and operate and expect or predict certain outcomes and events, such as good prevailing over evil, thus leading to a â€Å"happy ending† (do finger quote marks!!!!! ). A happy ending is normally constituted by the dominant discourse that represents the good, generally the heroes, prevailing, while the negativity of the story or the villain is conquered. In literary theory structuralism is a reading approach that observes narrative material, semiotic codes being just one aspect. Structuralism emerged fully in the 1950’s and 1960’s though it can be traced back to the works of Ferdinand de Saussure; a Swiss Linguist who was one of the key figures in the development of modern approaches to the study of language between 1857 and 1913. By analyzing The Grandmother’s Tale using the semiotic code, there are underlying actions, discourses and ideologies prevalent in the text, as well as symbolic meanings which lead the reader to gain inter-textual references and recognize the text as a variation of a text that they have read. Examples of this are such things as the introduction of the colour red that is used in Little Red Riding Hood, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s version Little Red Cap, an Austrian version called Little Red Hat and it is also seen in other variations of the story. Alfred DuPont Chandler, Jr. was a professor of business history at Harvard Business School, who wrote extensively about the scale and the management structures of modern corporations. He states â€Å"A sign is a meaningful unit which is interpreted as standing for something other than itself†. The tale and its variations follow the same basic structure and the discourses under which the characters operate tend to be similar in each of the texts. By analyzing the text and subverting discourses and changing actions and traits of the characters, a complex transformation of the text can be produced. This text is generally unrecognizable and readers are unable to connect it to the original text until methods of deconstruction are applied. An example of this is the movie Pretty Woman, a complex transformation of the Cinderella fairy tale. The discourses under which the characters operate have been subverted; therefore the viewer doesn’t recognize the text though they anticipate the actions and behavior of the characters as well as the ending because they are subconsciously making links to Cinderella and similar fairy tales without realization of this. To create a complex transformation of The Grandmother’s Tale, one must subvert ideologies and discourses so that they can be questioned and must stray from the archetypal characters. When deconstructing the transformed version of The Grandmother’s Tale it is obvious that the same basic line of events and structure is still used. It is the discursive shifts and altered semiotics that make the text unrecognizable. The ideal young girl of the story is that of a kind hearted innocent being. By representing her as a young prostitute who has little respect for men, she is no longer the epitome of all that is good and pure, formulating many negative ideologies so that the reader then has to question the text. This then allows a transformation of which challenges cultural expectations and social understandings and assumptions that are crucial to the base text. The inversion of the â€Å"wolf† is another aspect of the transformed text that makes it harder to link it to the original base text. Zoopomorphisation, opposed to anthropomorphism, is giving the human character animal features. I have then subverted those characteristics so that the character is completely different from what the reader expects. The wolf character in The Grandmother’s Tale represents evil, so it would be natural to have the human character whose physical attributes are wolf like to also be evil. There are examples of this in many fictional stories and movies with the use of the â€Å"werewolf† character. However, in the transformed version of The Grandmother’s Tale, Fenrir the male client of the subverted ideal girl who is a prostitute is inverted behaviorally by loving and trying to protect the prostitute. His intentions are pure and selfless, unlike those of the wolf in the base texts. Another discursive shift present in the transformed text is that of the grandmother figure from the base text. The Grandmother’s Tale and Little Red Riding Hood both consist of a sick grandmother, who is needy of basic necessities like milk and bread. The young girl in both of those tales then takes those necessities to the ill grandmother. By inverting the grandmothers gender and altering the age and discourse under which the character operates, an unrecognizable character is formed. When deconstructed, the pimp in the transformed text is actually the subverted grandmother from the base text. He too is ill, though in the text it states what illness he has, putting him in a position where he is relying on his prostitute to bring him money to live on. His behavior however is not kind, but manipulative and selfish, shifting away from the discursive traits of the original character. The pimp is represented as being physically attractive opposed to being physically animalistic and ugly, a trait which generally applies to the villains of the text. Take for example the step mother or step sisters in Cinderella. Those three characters are all represented as being selfish and ugly and are seen to be the villains. The prostitute respects him, something that a lot of us would find hard to comprehend due to the society of which we operate and the ideologies which enclose our thinking. In the original text, the hero’s helpers are the laundresses. By inverting their gender and altering the motive behind killing the wolf character, they are no longer perceived as the hero’s helpers. Though this shift has occurred, the same line of events and the same outcomes are achieved. The reason for these discursive shifts is to subvert the dominant patterns seen in The Grandmother’s Tale and its variations, thus positioning the reader to question ideologies and discourses used in the transformed text. The semiotics in the transformed text are those seen in the original text, though slightly altered. The colour red that has been introduced to variations of The Grandmother’s Tale is used throughout the transformed version, though in different ways conveying different ideologies and meanings. The tattoo on the young prostitute’s leg is an important symbol, ttributing several different meanings to the text. There is extensive symbolism endorsed with the colour red, some positive and some negative. Red is evidently the first colour perceived by man, and a common belief is that the colour red held protective powers against evil influence. Some negative connotations of the colour can be dated back to Israelites in biblical times who painted their do orframes in red blood to scare demons. In ancient Egypt red was the colour of the desert and that of the destructive god Seth. Red is the most vivid symbol in the text, though it was not originally used in The Grandmother’s Tale and was thought to be introduced by Perrault. Psychoanalytic critics have divulged into analyzing the meaning of the colour as it traditionally symbolizes things that would not normally be attributed with a small child. Sin and blood to passion and sexuality, there are many sexual undertones attributed with the colour red. Though the colour is suggestive of sexual connotations, it was most likely introduced by Perrault to try and provoke the idea of caution, another meaning often associated with the colour red. It is obvious that the semiotics present in a text will change over time due to extensive perceptions of signs and symbols that are attributed with certain cultural beliefs. The reason I chose to use a Chinese dragon as the symbol of her tattoo is because of the dominant religions prevalent in my cultural context. By using a red dragon, I am able to subvert the Judeo Christian ideologies and discourses surrounding innocence and the belief in one god. The dominant meaning derived from the tattoo and its colour is that it is very provocative and sexually suggestive, emphasized a lot by the fact that it is on her upper thigh. When analyzed and applied to Chinese mythology, it suggests a lot of other connotations, differing greatly to the negative connotations assumed surrounding Judeo Christian ideologies. The Chinese dragon is one of the most important mythical creatures in Chinese mythology. The Chinese dragon is considered to be the most powerful and divine creature and is believed to be the controller of all waters. The dragon symbolised great power and was very supportive of heroes and gods. This subverts religious beliefs present in the text as there has been extensive interaction between chinese mythology and religion. The chinese dragon is also ultimately symbolic of good fortune. This transformation oversteps boundries layed down by society, and does not make sense within the traditional fairy tale genre. I have chosen to subvert various discourses in order to display this, though I kept the same basic structure throughout the whole text. The original consists of a young girl getting followed by a wolf, who is going to get taken away from her grandmother, though because of this the wolf gets killed. The transformed text is ultimately the same, though due to the amount of discursive shifts this is unrecognizalbe at first. Through reproductions of the text, the most common dominant discourses present are that of gender, clearly reflecting the way society has been and still is being constructed to accept the patriachal hierachy of male dominance. It is evident that fairy tales have underlying intentions of societal constraint and socially acceptable conformity, thus the repiticouse productions of fairy tales seem to have the same underlying message, of which is society is portrayed how it should and that it should not be challenged or questioned. Thank-you

Model United Nations Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers

Model United Nations Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers Model United Nations PS 199D Fall 2006 Dr. Mary Pettenger Mondays, Wednesdays and Office: HSS 205 Fridays 11-11:50 Phone: (503)838-8301 Location: HSS 111 Email: [emailprotected] CRN #: 11032 Office Hours: M, W, F 10-10:50 M & F 2-2:50, and by appointment Web Page: www.wou.edu/~pettengm Course Description The Model United Nations (MUN) course is a unique class because it is a blend of student-managed club and academic course. Students are the primary decision-makers and leaders for the organization. By choosing to participate in this challenging but rewarding club, you will gain valuable knowledge and skills, and join a committed and highly motivated group of students. The purpose of Western Oregon University-MUN (WOUMUN) is to increase your knowledge about international issues, policy making and the activities of the United Nations. You will also gain valuable skills in public speaking, research and writing, negotiation and powers of persuasion, leadership, organization, and interpersonal communication. Students will gain these skills through course assignments, club activities and, most importantly, by playing the role of United Nations delegates at MUN conferences. You will have the opportunity to represent WOU as a MUN delegate at Model UN conferences locally, nationally and internationally. Students are responsible for attending classes, completing several assignments in preparation for MUN conferences, and to attend and participate in the local MUN-Cascadia (MUNC) conference. The instructor of the course fulfills the roles of faculty club advisor and course instructor, holding you responsible to complete the course requirements and to facilitate your learning by providing you with information to gain the necessary knowledge and skills. Ultimately, the benefits you receive from the course will come from your willingness to learn and contribute. Be aware that the time commitment of being a club member is great, but the rewards, if you are willing, are greater. Required Materials (1) Moore, Jr., John A. and Jerry Pubantz, 2006, The New United Nations: International Organization in the Twenty-first Century New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. (Available in the bookstore) (2) United Nations, 2004, Basic Facts about the United Nations New York: United Nations Publications. (Available free to all class members) (3) MUN Delegate Handbook, several copies on reserve in the library. (4) UN Wire. You must subscribe to this free on-line publication at unwire.org/subscribe (5) Materials on Reserve in the Library and on the Internet (see the Projected Class Schedule for specific article titles and web sites) (6) UN Internet Resources, un.org and UN Document Source, http://unbisnet.un.org (7) A source of current event information (newspaper, television, internet, radio) pay particular attention to news related to the United Nations and country assignments. The following is a brief list of the many internet news sources that provide daily news and email updates: The New York Times nytimes.com The Washington Post washingtonpost.com The Christian Science Monitor http:/www.csmonitor.com/ The Economist economist.com/ CNN http://cnn.com Google News http://news.google.com Fall Quarter Activities (1) Conferences The main activity for the PS199 class will be preparation for and participation in the Model United Nations of Cascadia (MUNC) Conference November 10-12 in downtown Portland, hosted by Clark College. Further information will be provided in class. You must participate in this conference as part of the course requirements. (2) Fundraising Volunteers will participate in fundraising activities to collect money for conference expenses and support United Nations organizations (UNICEF, UN Day, etc.). (3) Club Meetings The MUN Club meets every Friday from 12:00-12:50 in HSS112. Attendance is strongly encouraged for class members and extra credit points can be earned. The Directorate of Western-MUN The WOUMUN is headed by a Student Directorate, which acts as the primary decision-making body with regard to the club matters. Directorate members and all other returning club members serve as valuable resources to new club members. Members-at-large will be selected the second week of classes. The 2006-2007 Directorate leaders are: President: Jesse O'Neil Vice-president: Genna Melton Treasurer: Patrick Eiser Secretary: Abby Stephens Laura Maddox is the Assistant Advisor to Dr. Pettenger. Mentors and Tutoring Sessions You will be assigned a mentor during the second week of class. Veteran Club Members will serve as resources to provide you training and information regarding conference preparation and performance. Starting the second week of class, tutoring sessions will be held one night a week. It is strongly suggested that you attend these sessions for tips on research, assistance in writing policy statements and resolutions. Each session is worth 5 points of extra credit. Testing Methods and Point Scale Successful completion of PS 199 will be based upon the following assignments. Students will be able to monitor their own progress through the course by

Invention of printing press Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Invention of printing press - Essay Example The most common form of printing technology is offset lithography that consists of separate towers for every color of ink for printing. Others are gravure printing dependent on the small depressions on the printing plate surface, pad printing, screen printing, and relief printing. The invention of the printing press depended on already available printing technologies that were in use in various regions, such as ink, paper, and block printing invention that was quite common in China, before moving out to revolutionize Europe through Gutenberg works. Industrial Printing Presses Printing presses have evolved enormously over time, shifting from manual to mechanical structures which are less tedious, easier to produce, and with much reduced chances of injuries. Since ancient times, the transformations from wooden to metal built devices are evident, changing the face of printing from Egyptian wooden block printing, all the way to lithography, offset printing, 19th century hot stamping type setting, phototypesetting, to modern 3D printing and digital press. Stanhope printing press invented the first book press using cast iron, followed by Columbian press, which was a drift from Gutenberg print press, even if they employed most of the features and operation procedures from previous Gutenberg’s work (utexas.edu, n.d). All these former industrial press have been serving as the foundations of the succeeding printing presses in the modern society. Mechanized printing press. The difference that arises between the press and Gutenberg’s are the speed of press to make an impression on the paper. While Gutenberg print press compositors put type together by hand to assemble about 2000 characters per... The increase in print works allowed the spread of Christianity across the globe, which was one major practice that preceded European settlement in different continents. Bible translation into native languages was possible, enhancing spread of the gospel to different communities in their backyards. According to Eisenstein, â€Å"between the invention of the printing press and 1520, one hundred and fifty six Latin edition of the Bible had been published, together with seventeen German translation† (1979, p. 330). People had to learn to read and write, to read the word been spread, and acquire timely information and knowledge for their benefit. The number of people who attended church teachings reduced, since the word was more available to everyone, and as the result many could criticize some religious doctrines, creating conflicts among Christian religious denominations.How Printing Press Changed CommunicationCommunication comes differently to convey a message to the society. To day you find people using signs languages, either in body or pictorial forms to mean something. No longer is the human presence important as the agent of message delivery, but the message could be printed out and authorized to clarify and assure its origin to the sender. The culture of public communication has been influenced by the changing printing press technologies, such that it goes beyond providing learning, reasoning, and meaning of the message, to ensure people easier and reliable access of information, and its control when need be.

Company Evaluation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Company Evaluation - Assignment Example Secondly, Miller stated that the fact the site is accessible worldwide has made it the most popular online site in the world where different people from different corners of the world can interact. The third key competence of facebook is its active research and development department, which has continually offered the site with new features that, makes social interaction more interesting. Lastly, the multilingual capability of facebook means non-English speakers can also utilise the social site (40-45). The value and mission of facebook is to simple enable people to connect with friends across that world and this value and mission statement help shape the planning function in the company, since every plan should always be applicable and beneficial to different users across the world. Therefore, the statement helps planners within the company to approach their task with a global approach. The main internal factors of facebook that will influence the business in the future are its research and development, and marketing. Through, continued research and development, the company will be able to remain at the top of competition and it will provide users with a variety of functional features for social interaction. Additionally, through aggressive marketing campaigns across the world the company will be able to attract many users and stay on top of the competition. One of the external factors that can influence the business in the future is heightened competition from other online social sites that are continually coming up and therefore, pose a threat to facebook’s market

Pharmacology assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Pharmacology - Assignment Example The effect of the new drug on the action of warfarin will be investigated in 12 healthy participants. The investigation is based on an open label study that would utilize a multiple dose design. To analyze the interaction between the two drugs in terms of the way JP234 would induce the metabolism of a single dose of warfarin, both R and S enantiomers were initiated through the CYP450 metabolic pathway. The study will be done based on the assumption that the new drug has been studied in vivo whereby in vitro metabolic studies will be consulted in determining whether JP234 is a substrate or an inhibitor the enzymes involved in the metabolism of warfarin. The study results will help in determining any possible interaction, such as whether PJ234 inhibits or induces the metabolism of warfarin. The mode of warfarin action in this case is based on its impact on the synthesis of vitamin K. The study will thus be able to portray the impact of drug interaction after eliminating warfarin. This will be considered from the results obtained from the group in which only the PJ234 is administered, as compared to the group whereby both the PJ234 and warfarin drugs are administered. JP234 is well tolerated during clinical trials and there is no contradiction associated with it. The drug when administered is effective in doses of 50, 75 or 100mg once daily. The drug is metabolized in the liver and has a half life of about 24 hours. In vitro studies indicate that the drug can induce CYP2C9. Patients with chronic atrial fibrillation should be anticoagulated to hinder thromboembolism from taking place (Goodman, 2005). Patient taking JP234 are recommended to take warfarin that is partly metabolized by CYP2C9. JP234 is an antiarrhythmic drug and is usually excreted in the liver just the same as warfarin. The PJ234 drug is considered an inducer of CYP2C9 which

History of the Tudor Dynasty

History of the Tudor Dynasty The Tudor dynasty held the throne of England from 1485 to 1603. In this interval accomplished two revolutions of paramount importance: first, Britain became the first of the Protestant powers, and secondly, she became a maritime and colonial power. Henry VII, founder of the dynasty, presided over the rebuilding of the kingdom, while his son, Henry VIII, consumed his savings striving to solve intractable problems: in diplomacy, that of the European balance, in religion, that of Catholicism without the pope in administration, that of good finances without honesty. Edward VI opened the way for Protestantism, whose progress was repressed by Mary Tudor with an implacable rigor rendering him powerless. Elizabeth I, finally, gathered deftly around her statesmen and advisors, making the symbol of an official religion in accordance with the average opinion of his country and attempted to resolve the major international issues. King Henry VIII Reforms in the British Church were first conducted by Henry VIII more precisely the attachment of Bishops to the English crown: King Henry VII was eager for money, his father had increased the fortune of the English crown by taking the land of noble deaths during the War of the Roses, Henry VIII sought to take those of the Church. At that time the Church had a very important role (one of the largest in the kingdom) and was increasing the discontent of the people because of king s opulent lifestyle. The independence of the Archbishop of Canterbury and bishop s vis- -vis the kings, Henry VIII also found it impossible to tame the Pope because the kings of France and Spain were much more powerful than him. Henry VIII wanted to further centralize the power.(Guy, 245) He divorced one of his six women bishops attached to the crown of England. Indeed, in 1526, Henry VIII asked the Pope to divorce Catherine of Aragon, niece of Charles V King of Spain, because she did not have a son but the Pope, being under the influence of the King of Spain, refused. In 1531, Henry VIII decided to ignore this prohibition and managed to convince the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops to attach themselves to him. In 1534, the Act of Supremacy was passed by parliament and Henry VIII became head of all bishops of the kingdom. From the date of this act, all the kings of England became the head of the English Church leaving the pope with no authority. Henry VIII, with the help of Thomas Cromwell, then made use of the Domesday Book to take control of religious taxes; he shut down 560 monasteries and gave their land to the middle classes. This allowed him to raise money for allied merchant classes and landowners, many small gentlemen farmers started making a fortune with this. Also note that the Reformation of the Church had nothing much to do with the arrival of Protestantism: while Henry VIII broke away from the pope, he still remained deeply Catholic. He even grumbled that the Protestants were not loyal to him. He wrote a book critical of Martin Luther, praised by Pope, entitled Defender Fidei (Defender of the Faith or FD that is still found on the coins). Henry VIII crushed all Catholic rebels who would refuse to use the services of the new religion. The monasteries were emptied and sold, and their wealth was confiscated by the state. Thus, the King confirmed the English Reformation. Yet, through the reigns of Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I , daughters of Henry VIII, the Catholic reaction turned bloody, even if the Anglican Church was not called into question . Catholics opposed the system rejecting the reforms of Henry VIII altogether. On 11 July, Henry was excommunicated in Rome and subsequently he answered a call to a future council. A protest of public pity, that of Elizabeth Barton, the holy maid of Kent was rigorously suppressed. Now, war was declared with Rome, Henry VIII, with nothing to spare, ordered that the Pope would be appointed in the future as the bishop of Rome, the bishops would be appointed without the intervention of the Holy See , that church would ultimately be answerable to the Royal Court of Chancery (Anglicanism). Thomas More and Bishop Fisher were imprisoned, the preachers were released throughout the kingdom to speak against the Pope and the King and all the monks were invited to sign the declaration that the bishop of Rome did not more authority in England than any foreign bishop, on pain of punishment similar to those that struck the Franciscans of the Observance. In November 1534, the king added to his titles, according to the wishes of Parliament, that of Supreme Head of the English Church. Deny its supremacy became a crime. It was also a crime of high treason to call it heretical or wish that he, Anne Boleyn, or their children were deprived of the crown. The year 1535 saw a terrible persecution start, under new laws (Treason laws). The monasteries of Charterhouse and Sion troop of martyrs, chained to Newgate, hung, quartered at Tyburn. Fisher, stripped by the Supreme Head of the bishopric of Rochester, was elevated to cardinal by Pope Paul III. Henry VIII had him executed, and his head rot for several days in the pillory of London Bridge. She was soon replaced on the hook by that of Thomas More. This year 1535 and the next date as the two campaigns led by Cromwell, Vicar-General of the supreme leader, for the suppression of the monasteries and destruction of images. In October, the famous doctors Bedyl, Legh, Layton, London, Petre, etc. The beginning of a visitation of all the monasteries of the kingdom was also marked. They were men of bad character, known for their greed, their hardness, coarseness, as evidenced by their correspondence. Everywhere they gathered to gossip and pretended to see the outrageous, secret debauchery. In fo ur months (very short time they had carried out carefully to a serious inquiry), they amassed a Black book material which was presented to Parliament in 1536 to support a proposal by the crown for the total abolition small monasteries and transfer their property to the king. He opposed Luther in asserting that Christs righteousness was imputed to men, nor was it given only to those who had faith that the justification of rights could be acquired by the practice of the virtues of faith, charity and hope, and through repentance and the fear of God, with some effort on the part of man in the exercise of his free will, which was denied by Martin Luther that the veneration of the Virgin Mary and the saints was recommended. The reading of Scripture was closed to the masses from 1546; executions of Lutherans continued until the kings death the following year. Edward VI Edward VI, on his accession to throne was nine years (January 21, 1547) old. His maternal uncle, Hertford, was protector of the kingdom and had himself given the Duchy of Somerset, the brother of Hertford, Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord Admiral and became Seymour of Sudeley. These characters were very much attached to the party of religious reform (Anglican), the young Edward VI shared their sympathies in this regard, in June 1548, and he refrained from making any offering after the Catholic rite at the offertory on Sundays. Ridley and Hugh Latimer were his most favorite preachers, but he listened with pleasure to the Puritan preachers like Hooper and John Knox. Edward VI of England promised a king Puritan, the reformers of all Europe were enthusiastic about his early piety. In April 1551, Calvin sent him a long letter of praise and exhortation. It was the new Josiah. But the learned and fervent devotion was not associated with Edward at the mere natural goodness. He had something in his childhood of deficiency and the hardness of Henry VIII. He was only indifferent to his uncle, the Protector Somerset. While Somerset in 1547 led an expedition against Scotland, his brother, Lord Seymour, treacherously tried to lose it in the spirit of the king. Mary Tudor Despite the measures taken by Edward VI to prevent his sister from becoming his successor, the people recognized the need for the rightful queen. To ensure his own royal authority, questioned by the discussions on the validity of the marriage of his parents, but also to meet his personal beliefs Catholic, Mary Tudor, remained faithful to his religion during the reign of his half-brother, wanted to bring his people back to the old religion with a firm hand. She tried to enforce Catholicism again in the kingdom at the price of imprisonment and death sentences. This is the reason here reign is often associate with blood. In so doing, she disregarded the religious situation of his country: Catholicism was lifeless, while Protestantism was full of vitality. Advised by his cousin, Emperor Charles V, she inaugurated her reign with moderation, content to repeal the laws of the Church taken in the reign of Edward VI, Cranmer jailing and condemning some of her subjects to exile.(Thomas,134) It would mean no bloody persecution against the Protestants, but it did not take account of the opposition of his people, or resistance of Parliament. To demonstrate her desire to give birth to Catholicism, she married in July 1554, the son of Charles V, Philip, heir to the throne of Spain. This reintegration of solemn Church of England in the bosom of the Roman Church attracted the hatred of many who fomented plots against the royal authority. The arrival of Protestantism in Britain or the threat of Catholic invasion pushed the people to convert: when Queen Mary (Queen Mary), half-sister of Catherine of Aragon, Catholic, became head of the kingdom after the death of the son of Henry VIII, Edward VI, who died very young in 1553, the kingdom then composed mainly of Catholics (the majority of the people) but an increasing proportion of the population converted to Protestantism (the richest because this new religion accepted wealth). The position of the Queen Mary was not simple because the kingdom has not experienced female leader for 400 years but Mary committed several errors that resulted in extreme repercussions later on. First, she asked parliament for permission to marry the Catholic King Philip of Spain that compelled disagreeable people to create an uprising. Moreover, the burning of 300 Protestants in five years further aggravated the feud between Catholics and Protestants. Mary died in 1558. For the reinstatement of the Anglican Church to be effective, the big obstacle was the restitution of church property, secularized during the reign of Henry VIII, who had helped some get rich quick. Pope Julius III did not claim this refund, he even sent his legate, Cardinal Reginald Pole, a nephew of Queen Mary, with a mission to give all the English people the full papal absolution. Officially, the authority of Rome was again recognized in the kingdom of England antipapal laws were repealed, Parliament re-enacted the laws against heretics, the bishops called for strong action against all Protestants. The bloody persecution then stood not only against the ecclesiastical dignitaries such as former Archbishop Cranmer, but also against the masses, creating a de facto hostility against Bloody Mary and nourishing a new antipope. The persecution continued with Marys death in 1558. Elizabeth 1 Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Anne Boleyn, was set to succeed her half-sister. Certainly, on the occasion of the coronation of Mary, Elizabeth had confessed the Catholic faith and promised to defend the true religion, but because of criticism that she opposed the Catholics, accusing her mothers marriage to Henry VIII, Elizabeth which was not affected personally by religious issues but had to promote Protestantism. More skilful politician than her sister, she worked to avoid alienating any of her subjects, the Catholics and Protestants. Elizabeth I, half-sister Mary and Protestants became head of the kingdom because there was no other descendant of the Tudors in 1558. She wanted to reconcile the English among themselves on religious issues and succeeded in 1559 to admit Protestants to two conditions: (1) that they are closer to the Catholics of the kingdom as other Protestants continents, (2) that the monarch remains the sole master of the Church. Elizabeth I undertook many reforms such as the use of Parish (territorial organization of the Church) as an administrative division of the kingdom, the obligation to go to church every Sunday under penalty of law, and finally re-wrote Mass sermons with regard to the attack to the king as a Pechet. Thus, the Church and its representatives had then become fully part of the machinery of state power.(Turton,76) Finally, the English Protestantism completely took off in 1585 with the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587. In fact, Mary Queen of Scots (different from the Queen Mary of England died in 1558) fled to England because she was persecuted in his kingdom of Scotland but this an internal risk in the UK for Elizabeth I as English Catholic nobles would replace the Queen prostetante a Catholic, Elizabeth I therefore took the decision to shut Mary Queen of Scots jail. However, the threat of Spanish invasion (Catholic country) that would attach to England and to defend the Queen Mary over the decision to appoint Mary Philip of Spain as his successor led Elizabeth I to marry in order to cut short the threat of Spanish invasion, or to see the Scottish crown from the hands of Spain. The English people joined the Queen Elizabeth I to stand against the growing threat of Spanish invasion. Elizabeth had the great merit of understanding and acting with a wise and slow progression, behaving immediately after her accession to chief of the Church of England, but assumed that the government of this Church and not s never saying the supreme leader the suprerne head as had once been Henry VIII. The Book of Common Prayer was reworked, and reforms of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury sacred by the ordinal of Edward VI (1559), ended after a series of preparatory measures, the Act of Uniformity (1564), which was made compulsory. In 1558, good spirits still doubted the possibility of the victory of new ideas in England. As wrote the Philip II of Spain, a careful observer (it was Fest, his ambassador in London), that the Catholics were the majority of the people, and if the capital, the country of Kent and seaports adhered to doctrines of the Reformation, the rest of the country remained committed to the Roman religion. But even most young noblemen and universities were also removed from it. Elizabeth I, deep admirer of his father and determined to behave like him in all things, there were valuable auxiliaries in a business it knew how to carry out with prudence, skill, and dexterity truly remarkable. England was weary of the sudden change of religion for nearly twenty-five years.

Meditation :: essays research papers

The Transcendental Meditation technique is a simple, natural, effortless procedure practiced for any amount of time, usually 10-20 minutes in the morning and evening, while sitting comfortably with the eyes closed. During this technique, the individual's awareness settles down and experiences a unique state of restful alertness. As the body becomes deeply relaxed, the mind transcends all mental activity to experience the simplest form of awareness, Transcendental Consciousness, where consciousness is open to itself. This is the self-referral state of consciousness. The experience of Transcendental Consciousness develops the individual's latent creative potential while dissolving accumulated stress and fatigue through the deep rest gained during the practice. This experience enlivens the individual's creativity, dynamism, orderliness, and organizing power, which result in increasing effectiveness and success in daily life. The Transcendental Meditation technique is scientific, requiring neither specific beliefs nor adoption of a particular lifestyle. The practice does not involve any effort or concentration. It is easy to learn and does not require any special ability. People of all ages, educational backgrounds, cultures, and religions in countries throughout the world practice the technique and enjoy its wide range of benefits. Over 500 scientific research studies conducted during the past 25 years at more than 200 independent universities and research institutes in 30 countries have shown that the TM program benefits all areas of an individual's life: mind, body, behavior, and environment. The research findings include: Increased happiness Reduced stress Increased intelligence Increased creativity Improved memory Improved health   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Reduced high blood pressure Improved relationships Increased energy Reduced insomnia Reversal of biological aging Reduced crime and improved quality of life in society The research has been published in such major scientific journals as Science, the American Journal of Physiology, Scientific American, Lancet, the Journal of Counseling Psychology, the International Journal of Neuroscience, the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association, the British Journal of Educational Psychology, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution. Research indicates that TM technique Meditators on average have the biological age of a person 5 to 12 years younger, as well as significantly reduced incidence of illness and risk of heart disease. Studies also show that TM technique Meditators have warmer interpersonal relationships, less anxiety, increased self-esteem and self-confidence, increased problem-solving ability and greater creativity. The individual spontaneously radiates a purifying and nourishing influence of positivity and harmony in society as a whole. Now I would like to show one of the different ways that you can meditate, if you feel uncomfortable with sitting on the ground for a few minutes than let me know.