Health Disadvantages Indigenous Australians Essay

Socioeconomic factors are associated with education, employment, and income, and each, has a substantial influence on the health of Indigenous Australians. Education, which is inaccessible for many Indigenous people, allows for the greater knowledge of health issues, and the increased understanding of both protective behaviors and risk factors. It is a known fact that with a lack of education or one that is poor, there is a increased risk that there will be less employment opportunities – ultimately leading to little or no income. Hence, the vicious poverty cycle is born. Education enables Indigenous Australians to develop a sense of empowerment, and in turn increases the probability that they will take steps to improve their health. If an Indigenous child has had an insuffienct education, they will not have had any opportunities that assist them in evaluating health information and products. Research has shown those with higher levels of education have a reduced chance of smoking, being inactive and suffering from obesity. It’s the absence and inequality of education that has led to obesity among Indigenous Australians – with 28% of those over 15 being overweight, and 29% diagnosed as obese. Obesity increases the risk of developing health problems including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis, injury and certain cancers. The individual may not be aware of which foods are healthy, may not be able to afford it, may not take part in physical activity daily, use tobacco and abuse alcohol – and this occurs from deficient education. Additionally, environmental factors influence the health of Indigenous Australians in the areas of geographic location and access to health services and technology. Approximately 24% of people living in remote areas and 45% of those living in very remote areas are Indigenous. Aboriginals living in remote areas will experience negative impacts on their social, emotional and physical health. Indigenous people in these rural areas experience a greater risk of injury due to the dangers associated with travelling on country roads that are often of poor quality, long distances and fatiguing. Indigenous people are 3 times more likely to die from traffic incidents than non-Indigenous people. Aboriginals in remote areas will also face harsh living and working circumstances such as; drought and floods. From this, injury, disease, emotional distress and financial hardships occur. Aboriginal Australians in remote communities with large distances between other people and society may find it difficult to maintain and create social support networks. The inability to make and prolong relationships leads to a sense of isolation, and contributes to poor mental health and depression. Hospitalisation rates for self-harm are representative of mental illness, depression and stress – and in 2006, Indigenous Australians were 3 times more likely to be hospitalized for severe self-harm than other Australians. In 2011, 80% of suicides of the ages 19 to 24 were Aboriginals. This occurs due to isolated geographic location. Evidently it is of utmost importance that there be a strategy put into place to help improve the health of Indigenous Australians in regards to the Socio-economic factor of education, and the environmental factor of geographic location. This strategy must be effective and realistic, to ensure that the gap begins to be closed before 2030. A proposed action that should be put into place is the development of a â€Å"Community Centre†, in the mid point of a rural township. This centre would feature a shuttle bus service, picking up and dropping off the person when wanting to commute to the facility. The shuttle service would hopefully reduce the injury experienced from traffic incidents on rural roads. This community centre would be a hub, where Aboriginals could come, in order to receive educational courses or classes; on the topics of drug awareness and abuse, mental health issues, domestic violence, healthy eating and much more. As well as educational classes, there would be fun activities that they would be able to participate in, such as sports, healthy cooking, arts and crafts and other alternatives. Whilst being at the community centre, there is the opportunity to receive an education, and also forge friendships. The opportunity to receive an education, especially on the topics listed previously would increase the awareness of health issues and knowledge of protective behaviors, fundamentally attempting to break the poverty cycle and enabling empowerment to flourish within the Aboriginal. Whereas the possibility to create friendships, and returning to the â€Å"Community Centre† on a regular basis would assist in the reduction of Indigenous Australian’s in rural area’s feeling isolated and depressed – further reducing the number of hospitalization rates from self harm, mental illness and suicide. In conclusion, it is perceivable that something MUST be done soon in order to close the gap by 2030 to create greater equity between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians. There is NO excuse!

Secrets (Speech)

Right now there are over 7 billion people in the world who are lying and keeping secrets the average person has kept or is still keeping at least over 100 and in a world of over 7 billion people that is a lot of secrets and lies people are keeping or telling people often ask â€Å"why do people keep secrets? there are 3 main reasons people do; the first one is the fear of being rejected, people dont want to face the feeling of being rejected by the person it is just an awful feeling to have two is that people want to keep the peace they dont want to hurt each other by telling them something they dont want to hear. And the last one is that people don’t want to be confronted by whatever they did Secrets and lies are very closely linked to each other the person is keeping the secret because instead they lied.When you lie you are just creating problems for yourself because then you are going to have to remember what you said and the fact that you are telling a lie means you are k eeping a secret from someone When it comes to ‘lying’ there are different types like remember when your parents told you about ‘farther Christmas’ or the ‘tooth fairy’ they were telling white lies to let you have a child hood but they knew one day you were going to find out then your life would be crushed but only for a little while.But then you get people who lie about serious stuff like stealing something or not doing homework or telling your mom you feel violently ill just to miss something you don’t want to go to or even worse stealing her money to buy those cute shoes you saw at the shops.And this isn’t just that rare one person who lies and tells secrets it’s mainly all of us everyone has at least told a lie or kept a secret and it won’t just be one it will be quite a bit more than that But why can’t we all just be honest and tell the truth its less things to remember and less things to try forget? Simpl e you can’t everyone will lie society is a cruel place and there will never not be secrets or lies and if you say you haven’t ever kept a secret or told a lie†¦ stop lying to yourself†¦ because you probably have everyone has.

Negotiation, Plane Crash flight 232 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Negotiation, Plane Crash flight 232 - Essay Example When the pilot alerted her to the flight deck for the first time, she was very quick to recognize that there was an emergency – she immediately embarked on emergency response activities including preparation of the passengers for a crash-landing. After realizing there was an emergency, the crew was very quick to acknowledge that much communication was not necessary since this could have disrupted high level co-operation, which was highly needed at that moment (Boehm-Davis, Holt, & Seamster, 2001). The crew members were also very good at communication – one of the biggest factors that contributed to a large number of survivors. The crew in the cockpit was very skillful in communicating with the Sioux City approach control & control tower and the air traffic control in the Minneapolis Centre. Once it was realized that the aircraft was heading for a serious danger, the crew within the cockpit built up. For example, Dudley Dvorak rushed to the radio and spent all the time t alking with the aircraft’s SAM facility, which was comprised of a group of experts. The level of cooperation and expertise that the crew exercised in such an incident, which they had never practiced in their lives before, was particularly laudable. The crew called for advance emergency services, something that worked very well because by the time the aircraft land-crashed, all the emergency service providers including firefighters, and hospitals were already prepared (Boehm-Davis, Holt, & Seamster, 2001). Describe at Least Three Factors That Affected the Resolution of the Problem Luck Although being involved in such a flick accident can be understood to be a bad lack, the fact that two thirds of the passengers and crew onboard survived is a good luck. For example, the fact that the crew was able to get the aircraft to Sioux City with a failed engine was nothing but a sheer luck. When they touched on the ground, the aircraft had no steering, no brakes and no nose wheel or tail . The elevators, too, were out of control. Running a plane without all these parts and having some survivors following the crash-landing were a tremendous piece of luck. Another piece of luck was the fact that the plane experienced mechanical problems when it went over the relative flatlands over Iowa. This means that even if they had missed the airport, they could have probably landed on some fair level ground and still manage to get some survival. The weather was also an amazing piece of luck. It could have been extremely hard to fly the F-15 under any kind of turbulence, but fortunately, during the time of the crash the skies were clear and the visibility was excellent. Lastly, the fact that this fateful disaster occurred during the daytime was an amazing luck because the crew was able to control the aircraft well considering that they could observe the ground properly. Preparation Preparation was extremely important for such a disaster. The emergency response crews in Sioux City had a disaster response simulation every three years, which prepared them for any disaster. For example, during 1987, the organizers pretended that an aircraft that did not serve the city had crashed on its runway. After running the drill, areas of improvements were detected and changes made accordingly. Ideally, the preparation by Sioux Gateway Airport laid down a plan, which was very helpful for the crew of Flight 232. The repeated training

Legal Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Legal Ethics - Essay Example A Morgan poll conducted in Australia showed that the public has a poor opinion of lawyers1 which has been deteriorating over the years, findings which replicated those of the American Harris Poll conducted in 1997, showing a deterioration in the perception of lawyer prestige from 36% in 1977 to 18% in 1997.2 The movies portray lawyers in an adversarial, litigating role at trial courts, especially in the case of women lawyers.3 This highlights the aggressive and confrontational role of lawyers and enhances this image in the public mind. Graham and Maschio have pointed out how the conventions of movies interact with the conventions of law4. Through a particular depiction of various categories of lawyers in films, such as female or gay lawyers, the general image of such lawyers may be distorted among members of the public. Rapoport has pointed out how the public images of lawyers as revealed on the silver screen could also affect the manner in which lawyers view ethical dilemmas and make ethical choices, with law students being particularly susceptible to such images.5 The notion of professional and ethical responsibility of lawyers is being increasingly undermined by the screen images and Ross and MacFarlane have highlighted evidence which suggests that students â€Å"do not take the courses in professional responsibility seriously.†6 In general, students take up courses in law for the purpose of better earnings, rather than being motivated by the desire to practice law in an ethical manner7. Moreover, films tend to portray lawyers as bad characters who conduct themselves in an unprofessional manner, which undermines the confidence of the public and also affects the perceptions of new emerging lawyers. Asimov provides several examples of such negative portrayals of lawyers in films– for example, the character of arrogant and rude lawyer Martin Vale in the film â€Å"Primal fear†, or the drug abusing character of

Data Collection Methods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Data Collection Methods - Essay Example Focus group Advantages and Dis-advantagesAccording to Morgan (1996) focus group is a research method devoted to data collection to gather data through group discussion. It is an easy way to listen to diverse views of the research issue. Group discussion deals with real life issues and helps in gathering real time data. However there are several disadvantages of focus group. It is quite expensive and time-consuming research methodology. In focus group that some of the participants are mistaken by the group discussion and they jump to conclusion. It is hard for the moderator to keep the group of people focused on one topic for a long time. Group discussions are not planned. People can go in wrong direction and lot of time is wasted to come back to the original topic. In-group discussion, people take sides, and the mentality of follow the crowd exists. The research interview is defined as â€Å"a two-person conversation initiated by the interviewer for the specific purpose† to find research relevant information and focusing on the interviewee to gather the essential data (Cohen, 2000). The interview involves gathering data through direct verbal interaction between the individuals. Veal (2000) has described interview as a strategy to find out from people about the things, which cannot be observed directly. The interviews are meant to collect data from each respondent face to face. In the interview, each respondent contributes a different perspective of the same question. Personal interviewing provides face-to-face contact with respondents, which permits audible and visual communication with respondents in real time (Joann, 1990).

The Virgin Mary painting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The Virgin Mary painting - Essay Example The essay "The Virgin Mary painting" explores the importance of religion in Mexican art ad discovers The Virgin Mary painting. The Virgin Mary also has a very prominent position in the religious art of Mexico and this is mainly because of the fact that she is highly venerated in the country with many Mexicans considering her to be the mother of the entire nation. In addition, many Mexicans during their prayers seek the help of the Virgin Mary as they ask her to intercede to God and Jesus on their behalf and this has ensured that she has come to be revered by all the people in the nation. The prominence of the Virgin Mary in the national psyche has ensured that she is also given a prominent position in art, because Mexican artists, like all Mexican people, are very devoted to her. This has led to a situation where most of the art in the country has some religious aspect in one way or the other and this has ensured that the religious spirit of Mexican artwork has remained prevalent wit h little sign of its diminishing in the coming years. Religion has been a source of inspiration for Mexican art for many years and it is for this reason that a large number of art that it produced in this country, even that in the secular realm, has some aspect of religion within it. As has been mentioned above, Roman Catholicism is the most dominant religion within Mexico and this has been the case since the founding of the state after the Spanish conquest. However, it has been found that the Catholicism is highly syncretic.

CNET article reviews and reflections Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

CNET article reviews and reflections - Essay Example Google plan is to make the region open for business since with increased circulation of information Africa will become more viable as market. In retrospect, Google has worked in Africa on the mobile platform; in 2009, it allowed cellphone users in Uganda to get information of weather and sports through text queries. It has also collaborated with France mobile to cut down the cost of SMS services in the region. In my opinion, this is a progressive move, and it shows that Google as a company is capable of combining a profit making venture with its social responsibility of ensuring Africa is opened to the world in terms of telecommunication. Furthermore, it will have indirect impacts by forcing the telecommunication companied to lower their SMS costs because of competition from Google. Ultimately, while Google will stand to make a tidy profit, it has considerably increased Africa’s networking potential. The space shuttle endeavor, which has been in orbit 25 times since it was constructed two years ago, is set to take its valedictorian flight perched on the back of a jet. This is to give the public a chance for one last viewing before it takes its place in the museum. The endeavor is set to fly across Houston landing in Ellington refuel at the Field Army Airfield in El Paso White sands then proceed to S Francisco, NASAs Ames Research Center, Sacramento until it is finally returns to California on a three days trip. The endeavor, was commissioned in 1978 to replace the challenger which was destroyed in a takeoff accident, after that, it made 24 more trips many of them to assemble the international space station. The first ever trip by a spaceship through a metropolitan area. It is a complex process which is going to involve a sizeable team of engineers, who will be ensure the route used is the best possible, without too much disruption. It is going to involve a lot of restructuring and moving

Induction of Gene Expression Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Induction of Gene Expression - Research Paper Example They are preceded by a single promoter/operator region which controls the expression of all three genes. Even further upstream of the promoter lies the gene lacI which codes for the lac repressor protein. This protein is a regulator and binds to the promoter/operator region of the lac operon in the absence of lactose in the medium. This is simply an economic measure by the bacterium to prevent the wasteful synthesis of enzymes when they are not needed. In the presence of lactose, the repression is relieved as lactose binds to the repressor protein and changes its conformation in a manner that makes it dissociate from the promoter. However, there is an added control level to the regulation of this operon. In the presence of a preferred substrate, like glucose or its modified form, glucose -6- phosphate, the bacterium will still not synthesize lactose even though this is present in the medium along with glucose. This phenomenon is called catabolite repression. The mechanism involves the CAP protein which also can increase expression of the lac operon. When glucose levels are high, cyclic AMP levels lower. Cyclic AMP forms a complex with CAP before it binds to the DNA. So, when the cyclic AMP levels are lowered, the CAP protein bound to DNA also decreases, thus lowering the transcription of lac genes. ... Since the natural substrate lactose and the products of its metabolism are not coloured detection of their formation is difficult. For this purpose, the analog ONPG is used which upon hydrolysis yields a product which is deep yellow in colour and can be spectrophotometrically quantified to follow the reaction and hence the expression patterns of the operon. The aim of the work is to use this analog and others to obtain a better understanding of the workings of the lac operon. MATERIALS AND METHODS Culturing of the bacteria: 10 ml each of E. coli (lac+ strain) which had reached mid-log phase was aliquoted into separate flasks and incubated at 28- 30 C gently shaking to ensure aeration. The cells were allowed to continue growing. Induction: Two sets of induction experiments were performed. The first set was induced with IPTG at a final concentration of 0.5 mM. The second set was also induced with 0.5 mM IPTG but in addition glucose was added to the medium to a final concentration of 30 mM. For the first set 1 ml samples were taken out at intervals of 2, 4, 8, 16, 24, 32 and 48 minutes and used for the assay of galactosidase activity. For set 2, samples were removed at intervals of 10 and 45 minutes after induction with IPTG. As a control, 1 ml of the culture was removed prior to induction from both sets and used as uninduced controls. -galactosidase assays: To determine whether expression of the operon was taking place, the activity of galactosidase was assayed as follows. 0.1 ml of the culture samples removed at each time point were transferred into spectrophotometer tubes appropriately labeled. 1.5 ml of ONPG assay medium was added to each tube. (100 ml of assay medium contains 8 mg ONPG, 0.1 ml mercaptoethanol, 0.001 M MgSO4, pH7). After brief vortexing

Best source for Expo Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Best source for Expo - Essay Example From the article, one can tell that it was the second year for the event and it was like a combination show of trade that gathered fans and made a big party with some music festival in it. How well the author elaborates on the activities that were carried out in the expo makes it a good source of expo. Through reading this article, a reader can tell what to expect in a penny arcade expo. The author analyses the expo in a way that anyone who reads the article can tell every detail of the Expo. The article explains that in the Penny Arcade expo there were more than 10,000 attendees. According to the article, the expo involved console and computer game tournaments (Penny, 2005). I chose this source because it elaborates on every session that took place in the expo. For example, it gives the activities that took place in the show such as the question and answer sessions with penny arcade creators, pro-player challenges, and performances by music rockers. The article gives the highlight of the show as Omegathon, which is a gaming decathlon with six events. The author makes the expo activities look exciting to the reader. Even for individuals who did not attend the expo, through reading this article they can get a clear picture of the activities that took place and how exciting they were. The article also names its sponsors as sonny, Microsoft, Ncsoft, and Nintendo (Penny, 56). By naming the sponsors of the expo, the source makes the reader grasp an idea of corporations that work hand in hand with the Penny arcade Expo. The performances that were made in the expo give the reader an idea of the activities of an expo. Through using this source, an individual can compare how the 2005 expo was different from other expos that have been held since then in different places. One can compare the events and be able to tell the most common events that take place in such expos. The source gives information of the expo through

Workforce 2020 Executive Report - DHSOS Assignment

Workforce 2020 Executive Report - DHSOS - Assignment Example Future trends – forecast 6 3.1 Economic, social, demographic, and workforce parameters that are expected to be in the U.S. in the year 2020 6 3.2 What are the general trends in leadership/management that are impacting your organization? 7 4. Recommendations – changes needed for the future in order for the organization to meet the expected challenges of 2020 8 4.1 Leadership actions that the organization should take 8 4.2 Competencies that will be needed 9 4.3 What does the organization need to do to be prepared? 10 References 11 Summary The standardization of organizational performance in the long term is a challenging task. Firms that tend to perform high on annual basis may face periods of downturns; this phenomenon has been related to problems in the organization’s internal environment, especially in regard to the leadership style and the workforce structure. Managers in DHSOS, a medium-size firm of the US computer industry, face the following dilemma: should they try to support the firm’s existing leadership practices or they should promote major changes in regard to the firm’s leadership style and workforce structure? The first choice has been considered as rather risky; the second one, i.e. the emphasis on changes on the specific sectors has been chosen. The particular plan can secure, at higher level, the limitation of a series of organizational problems that would result to severe delays in the firm’s performance up to 2020. 1. Introduction The ability of an organization to survive in the modern market is depended on certain criteria. Issues, such as the organization’s leadership style, its workforce diversity but also the quality and the level of communication are critical for the long-term success of the organization in its industry. On the other hand, in high competitive industries, the challenges for organizations of all sizes can be significant, at least compared to less competitive industries. DHSOS is one of the most promising firms in the computer industry in USA. The firm focuses on the provision of IT consultancy services in large firms. The firm was first established in New York in March of 2009, i.e. about 3 years before. During this time, the firm has managed to develop its customer base at least by 80%, a fact that it is quite promising for the firm’s performance in the future. Currently, the firm’s employees are estimated to 540, across the firm’s branches in New York, Chicago and Illinois. Up to the end of 2011, the firm’s performance seemed to be continuously developed, with no sign of a potential downturn. However, during the first half of this year, the firm seems to be unable to control employee performance, which tends to change unexpectedly leading to important losses, as compared to the same period of last year. A careful review of the organization’s key trends, such as its structure, its leadership style and its workforce ch aracteristics leads to the assumption that a series of changes need to be made in regard to the particular organizational sectors. These changes are highlighted in this paper, which can be used, as a manual for the firm’s workforce needs by 2020. 2. DHSOS – Presentation and analysis of key organizational trends 2.1 Organizational structure Since its establishment, DHSOS has been a highly centralized organization. In fact, its leadership style can be characterized as autocratic. The leader of the organization sets the key criteria on which workforce structure and employee performance would be evaluated. Moreover, the promotion of team – work within the organization is rather limited. Tasks are assigned to individuals are need to be completed by them, usually without cooperation with other colleagues. This practice has resulted, in many cases, to

Discuss in Detail Ways in Which Variations in the English Language Reflect the Society They Are Situated in Essay Example for Free

Discuss in Detail Ways in Which Variations in the English Language Reflect the Society They Are Situated in Essay Discuss in detail ways in which variations in the English language reflect the society they are situated in. According to Walt Wolfram, â€Å"Language sows its own seeds of change. Social context gives it the fertile ground to grow and spread.† The global spread of English has inevitably led to the formation of new varieties such as Singlish and Hinglish, which are different in their own ways. The differences among these variations, in terms of lexical choice, structure and even pronunciation, are due to the different context and needs of the societies. These include the economical incentive of English in the society, social groups and their cultural make up. The economic incentive of learning English in the society plays a big role in the type of variation that distinguishes the new Englishes from other varieties. With the affluent and powerful recognizing the importance of English to connect, be a part of the global platform and even acquire well paying jobs, the aspiring middle class, who makes up the majority in any societies, would find it very lucrative to learn English, so as to be associated with them. However, in most societies where English is considered a foreign language, learning it in language school is very expensive and usually is an option for the wealthy. As a result, they would pick up bits and pieces of lexical items from the English language, and use it in their speech, maintaining the structure of their native language. An example would be Hinglish, where â€Å"my head is eating circles, is a direct translation of mera sir chakkar kha raha hai., effectively keeping the structure of Hindi. In India, majority of good Standard English speakers are from the upper class due to the exorbitant fees of the language schools. As such, the variation of English in this case reflects the economical incentives and the income gap in the society, where there is a negative association of the variety due to speakers not being able to afford the education of Standard English. In Text B(i), lexical chain pertaining to negativity is adopted to be referred to code mixed languages. They i nclude, â€Å"gutter- speak†, â€Å"bad† and â€Å"consequence† However, as the use of the variation used by the lower and middle class increase due to the population distribution, it might lead to the acceptance of the dialect in the whole society, then coming up with a more organized and uniform variety that most members of society would understand. This uniformity of the variety reflects the social acceptance of the variation. In Text B(i), semantic field of uniqueness is adopted to

Overview Of Strategic Sourcing Initiative Management Essay

Overview Of Strategic Sourcing Initiative Management Essay 1. Gillet and the 7 Step Methodology The Gillette Company launched a Strategic Sourcing Initiative to create savings to invest in company brands, fund research and development. They employed a formal 7-step strategic sourcing methodology to competive source and evaluate suppliers on cost, quality and services provided. Enabled by a strong commitment from Senior Management and cross-functional global teams, this strategy produced savings and improved the quality of the products and services procured.   Step 1 Develop the Category Profile. Teams are formed to develop a comprehensive understanding of their category profile. They must understand what we buy, who we buy it from, what are the product/service characteristics/specifications, what is the current cost, and who and how the spend is managed internally. They must understand market trends and economics that impact these purchases as well as our current negotiation leverage with suppliers. This comprehensive understanding of the Category also enables to break down spend into subcategories, components, services, transportation costs, administrative costs or other divisions to be either be consolidated with one supplier or divided among several suppliers. Indeed, this sourcing step facilitates procurement managers in setting supplier diversity targets and strategies. Step 2 Generate the Supplier Portfolio. Teams must include minority suppliers as well as non-traditional suppliers. They must look at companies that provide total outsourcing capabilities and suppliers who are best in class in specialized spend categories. Then through a rigorous process of researching suppliers, evaluating and prioritizing capabilities, the list of suppliers is converted to a manageable list. This step reduces the workload of reviewing RFPs and negotiating with suppliers later in the strategic sourcing process. Step 3 Develop sourcing strategies. The sourcing team develops a supplier survey for both incumbent and potential alternative suppliers. The survey helps evaluate the suppliers capabilities to serve as well as their costs to serve. At this time, the team will also verify spend information with the data that incumbent suppliers may have from their sales systems. Category should be assesed in a Category Position Matrix. This process aids teams in developing their sourcing strategies. Teams must evaluate the complexity of the market, the competitiveness, the ability to switch suppliers, and the number of suppliers in the market. They must also position their Category in terms of business impact, how much total spend and how does this category impact core business operations. In doing so, teams will find their category falls into one or two of the following boxes: Leverage Category, Strategic Category, Non-critical Category or Bottleneck Category. From this positioning matrix, teams can determine which of the sourcing strategies are most appropriate.   Typically, teams who find themselves in the Leverage or Non-critical Categories will use the left side of the Sourcing Gemstone: Volume Concentration, Best Price Evaluation or Global Sourcing. Teams who confront more complex markets, may want to consider Product Specification Improvements, Joint Process Improvements or Relationship Restructuring strategies. In a Volume Concentration strategy, teams will often look to reduce cost by consolidating volumes from different facilities, regions, or business units. This strategy encourages suppliers to lower their costs in anticipation of greater volumes.   Teams may also consider a Best Price Evaluation strategy, where they select various suppliers who have the best offering for each segment of the spend. Best Price Evaluation allows yousegment and optimize your spend. Step 4- Select implementation path. The combination of the first three steps provides important input to developing a sourcing strategy and applying it in this step. The sourcing team has two sets of constituencies: 1) the people who use the things that are bought, and 2) the executives who manage overall costs. The people who use the spend category accept cost reductions as long as they a) start in another department; b) dont change suppliers; and c) dont create any complaints from the supply base that might affect any part of the relationship. For users, all change is bad. For executives, cost and service competitiveness is a key objective, but they too are users of various corporate services, so they often have a split personality between executive pursuit of cost improvement and being users who resist change. In order to mobilize users and executives to support the category sourcing strategy, it is necessary to communicate benefits and overcome potential risks. Step 5- Negotiate and select suppliers.   Preparing a request for proposal and preparing and soliciting bids. This will define the basis for competition to the prequalified suppliers. It includes product or service specifications, delivery and service requirements, evaluation criteria, pricing structure and financial terms and conditions. Also a communication plan will be executed that will attract maximum supplier interest. The RFP is then sent out to all suppliers and they are given enough time to respond completely, with follow-up messages sent to encourage supplier response and field questions. The sourcing team applies its evaluation criteria to the supplier responses. If more information beyond the RFP response is needed, its requested. The negotiation process is conducted first with a larger set of suppliers then narrowed to a few finalists, if it is done manually. Step 6 Implement agreements. Finally, the winning suppliers are notified and invited to participate in implementing recommendations. Implementation plans vary depending on the degree of supplier switches. For new suppliers, a communication plan has to be developed that manages the transition from old to new supplier at every point in the companys process that is touched by the spend category. Step 7- Continuos improvement. It is particularly important to measure the new supplier closely in the first several weeks of performance. Being able to demonstrate performance equal to or better than the former incumbent one will be particularly important during that sensitive time. Gillette Companys Strategic Sourcing Initiative has not only produced significant cost savings, but has enabled and advanced Gillettes Supplier Diversity Initiative. 2. Nestlà © and its mix of purchasing strategies To leverage Nestlà ©s purchasing volume as a strength in a business environment where the impact and importance on many spend categories is increasing, it requires planning and strategy determination, It is necessary to understand that supply markets are not and will not always be in surplus or excess, so the assurance of long term competitive supply through purchasing planning and strategy implementation is key to the realisation of Nestlà ©s growth and profitability objectives. The evaluation of different purchasing strategies can only take place once a detailed spend analysis has been completed. Strategic options must take into account: business sector objectives; total cost of ownership; supply market and its evolution; appropriate purchasing approach (e-Auctions, tenders, negotiations); value creation opportunities; emphasis on price management through competitive bidding; key stakeholders involvement and their support. Rationalisation and Standardisation This strategy is based on working with suppliers to have fewer and standardised specifications. Specification rationalisation will not only allow higher volume price leverage but also expose efficiencies throughout the supply chain, resulting in lower costs. Subcontracting/Outsourcing A key strategy in sourcing products and services is Subcontracting/Outsourcing. The responsibility of subcontracting activities rests with Technical and Production. Normally a Strategic Buyer will lead this process and manage crossfunctional teams to monitor the commercial relationship as well as to ensure optimum terms and conditions for Nestlà ©. Subcontractors are required to adhere to Nestlà ©s Corporate Business Principles. Cross-Functional Teamwork Purchasing must continue to work within and expand the use of cross-functional teams. Depending on the scope of the project, such teams may also involve suppliers and third-party expertise. Nestlà © acknowledges and encourages the role suppliers can play in innovation, creativity and the identification of new business proposals, which will improve and add value and growth to both companies. Nestlà © also considers suppliers as an important information source and relies on their objectivity and expertise. As the relationship progresses, it may well evolve into that of a preferred supplier. Purchasing wil retain the overall responsibility for the relationship and interface with suppliers. Supplier Management To better manage the supplier base and reduce transactional costs, Nestlà © may request suppliers to: offer their products or services via e-Requisitioning (catalogues), accept payment by P-card, deliver materials through a vendor managed inventory (VMI) or consignment stock initiative and collaborate using e-Supply Chain tools. Approval/Accreditation The extent or degree of approval/accre ditation as a supplier to Nestlà © depends on the sophistication or sensitivity of the material, product or service, the suppliers reputation and record with Nestlà ©, as well as their ability to offer competitive terms and conditions. Quality Management To achieve Nestlà ©s objective of offering consumers high quality nutritional products, they expect suppliers to guarantee the quality of the goods they supply or the service they provide. Nestlà ©s goal is to be able to rely on our suppliers competence and ability to implement jointly their quality programmes. Suppliers must be fully aware of Nestlà ©s quality and safety standards, understand their quality policy; share their objectives and work together to achieve them. In particular they consider their suppliers responsibility to ensure the traceability of all materials used in their own production or process. Supplier Audit Suppliers of raw and packaging materials must be incorporated into a formal assessment covering audits and inspectionsof their quality records. Formal audits of the suppliers quality assurance system and technical capabilities must be carried out. Suppliers need to be open and responsive to Nestlà ©s requirements and provide all necessary information on the composition and manufacture of their products. E-Procurement Nestlà © encourages and promotes the use of electronic tools to optimise the value chain to lower costs, create efficiencies, drive product availability and enhance customer service.   Purchasing evaluates and promotes the use of e-Procurement tools both within the company and within the supplier base. Benchmarking With the trend towards closer relationship with suppliers, benchmarking becomes an essential tool for measuring performance and highlighting opportunities. The concept of benchmarking should be seen as a continuous process of evaluation to ensure that results are quantifiable and actionable; it must be supported by a direct management commitment and should be clearly defined in terms of what is to be compared. 3. Procter Gamble sourcing networks and expressive competition Procter Gamble put into practice an approach to build sourcing networks, called expressive competition. It is a vision that looks past lowest-price reverse auctions and combinatorial packagebidding toward a highly expressive business relationship with suppliers. It enables suppliers to make electronicoffers that express rich forms of capabilities and efficiencies. As the buyer, PG also uses an expressive languageto state constraints and preferences. The detailed expressions of supply and demand are brought together viaan advanced optimization engine to decide the optimal allocation of business to the suppliers. In the process, PGs suppliers benefited from the winwinapproach: expressive competition matched demand to the most efficient means of production- rather thansqueezing suppliers profit margins- and removed the exposure risks in making offers. Beyond direct monetarysavings, the benefits included the re-design of supply networks with quantitative understanding of the trade-offs. The relationships between companies that purchase materials, goods, and services and their suppliers can be viewed as a network, because many companies both purchase and supply. Traditionally, the buyer configures the network and then asks offers from suppliers. This approach produces suboptimal results because it ignores suppliers alternative capabilities. With the new process this will be reversed by first collecting offers and then using optimization to configure the optimal network based on those offers. CombineNets (software currently used) approach is particularly relevant in transportation sourcing. By considering the most efficient routings that carriers can offer, both individually and collectively, it develops more efficient networks than the current networks. Buyers can construct supply chains in light of supplier capabilities as expressed in their offers. Companies can now make decisions on large baskets of items to be procured, rather than in a number of submarkets, naturally improving the allocation decisions. PGs use of expressive competition enables it to manage and exploit complexity and rich data to obtain the best value. In short, PG is now faster, more rigorous, and better able to leverage its purchasing experts than it was. It obtains greater savings with every analysis than it could before it adopted this process. 4. HONDA Global and Local Sourcing Traditionally, the standard metrics used by Japanese automakers in choosing suppliers wee quality, cost, delivery and technology. In the case of Honda, three other factors drive their spurchasing strategy. They depend on suppliers for more than 80% of components in their cars. They procure components from an estimated 400 tier one suppliers in Japan. Globally, Hondas supplier total number is close to 1,000 including more than 600 in North America. The main reason for this large number of North American suppliers: the distance between Hondas main assembly plants in North America is sufficiently long to make logistics a critical cost issue for suppliers wishing to serve all six Honda plants from a single location. Three of four Honda vehicles sold today are global models. Where possible, they prefer to use global suppliers forthese global cars. Honda defines group suppliers as affiliated companies in which it holds a larger than 20% equity stake or which depend on them for 70% or more of their sales; or the other way around: which Honda turns to for more than 70% of purchases of a particular system or component. That is the case of Denso Corp., Toyotas leading group supplier, is also a Honda group supplier as it manufactures an estimated 95% share of their heater requirements in Japan and 60% of air-conditioners. There seems to be no set rule on whether Honda doubles or triples sources or what even constitutes double or triple sourcing. For most components, Honda relies on multiple suppliers. But on a model base, it tends to single source. Hondas core suppliers have largely followed the OEM into North America and Asia. Keihin, Hondas main group supplier of car electronics, has set up 16 plants outside Japan including four in the US, while Stanley Electric has lighting plants in London, OH, and Battle Creek, MI. In general, there is a feeling that Honda depends more on non-Japanese suppliers at its overseas plant. Meanwhile, they continue to make steady progress in expanding local content at plants outside Japan. 5. Hewlett-Packard Total Cost Management Strategies HP recognized that it could leverage advances in Total Cost Management strategies, processes and technology to improve its overall financial performance. Over a five-year period the company put together an impressive record of cost savings, transforming its Indirect Procurement function into a strategic asset for the company. The significant cost reduction results came from an evolution and maturation of HPs Total Cost Management also called Spend Management, strategies, processes, and technologies as the company itself evolved. Like many companies, HP started with the traditional spend consolidation and price negotiations strategies of the late 90s. With the Compaq merger, HP had both a challenge and opportunity to advance its Total Cost Management strategies. Going forward, the role of HPs Indirect Procurement has evolved to a broader perspective as a strategic asset in driving down the total cost of procurement to achieve world-class cost structures. HP knew that companies like itself were leveraging new spend management tools to drive procurement decisions and wanted to take advantage of the new selling channel to increase revenue. With a strategy of being an early supporter of the Ariba Supplier Network and working to make it easy for customers to integrate and do business with HP, it has been able to generate $1 billion in revenue, making it the largest IT supplier to Total Cost Management customers using the Ariba Supplier Network. They realized that increased growth would be very hard if the company did not restructure to take advantage of its economy of scale. They decided that indirect procurement was a good candidate for centralization, as the existing decentralized model with fragmented local organizations provided little leverage. Indirect Procurement was given responsibility for managing nonproduction spend categories: information technology, human resources, marketing, travel, real estate and workplace solutions, finance, and labor. Its scope was to manage the strategic, tactical, and operational aspects of procurement, including global and regional sourcing, local buying and order fulfillment, and deployment of e-procurement programs. They deployed a standardized purchasing platform, Ariba, to reduce cost of transactions and develop and implement new policies, practices, and standards. Later, they were able to identify the â€Å"low-hanging fruit† in a centralized model and redefined their procurement areas and strategies as shown in the figures below. New Structure 6. International Clothing Retailers main sourcing strategies Marks and Spencer (United Kingdom) Is one of the UKs leading retailers of clothing, foods, homeware and financial services, serving 10 million customers a week in over 350 UK stores. They rationalized its supplier base, with efforts for sourcing and the accelaration of the design to store lead time. MS now manages a complex international supply chain involving 650 factories worldwide. Their priority is to maintain the quality of fabrics and clothes wherever they are manufactured. To support this objective, MS has established quality audit teams in Morocco and Sri Lanka, and will introduce them over the coming year in China and Turkey and all their main centres of manufacturing. Hennes and Maurizt (Sweden) HM is an expansive Swedish company. Over the past three years, HM has increased the number of stores by nearly 40 per cent.   HM has 21 production offices: ten in Europe, ten in Asia and one in Africa. Around 700 people work at the production offices, by far the majority of whom are drawn from the local population. They are responsible for contracts with the approximatly 750 suppliers (primarily Bangladesh, China, Turkey) that manufacture HMs products. The production offices ensure that the buyer places his order with the right supplier, that the goods are produced at the right price and with good quality and controls that production takes place under good working conditions. Ensuring the safety and quality of the goods largely takes place at the production offices and is the result of extensive testing, including checking for shrinkage, twisting, colourfastness and dry rubbing. In HM lead times vary from two to three weeks up to six months, depending on the nature of the goods. In recent years HM has reduced the average lead time by 15-20 per cent through developments in the buying process. Inditex (Spain) The Inditex Group comprises mainly companies engaging in the manufacturing and marketing of textiles and footwear, managed on a centralised basis by applying policies and strategies at group level. A significant proportion of the production takes place in the factories belonging to Inditex, which fundamentally carry out the manufacture of the garments containing a greater element of fashion and through external suppliers. In the case of in-house production -between 40 and 50 percent of the total- Inditex directly carries out the supply of fabrics, the marking and cutting and the final finishing of the garments, subcontracting the garment-making stage to specialised companies located mainly in the north-west of the Iberian peninsula. As regards external suppliers, a high percentage of which are European, in many cases they are also supplied by Inditex with the fabric and other elements needed for the production of the garments. For Inditex, time is the main factor to be considered, a bove and beyond production costs. Mix of sourcing: external fabrics sourcing 60%; internal fabrics sourcing 40%; in-house manufacturing 50%; external manufacturing 50%. Gap (Usa) Gap is a leading international specialty retailer offering clothing, accessories and personal care products. It operates with more than 4,200 stores worldwide. Gap has world headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area, product development offices in New York City and distribution operations and offices coordinating sourcing activities around the globe. Design and merchandising teams are working more closely from the beginning of the product development cycle, resulting in a more efficient process and, over time, faster speed to market. Gap will be building more strategic relationships with suppliers, including sharing more planning and forecasting information, to further leverage sourcing capabilities. Located around the globe, employees in Gaps sourcing and logistics group, along with buying agents, draw up production schedules and place orders with approved third-party factories in the more than 50 countries that produce goods. Third-party manufacturers ship merchandise to Gap distr ibution centers, which sort and redistribute it to the stores. Gap has a list of countries approved for product sourcing, located in five main areas: Africa/MiddleEast, Europe/Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Americas. CA (Holland) CA was founded in 1841. Over 100 Stylists work together with 360 buyers. The European headoffice is located in the north of Brussels. It has 1.200 suppliers, monitored by Socam. The name Socam reflects the concept â€Å"Service Organisation for Compliance Audit Management† and its purpose is to oversee and monitor responsible business standards in merchandise buying on behalf of the CA retail companies, which operate in Europe. An audit is performed in a total of 40 countries. Because the Far East is a significant supply market and because many of the key issues tend to be more prevalent in that part of the world, Socam also operates through a subsidiary company Socam Services Pte. Ltd located in Singapore. Socam has full and independent authority to monitor the standards which are defined by the CA Code of Conduct for the Supply Merchandise. To sum up, retailers prefer to choose the cheapest sources worldwide in order to maximize gross margin. Or, in order to decrease time to market, retailers may choose sourcing alternatives that may not bring the cost advantage of a cheaper supplier but do offer the advantage of diminishing logistics costs and lost sales. 7. IKEA selectivity strategy Under increasing pressures to reduce costs, companies have shifted, and continue to shift, sourcing from local suppliers to low cost country-based suppliers. Furthermore, the lower prices offered by low-cost country suppliers rarely translate into significantly lower total costs of ownership. Despite the popularity of global sourcing across both service and manufacturing industries, research into global sourcing is still playing catch-up and remains poorly conceptualized, for example in comparison with research on buyer-supplier relationships or industrial networks. The trend towards global sourcing is likely to fundamentally change the dynamics of buyer-supplier relationships and networks, but little research to date has examined the implications of this trend. Affordability through low cost is the core of the companys business idea. For IKEA, growth is a core and explicit objective.A key component in the low cost strategy at IKEA has been to own only a small proportion of the means of production. Therefore, the products that are sold in IKEA stores are sourced from a global network of suppliers. Well functioning and close relationships with suppliers is an important but sometimes seemingly ignored driver of the success of IKEA. In the mid- 1990s, IKEA had more than 2,000 suppliers, but in 2009 its supply base had been reduced to less than 1,400 despite increasing sales volumes. The background to the supply base reduction during recent years is the increasing need to secure and build capacity for continued growth. In 2008, IKEA sourced furniture from 54 different countriesm through 30 purchasing offices distributed over strategic locations all over the world. In 2009, IKEA had around 1400 suppliers. Almost two-thirds of its products (64%) were sourced from European countries; the largest single supply market was China with a 22% share of the supply, and the second largest supply market was Poland with a 16% share. Coordination and communication with suppliers was channelled through trading offices situated strategically around the world. Without close collaboration with suppliers, the balancing act between stock costs and avoiding the risk of stock-outs would not be possible. In addition, IKEA seems to conce ntrate on as few suppliers and as few supply markets as possible. This selectivity means that IKEA is effective in balancing its market choices; concentrating its sourcing activities in certain geographic areas by committing to and investing in some markets, whilst having to decide to forego opportunities in others For IKEA, cost reductions were the principal driver towards, initially, international purchasing and, later, global sourcing. The search for lower costs in new sourcing markets creates pressure on the supplier network of IKEA to source internationally or to develop global sourcing through world-wide coordination and integration of sourcing operations. A main reason for IKEA to preserve relationship with swedishs suppliers is to secure capacity if, or when, problems were met in the Chinese sourcing market. 8. Conclusions The Strategic Sourcing methodology is used to identify, evaluate, select and implement sourcing alternatives for specific sourcing groups.   It emphasizes the process for evaluating, selecting and aligning with suppliers to achieve improvements and support strategic objectives. It focuses on total costs and not just on the purchase price. This process enables the company to obtain a good understanding of its requirements, mapping the existing supply market and develop a plan for short andlong-term objectives. Sourcing strategies should be reviewed and updated periodically by supply managers. Suppliers should be invited to be part of the process depending on the class of category or market dynamics. Strategic sourcing results should be tracked in terms of performance metrics and cost savings. The process should be regularly reviewed to incorporate new sourcing tools and approaches, new supplier market opportunities and developments in benchmarking and best practices. Supply managers must collaborate internally with a multifunctional team on new supply opportunities. Collaboration demonstrates the value of supply management. Besides the traditional competitive approach to sourcing, there are more alternatives depending on the category or business trends. Some could be, collaborating with suppliers to reduce complexity and build productivity into their process, or create joint process improvements that reduce the cost of doing business, or set up a partnership where a company invests in supplier operations to guarantee access to supply, new technology or process improvements. Another option could be strategic alliances which decrease the total cost of ownership, increase quality, have a faster response and enable new product development with supplier involvement, among other benefits. Or even, e-procurement which can decrease the unit cost as well as the cost of transactions and processes. Overall, not only a right sourcing strategy or model of management is enough; it is also a matter of being aligned with the companys key obkectives and to have the right methodology, the right metrics and the right team of people.

The Difference Between Men And Women

The Difference Between Men And Women Understanding The Difference Between Men And Women For centuries, the differences between men and women were socially defined and distorted through a lens of sexism in which men assumed superiority over women and maintained it through domination. As the goal of equality between men and women now grows closer we are also losing our awareness of important differences. In some circles of society, politically correct thinking is obliterating important discussion as well as our awareness of the similarities and differences between men and women. The vision of equality between the sexes has narrowed the possibilities for discovery of what truly exists within a man and within a woman. The world is less interesting when everything is same. It is my position that men and women are equal but different. When I say equal, I mean that men and women have a right to equal opportunity and protection under the law. The fact that people in this country are assured these rights does not negate my observation that men and women are at least as different psychologically as they are physically. None of us would argue the fact that men and women are physically different. The physical differences are rather obvious and most of these can be seen and easily measured. Weight, shape, size and anatomy are not political opinions but rather tangible and easily measured. The physical differences between men and women provide functional advantages and have survival value. Men usually have greater upper body strength, build muscle easily, have thicker skin, bruise less easily and have a lower threshold of awareness of injuries to their extremities. Men are essentially built for physical confrontation and the use of force. Their joints are well suited for throwing objects. A man’s skull is almost always thicker and stronger than a women’s. The stereotype that men are more thick-headed than women is not far fetched. A man’s thick headedness, and other anatomical differences have been associated with a uniquely male attraction to high speed activities and reckless beh avior that usually involve collisions with other males or automobiles. Men invented the game chicken, not women. Men, and a number of other male species of animal seem to charge and crash into each other a great deal in their spare time. Women on the other hand have four times as many brain cells (neurons) connecting the right and left side of their brain. This latter finding provides physical evidence that supports the observation that men rely easily and more heavily on their left brain to solve one problem one step at a time. Women have more efficient access to both sides of their brain and therefore greater use of their right brain. Women can focus on more than one problem at one time and frequently prefer to solve problems through multiple activities at a time. Nearly every parent has observed how young girls find the conversations of young boys boring. Young boys express confusion and would rather play sports than participate actively in a conversation between 5 girls who are discussing as many as three subjects at once! The psychological differences between man and women are less obvious. They can be difficult to describe. Yet these differences can profoundly influence how we form and maintain relationships that can range from work and friendships to marriage and parenting. Recognizing, understanding, discussing as well as acting skillfully in light of the differences between men and women can be difficult. Our failure to recognize and appreciate these differences can become a life long source of disappointment, frustration, tension and eventually our downfall in a relationship. Not only can these differences destroy a promising relationship, but most people will grudgingly accept or learn to live with the consequences. Eventually they find some compromise or way to cope. Few people ever work past these difficulties. People tend to accept what they don’t understand when they feel powerless to change it. Relationships between men and women are not impossible or necessarily difficult. Problems simply arise when we expect or assume the opposite sex should think, feel or act the way we do. It’s not that men and women live in completely different realities. Rather, our lack of knowledge and mutual experience gives rise to our difficulties. Despite great strides in this country toward equality, modern society hasn’t made relationships between men and women any easier. Today’s society has taught us and has imposed on us the expectation that men and women should live together continuously, in communion, and in harmony. These expectations are not only unrealistic but ultimately they leave people feeling unloved, inadequate, cynical, apathetic or ashamed. The challenge facing men and women is to become aware of their identities, to accept their differences, and to live their lives fully and as skillfully as possible. To do this we must first understand in what ways we are different. We must avoid trying to change others to suit our needs. The following illustrates some important differences between men and women. These differences are not absolute. They describe how men and women are in most situations most of the time. Problems Men and women approach problems with similar goals but with different considerations. While men and women can solve problems equally well, their approach and their process are often quit different. For most women, sharing and discussing a problem presents an opportunity to explore, deepen or strengthen the relationship with the person they are talking with. Woman are usually more concerned about how problems are solved than merely solving the problem itself. For women, solving a problem can profoundly impact whether they feel closer and less alone or whether they feel distant and less connected. The process of solving a problem can strengthen or weaken a relationship. Most men are less concerned and do not feel the same as women when solving a problem. Men approach problems in a very different manner than women. For most men, solving a problem presents an opportunity to demonstrate their competence, their strength of resolve, and their commitment to a relationship. How the problem is solved is not nearly as important as solving it effectively and in the best possible manner. Men have a tendency to dominate and to assume authority in a problem solving process. They set aside their feelings provided the dominance hierarchy was agreed upon in advance and respected. They are often distracted and do not attend well to the quality of the relationship while solving problems. Some of the more important differences can be illustrated by observing groups of young teenage boys and groups of young teenage girls when they attempt to find their way out of a maze. A group of boys generally establish a hierarchy or chain of command with a leader who emerges on his own or through demonstrations of ability and power. Boys explore the maze using scouts while remaining in distant proximity to each other. Groups of girls tend to explore the maze together as a group without establishing a clear or dominant leader. Relationships tends to be co-equal. Girls tend to elicit discussion a nd employ collective intelligence to the task of discovering a way out. Girls tend to work their way through the maze as a group. Boys tend to search and explore using structured links and a chain of command. Thinking While men and women can reach similar conclusions and make similar decisions, the process they use can be quit different and in some cases can lead to entirely different outcomes. In general, men and women consider and process information differently. Women tend to be intuitive global thinkers. They consider multiple sources of information within a process that can be described as simultaneous, global in perspective and will view elements in the task in terms of their interconnectedness. Women come to understand and consider problems all at once. They take a broad or collective perspective, and they view elements in a task as interconnected and interdependent. Women are prone to become overwhelmed with complexities that exist, or may exist, and may have difficulty separating their personal experience from problems. Men tend to focus on one problem at a time or a limited number of problems at a time. They have an enhanced ability to separate themselves from problems and minimize the c omplexity that may exist. Men come to understand and consider problems one piece at a time. They take a linear or sequential perspective, and view elements in a task as less interconnected and more independent. Men are prone to minimize and fail to appreciate subtleties that can be crucial to successful solutions. A male may work through a problem repeatedly, talking about the same thing over and over, rather than trying to address the the problem all at once. While there are differences in the ways that men and women think, it must be emphasized that they can and do solve problems in a similar manner. There are no absolutes, only tendencies. Memory Women have an enhanced ability to recall memories that have strong emotional components. They can also recall events or experiences that have similar emotions in common. Women are very adept at recalling information, events or experiences in which there is a common emotional theme. Men tend to recall events using strategies that rely on reconstructing the experience in terms of elements, tasks or activities that took place. Profound experiences that are associated with competition or physical activities are more easily recalled. There appears to be a structural and chemical basis for observed memory differences. For instance, the hippocampus, the area in the brain primarily responsible for memory, reacts differently to testosterone in men and it reacts differently to changing levels of estrogen and progesterone in women. Women tend to remember or be reminded of different emotional memories and content to some extent as part of their menstrual cycle. Sensitivity There is evidence to suggest that a great deal of the sensitivity that exists within men and women has a physiological basis. It has been observed that is many cases, women have an enhanced physical alarm response to danger or threat. Their autonomic and sympathetic systems have a lower threshold of arousal and greater reactivity than men. In both men and women, higher levels of testosterone directly affect the aggressive response and behavior centers of the brain. Increasing estrogen and progesterone in men has a feminizing effect. Sexually aggressive males become less focused on sexual aggressive behavior and content when they are given female hormones. On the other hand, changing estrogen and progesterone levels in women during menstrual cycles can produce a flood of memories as well as strong emotions. Increasing or high levels of testosterone can produce an emotional insensitivity, empathic block and increased indifference to the distress others. At the heart of sensitivity is o ur capacity to form, appreciate and maintain relationships that are rewarding. Even here there are important differences. For men, what demonstrates a solid relationship is quite different from that of most women. Men feel closer and validated through shared activities. Such activities include sports, competition, outdoor activities or sexual activities that are decidedly active and physical. While both men and women can appreciate and engage in these activities they often have preferential differences. Women, on the other hand, feel closer and validated through communication, dialogue and intimate sharing of experience, emotional content and personal perspectives. Many men tend to find such sharing and involvement uncomfortable, if not, overwhelming. The Task Of Relationship Facing Men and Women The task that faces men and women is to learn to accept their differences, avoid taking their differences as personal attempts to frustrate each other, and to compromise whenever possible. The idea that one gender can think and feel like the other if they truly loved each is rather absurd. Sure, a man or women could act in consideration of the other’s needs, but this would not necessarily be rewarding and honest. Holding the benefit of another above our own is rewarding. But from time to time, and more often for most of us, it is important to be our self and to be accepted, and not to be the source of distress and disappointment in the lives of people we love. The Role Of Counseling and Therapy Counseling and therapy can help a couple understand and appreciate each other, and even benefit from their differences. Understanding these differences intellectually is not enough. A counselor or therapist can help point out these differences, as they surface, and guide a couple to a greater level of relationship. Understanding that differences are not intentional and that misunderstandings are merely the result of expectations that are not realistic can make a huge difference in a relationship. The differences that can be sensed between a man and women can deepen their relationship. More importantly, when men seek to understand and appreciate that which is feminine, they come to a deeper understanding of their self. And when a women seeks to understand that which is masculine in men, they come to appreciate and understand more about their own masculinity. THE SOCIAL ROLES OF MEN AND WOMEN In all societies the obvious biological difference between men and women is used as a justification for forcing them into different social roles which limit and shape their attitudes and behavior. That is to say, no society is content with the natural difference of sex, but each insists on adding to it a cultural difference of gender. The simple physical facts therefore always become associated with complex psychological qualities. It is not enough for a man to be male; he also has to appear masculine. A woman, in addition to being female, must also be feminine. However, once the contrast between men and women has been increased and accentuated in this fashion, it is usually taken as a further manifestation of biological differences which confirm the need for different social roles. Or, to put it another way, sex differences are used to create gender differences which are then explained as sex differences which, in turn, require gender differences, and so on. This may be no more than circular reasoning, but it is socially very effective. For example, in our own patriarchal society males enjoy a socially dominant position. Thus, from an early age, boys are helped to acquire a masculinity that allows them to assume and maintain that position. By the same token, girls are taught to cultivate a submissive femininity. The resulting difference in the male and female character is then described as inborn and used to defend the existing power arrangement. Only those who accept it are normal, and only they can expect to succeed. The male social role is designed to reward masculine men, while the female social role offers its relative advantages only to feminine women. (The aggressive man will run the bigger business; the pretty, agreeable woman will find the richer husband.) In other words, masculinity and femininity are gender qualities which are developed in response to social discrimination. However, once they have been developed, they justify and cement it. The masculine and feminine gender roles mutually reinforce each other and thereby perpetuate the inequality on which they are based. Obviously, this psychological mechanism can operate only as long as the behavior of men and women does not transgress the generally accepted limits. Every society tries therefore to prevent such transgressions by calling the socially defined gender roles natural, eternal, and unchangeable. Any person who refuses to accept them is persecuted as a deviant and punished as an offender not only against society, but against nature itself. An hist orical example of such deviance is the case of Joan of Arc who, as a young girl, not only led the French army to victory over the English, but also wore male clothing. In her later trial she was promptly accused of having thus violated the laws of nature. Over the centuries, many people have, of course, wondered why allegedly natural roles should need such rigorous social enforcement. After all, if they were truly natural, they would come naturally to both men and women. However, it is noteworthy that the advocates of the so-called natural inequality of the sexes resent nothing more than letting nature take its course. Yet, if their arguments were true, there would be no need to deny women equal opportunities, since they would be unable to compete with men. If women were naturally inferior, men would have nothing to fear. Therefore, the fact that many men do fear such competition raises sufficient doubt as to the validity of their claim. The truth is that human desires and capacities have a tendency to go beyond the narrow limits of our traditional gender roles. Indeed, it takes a constant combined effort by all social authorities to keep this tendency under control. Such social control appears not only externally, in the form of parental guidance, peer-group pressure, and law enforcement, but also internally in the form of concepts and values which determine the self-image of every individual, and it is in the individual mind where the confusion of sex and gender can create the most serious problems. For instance, men and women who feel that they do not fit the masculine and feminine stereotypes, or who resent them as too restrictive, may also develop ambiguous feelings about their biological sex. They may begin to wish for different bodies which would allow them to play a role more to their liking. Or, to take another example, since men have been told that women are socially and sexually passive, they are usually gravely disturbed by encountering a woman who is socially aggressive and who takes the initiative in sexual intercourse. Confronted with this lack of femininity in a woman, a man may feel tempted to dispute her womanhood. If this contention does not hold up in face of the evidence, he may instead begin to doubt his own masculinity and become sexually dysfunctional. Conversely, a handsome, gentle, and passive male may invite ridicule and may be denounced as a pervert or queer. Real women may regard him as less than a real man and therefore reject him as a sexual partner. However, the confusion goes still further. The notion that in every sexual encounter there has to be one active (masculine) and one passive (feminine) partner is so persistent that it not only ruins many heterosexual relationships, but also influences the behavior of certain homosexuals who feel compelled to model themselves after these stereotypes. By doing so, they give support to the curious belief that even in sexual relationships between members of the same sex, there always has to be one to play the man, while the other must assume the role of the woman. There is, in fact a general impression that every homosexual couple (whether male or female) consists of one active, masculine and one passive, feminine partner. People who hold this belief are, of course, at a total loss to explain phenomena like the famous homosexual elite troops of ancient Greece, which consisted entirely of male lovers. All of these views are based on a wrong conclusion drawn from a false assumption. The false assumption states that women are naturally passive, while men are naturally active. The wrong conclusion asserts that every passive person is playing a feminine role and that every active person is playing a masculine role. However, in actual fact neither sex nor gender need be characterized in this fashion. After all, in some human societies the role assignment for men and women is the reverse of our own. In short, there is nothing natural or definite about our sexual stereotypes. By the same token, full human equality will not be achieved until it becomes conceivable to both sexes that active and passive attitudes can be appropriate for either of them, and that even two active or two passive partners can have a rewarding relationship. This does not mean that, in an ideal future, all human differences will disappear. Indeed, once the old stereotypes have been discarded, the differences between individuals within each sex are likely to increase. Furthermore, under conditions of social equality, these individuals may also happily continue to play different gender roles. There should be no need to point out that there is nothing wrong with gender differences as such. They can greatly enrich our lives, as long as we understand that, in human beings, different does not have to mean superior or inferior. In other words, those who demand equal rights for men and women are not asking for drab uniformity, but for a social climate in which variety can flourish without being exploited. The following pages first elaborate further on the basic concepts of sex and gender and then offer a brief discussion of the different moral standards for men and women. Male Logic and Womens Intuition The split in our thinking between masculine and feminine is probably as old as language itself. Human beings seem to have a natural tendency to divide things into pairs: good/bad, light/dark, subject/object and so on. It is not surprising, then, that the male/female or masculine/feminine dichotomy is used to classify things other than men and women. Many languages actually classify all nouns as masculine or feminine (although not very consistently: for example, the Spanish masculine noun pollo means hen, while the feminine polla is slang for penis). This is perfectly natural; it is part of the way categorisation works in language. This does not, however, mean that it is right. It is probably unimportant whether a table or a chair is thought of as masculine or feminine. It may not even be very important these days whether we think of the sun as male and the moon as female (like the ancient Greeks) or vice versa (like most of the German tribes). However, when we start associating abstr act concepts like Reason or Nature with men and women, we run into serious difficulties. The association of Reason with men and Nature with women is well-known, and has been widely criticised. Aristotle defined Man as a rational animal, and by that he really meant men, not human beings. Unlike Plato, he saw women as less able to reason, hence less human and more animal. In Europe, well into the twentieth century, women were generally seen as somehow intellectually deficient. An English woman recently became Oxfords oldest graduate because although she had completed her degree course in the 1920s, at that time the university did not award degrees to female students. Presumably it would have decreased the status of the university to award degrees to an intellectually inferior sex! Nearly all societies, from hunting and gathering tribes to post-industrial nations, offer some kind of compensation to those who lose out in the status game. For example, among the practically matriarchal Zuni Indians of New Mexico, the economically powerless men were credited with the ability to make rain. Black slaves in the American South were thought to be naturally stronger (which they generally were), better at music and dancing (which they may have been) and more cheerful (highly unlikely for slaves, but a good justification for treating them badly). In the same way, women are compensated for their supposed inability to think rationally by a mysterious womens intuition. Attempts were made to justify this in biological terms; women were seen as naturally more emotional and/or in touch with Nature because of their strange biology (menstruation, hormones, vapours or whatever). This was about as scientific as the Zuni Indians theory that men could make rain. Men and women are, of course, biologically different. There are even significant differences in male and female brains; women, for example, have a thicker corpus callosum (the thing that connects the two halves of the brain). However, it is a giant leap from observing that there are neurological differences between the sexes to assuming that these differences correspond to the classic Reason/Nature or logic/emotion dichotomies. In fact, some of these differences may even indicate the opposite. The left hemisphere of the brain generally deals with linear processing, as found in language and some types of mathematics, and this hemisphere develops faster in girls than in boys. The old 11 plus test of verbal reasoning used in British schools was actually adjusted to bring boys scores up to the level of girls! Whatever the case, it is a mistake to look at peoples brains and then decide that they must think in a certain way; it would be far better to try and find out how people actually th ink, and then to see if this corresponds to brain structure. When we talk about the way men and women think, we are actually dealing with not one, but at least three separate things: how men and women usually think, how men and women can think, and how we think men and women think. Usually when we think we are looking at the first or second subjects, we are actually only describing the third. Since our main guide to how people think is their language, the fact that in most cultures men and women talk in different ways, and about different things, may lead us to false conclusions about the way they think in general. Womens conversation tends to emphasise feelings more, which may also mean that they think about feelings more. It does not, however, mean that woman are more emotional. It is perfectly possible that men are just as emotional, but for social reasons they talk (and think) about their feelings less. Similarly, the fact that in most cultures men argue more about abstract things does not mean that men are naturally more logical, it just means that the things men prefer to talk about require logical argument more than they require expression of feelings. Obviously the more you argue, the better you get at it, hence the prejudice that men are somehow biologically more logical. This would be like assuming that I am biologically better at speaking English (my first language) than Turkish (my second). Problems also arise with the actual words we use: logic, reason, intuition and emotion. Logic is simply a set of principles for getting from something we already knew, to something we didnt. If we know that all cows eat grass, and we know that Daisy is a cow, we can use very simple logic to say that Daisy eats grass, even if we have never seen her eat anything. The more complex logic that we use in constructing philosophical arguments or designing computers is really only doing the same kind of thing. The word rational is a little more problematic, since it involves an assessment of aims and actions. If our aims are consistent with each other and our actions achieve our aims, then we can fairly say that we are behaving rationally. If we act in a way that prevents us from realising our aims, then we are behaving irrationally, or in other words, stupidly. For example, if I know that I will have a better relationship with my wife if I dont shout at her, but I still shout at her because I am in a bad mood, my problem is not that I am being emotional, it is that I am being stupid. The opposite of rational is not, then, emotional but irrational. If we set up a pair of opposites, rational/emotional, we are likely to make the assumption that women are more emotional and therefore irrational, which is a polite way of saying that women are stupid. While having strong emotions can sometimes interfere with your thought processes, this is not automatically the case. For example, I often get quite excited when I am working on a new theory or project, but this usually makes my thinking better, not worse. Strong negative emotions such as rage, jealousy or depression are usually the result of irrational thinking as much as a cause of it, and men are just as vulnerable to this type of stupidity as women. Intuition is an even trickier concept. We usually say that we arrive at an idea or solution to a problem intuitively when we know something without knowing how we came to know it. A scientist may arrive at a new theory because the idea just pops into his or her head, or even turns up in a dream. You may get an intuitive feeling that a person is dishonest without actually having heard them say something you know to be untrue. In both these cases, what seems to be happening is that the mind stores and sorts information unconsciously, providing us only with the end result of this process. There is no guarantee, of course, that this conclusion will be true; a scientist would still have to perform experiments to prove their intuitive theory, and you would probably want some hard evidence to prove that the person you feel is dishonest really does tell lies. There is therefore nothing particularly strange or mystical about intuition; it is something we do all the time. Why, then, do we talk about womens intuition, as though men never arrive at a conclusion without consciously following all the stages that were necessary to reach it? Again, the answer is probably linguistic. As we have seen, traditionally womens conversation is less formal, less argumentative, and more concerned with feelings than mens conversation. Intuitive conclusions are therefore more acceptable in an all-female group. Men, on the other hand, are expected to argue more, and to argue more logically, presenting evidence in a systematic way to back up their conclusions. It is less socially acceptable in an all-male conversation (or a conversation where the men are doing most of the talking) to say Well guys, I dont know why, but I just get this kind of feeling that e=mc2. We can see, then, that these pairs of opposites, logic/intuition and rational/emotional, are not only false, but also damaging, particularly to women. It therefore surprising that some feminists actually support a version of this patriarchal nonsense. Particularly at the more spiritual end of the Radical Feminist community, there is a tendency to glorify womens intuition and closeness to Nature, and to avoid logic as somehow male, as though it were a psychological problem resulting from too much testosterone. The fact that men often use logic, or at least logical-sounding arguments, to put women in their place is not a fault of logic, it is the fault of those mens sexism and lack of social skills. More innocently, men are often accused of being too cold and logical, not because there is anything wrong with their ideas, but because they do not understand the unspoken rules of female conversation, in the same way that women are often accused of being illogical or emotional because they do not argue using the same language as men. If women reject logic and rely solely on feelings, they are left in the weak position of having to argue with feelings. Feeling that something is true does not make it true, and it will not convince anyone else that it is true either. You can say, I feel X, but the person you are arguing with can just as well reply, Well I dont. The result is that the argument usually goes nowhere. This is particularly damaging in arguments between men and women, since both sides are likely to go away with their prejudices strengthened; the men think women are subjective, emotional and illogical, and the women think men are impersonal, cold and over-intellectual. To justify their feelings of hurt at being beaten in an argument, the women concerned may go further and dismiss the whole thing as male logic, as though there were two types of logic, on for men and anoth

Last Minute Solving :: essays research papers

Transplantation of organs between animals and humans is called xenotransplantation. Pig liver are already being used to supply some time to liver-transplant patients; and for years, pig heart valves have been used in open-heart procedures to replace damaged human valves. Cloning research may contribute to treating diseases by allowing scientists to reprogram cells. The benefits of cloning could provide spare materials. Liver cells, eyes cells and bone cells may one day lead researchers to create organic organs such as hearts, lungs, livers and kidneys. Embryonic stem cells can be grown to produce organs of tissues to repair or replace damaged ones. If someone was to be injured and/or was an amputee, it would be possible for new limbs to be regenerated. There are many other possibilities, such as: burn victims could receive new skin; brain cells could assist in the healing of brain damage; or spinal tissue could help a quadriplegic walk again. If cloning is banned, this may never be a reality. One of the strongest reasons to support that cloning is beneficial to humanity is that there would be a solution to organ limitation. One of the greatest problems in medicine today is that many people need organs for various reasons, which are not available. This creates a lot of unnecessary deaths, and problems for patients. There are not enough organs to supply the need in demand. Currently in America, 2300 of the 40,000 Americans who needed a new heart in 1997 got one. That means that approximately 94% did not receive one. This is just the heart we are talking about. Imagine the staggering number of organs that are needed in the world. For example, in the States, there are 36,00 patients waiting for an organ transplant. Also, about one third of these patients waiting will die because of the lack of available organs. There are a great number of failures with organ donation. The failures can cause serious illness, and possible death. Therefore, cloning human organs is very beneficia l to humanity.

Human Resource Management Essay -- Gender Roles, Work Place

This essay will discuss the roles of men and women in the workplace. As roles of men and women have changed in today's context, unlike the past, it was caused by cultural and sociological. According to (free dictionary) Roles can be defined as the characteristic and expected social behaviour of an individual. For example when you see a car commercial for a mechanic most of the time the mechanic is a man. But when you see a commercial about cleaning products for the house normally a woman is the face you see. In other words, the media can help break the barriers on how gender roles are portrayed in society. This essay will focus on, the roles of men and women at work, education, pay gap between them, vertical and horizontal segregation, part time job, afterwards before going to conclusion will explain the reason of the difference between men and women, within context of biological, socialisation and structure, and finalising with conclusion. Many companies at present express desire of promoting diversity within organisations. For many years, the dominant group in the workforce always were men. According to (statistic) show that the employment rates for men have been rising since the second quarter of 1971, levelling off in more recent years. ( ??????) Stated that this culturally-installed male dominance can be explained in many ways and from a variety of perspectives. The statistic shows that, in second quarter of 2008 the employment rate was 79 per cent for men and 70 per cent for women, unchanged since 1999; this show the clear evidence of the men was the group dominant. (Hearn and Parkin, 1987) stated that 'Organisation' and 'sexuality' occur simultaneously, in a way that reinforces patriarchal power of men over women." W... ...ease of the women at education and workforce, in some of the men workforce dominant, women who are in that position to retain they have to behave like men. Givens does not want to blame women, but rather make them change their thinking to achieve their aims. The law is not much use for woman in power as there is so many males above them in any company. The usefulness of the law can be seen however in the fact ofprecedent' where any previous case of a woman taking a company to court for sexual discrimination or equal pay and winning may be considered in a similar court case. The glass ceiling is a major obstacle preventing woman from achieving high status professions. However since the law has been in power I believe that the glass ceiling is cracking but it's going to take a lot more years to see any kind of noticeable improvements in woman's careers.

How to Purchase a video recorder? :: Digital Video Camera

How to Purchase a video recorder? A video camera can be a very useful tool in recording milestones in your family, or just something that you would like to see again. Unfortunately there are so many factors that can make purchasing a video camera a very difficult task. If you don’t do your research on the types and features of video camera you may have gotten yourself into some deep trouble. Looking for camera’s in the store before doing some research is extremely troublesome. The store has a number of features listed that aren’t extremely important, and others not listed that are very important. Also at a store with sales people, often time the salesman knows very little about the cameras and tries to convince you that the most expensive is the best for you. Reading this paragraph has shown that there are many factors included in making this decision. After reading this paper you will be better equipped to go out and to choose the camera that is best suited for you. The two most popular types of video cameras on the market right now are DVD camcorders and Mini-DV Camcorders. The average price of a DVD Camcorder is between â€Å"$550 and $600† (http://www.camcorderinfo.com/). The average price of a Mini-DV camcorder is â€Å"under $500, with many models under $300† (http://www.bestbuy.com). The main reason that the DVD camcorder is more expensive is because it is more convenient to the average user. The average camcorder user will not use his camcorder very often, and will not do much if any video editing. The DVD camcorder records all of the video directly onto a DVD that you placed in the camcorder. This enables you to be instantly able to watch the movie on a television using a DVD player, thus making it more convenient. Mini-DV camcorders are the mainstream camcorder for the novice to the more experienced user. This is because of their low price and large functionality. Mini-DV camcorders record movies onto a digita l tape rather than a DVD or an analog tape. If you are a video-editing enthusiast you may want to be much more selective about the camera you purchase. Video editing is the process in which you capture video using a camcorder, and then transfer the video from the camcorder to your pc.

Relationships Between Society and Religion Essay

The relationship between religion and society has provided the focus for some of the greatest works of sociology (one thinks of Durkheim, Pareto, and Weber, as well as Marx and Parsons). Samuel Delbert, a Canadian sociologist, rebelled against what he saw as the static concerns of American sociologists, trained his eyes on the process of social change, and placed the study of religion as a major item on the agenda of social analysis in Canada. In three important works, Clark argues that the changing structure of religious organization provided a measure of the pace and character of social change. Clark undoubtedly made the study of religion an important topic in Canadian sociology. At the same time, however, his work intended to limit the range of sociological concerns by linking the study of religion to questions of the forms of religious organization and politics (Artibise, 1990). The Essence of Religion In order to further understand the context between the relationship between religion and society, it becomes clear only after we have determined the basic essence of religion, that which is common to them all. Many different attempts to conceptualize the essence of religions have been made. These definitions usually reflect the viewpoint of the defining subject more than the essence of the defined object. When, for instance, Immanuel Kant defines religion as the â€Å"fulfillment of all of our duties as divine commands,† this doesn’t reflect the essence of religion which is concerned with a completely different sphere, but rather the rationalistic standpoint of Kant, for whom religion is essentially theonomic ethics. Often the essence of a specific historical religion is held up as the ideal and norm for all religion (Mensching, 1976). Prophecy presupposes a relationship between religion and society that conflicts profoundly with established religion. Established religion sees religion as the sacred ideology of the established social order. It is the â€Å"handmaiden† of the ruling class. It pronounces the established social order to be created by God and to be a reflection of the divine will (Riemer, 1996). The Founding Fathers In their sociological writing, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim were responding to the economic and social changes of the 19th and early 20th centuries, timely more often than not by the disastrous effects that fleeting industrialization had imposed on the European community of which they were sector. The course of religion could scarcely be averted with this foundation, for religion was seen as an important area of the society that seemed to be shifting beyond identification. By at least a period, Karl Marx (1818-83) predates the other. There are known two important factors in the Marxist thoughts on religion: The first is descriptive, the second evaluative. His dependent variable is religion; in other words, its structure and nature are liable on social and most importantly economic relations, which constitute the foundation of social examination. It can never be understood separate from the economic form and the association of the capitalist or worker to the basis of formulation. The second factor connects from this however, has an assessing component. Religion is said to be a form of indifference or alienation; it is a symptom of social malformation which disguises the exploitative relationships of capitalist society. Religion persuades people that such relationships are natural and, therefore, acceptable. It follows that the real causes of social distress cannot be tackled until the religious element in society is stripped away to reveal the injustices of the capitalist system; everything else is a distraction. Subsequent debates concerning Marx/s approach to religion have to be approached with care. It has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between (a) Marx’s own analysis of religious phenomena, (b) a subsequent school of Marxism as a form of sociological thinking, and (c) what has occurred in the twentieth century in the name of Marxism as a political ideology. The essential and enduring point to grasp from Marx himself us that religion cannot be understood apart from the world of which it is a part; this is a crucial sociological insight and central to the evolution of the sub discipline. It needs, however, to be distinguished from an over deterministic interpretation of Marx that postulates the dependence of religion on economic forces in mechanical terms; this is unhelpful. The final point is more political. It may indeed be the case that one function of religion is to mitigate the very evident hardships of this world and so disguise them.