Thursday, September 3, 2020

Fdi in Uae free essay sample

Government arrangements considering FDI will likewise be taken a gander at. The various determinants of FDI will likewise be examined. This paper will likewise exemine FDI measurements in the U. A. E. In conclusion an end will be reached concerning why creating and created countried have expanded FDI to United Arab Emirate. Presentation Dubais lodging crash and close default in 2009 diminished financial specialists trust in UAEs business condition. The UAE government has put forth an extraordinary attempt to pull in outside speculation. Buyer markets are rewarding, however have eased back down with the worldwide crisis.The heading of FDI in the UAE is promising. The administration has been on the front line of advancing FDI is UAE. There are a wide range of determinants of FDI into the UAE. Cassia Engineering is a Lebanese firm that has been working in UAE since 1999. Cassia has confronted various difficulties and advantages of working in UAE. UAE Foreign Direct speculation insights Total Foreign Direct Investment ( a value stake of 10% or more in an outside based organization) in UAE was on an expansion from 2003 to 2008. We will compose a custom paper test on Fdi in Uae or on the other hand any comparative subject explicitly for you Don't WasteYour Time Recruit WRITER Just 13.90/page it was at its top in 2008 Before the money related smash that got a gigantic accident FDI to UAE.UAE, has been the second positioning FDI reciver in the center east area after Saudi Arabia. Throughout the years the measure of FDI into UAE has expanded altogether. Most recent information from the national bank shows that in 2009 direct venture into the UAE raised to 14. 7 billion dhs from 50. 4bn dirhams in 2008, as the UAE was gravely influenced by the worldwide money related emergency. The information doesn't give a breakdown for Dubai but instead gave statics for the entire nation. In 2006 all out FDI in UAE sum to AEDD 68. 63 billion which was a 11% expanded from the earlier year. [pic]From the table over the biggest measure of FDI originated from the café and inns division. Additionally more than 2005 †2006 Dubai has been the most noteworthy collector of FDI among the 7 emirates. Complete FDI pulled in by the UAE soared to almost US$54. 78bn toward the finish of 2007, an amazing yearly development pace of around 717 percent contrasted with 2006. In the multi year time frame from 2003 to 2008, the UAE encountered the biggest ascent in 2008 as far as both FDI venture numbers and capital speculation, with a 70% ascent on venture figures contrasted with 2007. In 2008, the UAE pulled in 480 FDI ventures comprising of $4. bn of capital speculation and the production of more than 87,000 employments. This represented 33% of all undertaking numbers, capital venture and employment creation in the UAE between Jan 2003 and Jan 2009. [pic] Government strategy on FDI The UAE government has been on the front of pulling in FDI into the nation. Despite the fact that as on 2010 UAE law permit outside financial specialists to take ownership of 49% of this law doesn't make a difference in the organized commerce zones, as JAFZA, Internet city,Media City and the rest. In the organized commerce zones remote organizations can possess up 100% of the company.These unhindered commerce zones have been a significant FDI fascination. Additionally there is 100% expense excemption ,100% repatriation of benefits and funding to home nation is likewise allowed. In Dubai outsiders are permitted 100% of private property. This law to a great extent supported the land showcase in Dubai. The administration has likewise set forth,pro-boss laws. For instance there is no lowest pay permitted by law in UAE. Additionally incase of a contest between the business and the representative emerges, the business can have the migration restrict the worker from working in the UAE for a time of 1 year.These star boss laws have likewise been a wellspring of FDI fascination in the UAE. DETERMINANTS OF FDI IN UAE. Numerous organizations put resources into UAE through FDI on account of the political strength of the nation. The Location of the UAE is additionally a fascination in firms. The area of the UAE permits organizations that are opearating in it a simple access to local markets, for models Sausi Arabia , Qatar or Bahrain. This additionally incorporated the land area of the UAE. The financial development of the UAE offers incredible speculation openings.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Consumer Decision Making-Free-Samples for Students- Myassignment

Question: Talk about the Four Article identified with the subject of Social Media and its Influence on the Consumer Decision Making. Answer: Presentation: This is the report that is as commented on list of sources in which four articles are being dissected identified with the subject of web based life and its impact on the buyer dynamic. This report helps in building up the breaking down aptitudes of the student and furthermore assists with making research on the theme top to bottom. This report examines four articles. The primary article is with respect to the car business in which the impact of social components on the buy conduct of the individuals is being investigated. The examination is directed in the locale of Finland. The subsequent article is in regards to the online buyer conduct. In this article the writer has examined about the social factors that have its effect on the conduct of the purchaser who shops on the web. The third article fundamentally examines at the culturally diverse conduct or the elements that influence the purchaser dynamic in de=different locale. This is perhaps the best article to think about the social parts of customer conduct. The last article is in regards to the internet based life sway on purchaser conduct. The general division helps in inquiring about the point well overall yet with a portion of the impersonations. Articles: 1.Grinblatt, M., Keloharju, M. what's more, Ikheimo, S., 2008. Social impact and utilization: Evidence from the car acquisition of neighbors.The survey of Economics and Statistics,90(4), pp.735-753. In the article, the writer contends about the impact of the social components o the buy conduct of the clients who are purchasing cars. The creator has put forth attempts in examining about the effect of the social impact on the utilization of the car items by the customers. A board of car buys in Finland has been utilized as the information to lead the exploration. The information has been gathered by the administration specialists in this manner is truly dependable wellspring of data. The information gathered aides in examining the examples of procurement and the variables influence towards buys at various areas. This examination is basically about the buy conduct of the individuals in Finland as indicated by various social factors, for example, area, culture, demography, decisions and so on in my exploration, this subject has helped in deciding different social variables nothing los the effect of area on the buy conduct. To the extent the impediment of the investigation is concern ed, it has been broke down that the examination in the article is constrained to vehicle buy and furthermore restricted to Finland. This investigation uncovers that acquisition of the car in Finland is a lot of influenced by the neighbors buy. The finish of the article is clear and hence it is a lot of accommodating for me to lead my examination. 2.Cetin?, I., Munthiu, M.C. what's more, R?dulescu, V., 2012. Mental and social factors that impact online shopper behavior.Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences,62, pp.184-188. Writers in this article have discussed the electronic trade and its impact on the shopper conduct. The creator contends that web is influencing the general public to a huge degree and in this way the conduct of the customer to buy the items. The buyer that has been broke down in this article or research is the online clients. The creator has gathered the information of the online locales with respect to the quantity of individuals riding them at normal premise. The significant social factors that have been talked about are reference gatherings, family and the status yet in the event of online clients the virtual gatherings are conifer as the social factor. The exploration in this article centers around the social variables identified with web and web based life that influence the buyer conduct in online buys well as in making disconnected buy. This examination has helped me in exploring my subject to more extensive stretch out on online shopper conduct also. The constraint of this ex amination is seen as the information assortment technique. The information that has been gathered isn't a lot of exact in its way and in this way it results in strayed end from the real end. This report infers that web triggers the new conduct of the shopper and along these lines changes the measurements where the buyer made its buys. I believe that this examination study is end up being valuable in one manner as it gives an incredible information about innovation alongside web based business contribution in the purchaser conduct. This isn't really a social factor however impact the social factor. 3.Muduli, A., 2011. Execution based prize and national culture: an experimental proof from Indian culture.Synergy,9(1), pp.1-13. This is an intriguing article as the writer with regards to this article has put forth attempts in exploring about the culturally diverse consequences for the buy conduct of the individuals. The buyers from various nations have been tried, for example, America, Australia, Thais, Taiwan and India. The information has been gathered from the respondents through poll. The respondents are the college understudies since they are the person who are firmly related with the acquisition of shoes. Tennis shoes are the items that have been talked about in the article. A l has been utilized to address the inquiries by the respondents. This examination has helped me in the manner that it talks about the diverse elements which is extremely intriguing to consider. This gives a twist introduction for the exploration point. The impediment of the investigation for this situation is that the respondents are from the college as it were. The example chose isn't unmistakably speaks to the entire open or th e clients. Consequently, the outcomes may experience the ill effects of this impediment. The finish of the investigation proposes that the individuals in Taiwan, India and Thailand are collectivists while the individuals in America and Australia are activists. It has additionally been finished up from the examination that various sorts of showcasing methodologies at various locale likewise influence the buy conduct of the individuals yet the advertisers additionally thinks about the cutlet and the social convictions of the individuals before promoting any of the items in the area. 4.Sema, P., 2013. Does web based life influence shopper dynamic? In this article, the writer of the article has talked about the different effect of web based life o the dynamic of the shopper straightforwardly or in a roundabout way. It has been talked about that web based life is the most significant apparatus for showcasing in the business and hence the distinction and the development sin promoting therefore influence the decision and the thinking procedure about the clients in settling on the choice for purchasing nay item. The information that has been gathered for the examination is by poll. Inquiries have been posed to the respondents and afterward the information has been handled to remove from important data out of that. The examination is about the effect of the web-based social networking devices on advertising and afterward its effect on the buyer dynamic to purchase the items. The organizations who advertise their items via web-based networking media alongside different apparatuses are bound to get the clients in light of the fact tha t the greater part of the individuals nowadays are continually riding the internet based life. This article chiefly centers around movement organizations and this constrains the examination led on the subject that is have chosen. This examination presumes that web-based social networking instruments are not legitimately however in a roundabout way influence the customer dynamic. The consequences of the information recommend that the online life has the positive effect on the shopper dynamic procedure. This is on the grounds that individuals are particularly pulled in towards mechanical progression and the audits posted in the internet based life in regards to various items let the individuals think about the encounters of others and accordingly causes them to settle on the keen choice on select and purchasing the item. End: Subsequent to concentrating all the article identified with the theme, it has been inferred that social culture influence the conduct and the buy choice of the purchasers. The social variables have various structures, for example, online life, diverse conduct, impact of reference bunches and so forth it has been finished up from the stud that there social impacts influence the buy conduct in positive manner for certain items yet additionally brings about negative route for the organizations. This is on the grounds that the terrible experience of the individuals can likewise be shared by others and these outcomes in pessimistic perspective of the individuals for the item. Culture of the shopper is one of the significant reasons that influence the buy choice, on the off chance that the convictions of the individuals in various nations are extraordinary, at that point they may have various options. Subsequently, the organizations need to showcase the items similarly all together draw in an ever increasing number of clients. Internet based life is one of social impact nowadays. This is a direct result of the mechanical record in the advertising strategies of the organizations. As the organizations showcase their items via web-based networking media subsequently the clients additionally give their surveys on the devices and results in sway on buyer choice of the others who all are perusing the audits. References: Cetin?, I., Munthiu, M.C. what's more, R?dulescu, V., 2012. Mental and social factors that impact online purchaser behavior.Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences,62, pp.184-188. Grinblatt, M., Keloharju, M. furthermore, Ikheimo, S., 2008. Social impact and utilization: Evidence from the car acquisition of neighbors.The survey of Economics and Statistics,90(4), pp.735-753. Muduli, A., 2011. Execution based prize and national culture: an observational proof from Indian culture.Synergy,9(1), pp.1-13. Sema, P., 2013. Does online life influence customer dynamic?

Friday, August 21, 2020

Pope Innocent III - Powerful Medieval Pontiff

Pope Innocent III - Powerful Medieval Pontiff Pope Innocent III Was Also Known As Lothair of Segni; in Italian, Lotario di Segni (original name). Pope Innocent III Was Known For Calling the Fourth Crusade and the Albigensian Crusade, supporting crafted by Saint Dominic and Saint Francis of Assisi, and convening the Fourth Lateran Council. One of the most compelling pontiffs of the Middle Ages, Innocent built the papacyâ into an all the more impressive, renowned establishment than it had ever been previously. Heâ viewed the job of the pope as not only a profound pioneer but rather a common one too, and keeping in mind that he held the ecclesiastical office he made that vision a reality. Occupations Campaign SponsorPopeWriter Spots of Residence and Influence Italy Significant Dates Born:â c. 1160Elevated to Cardinal Deacon: 1190Elected Pope: Jan. 8, 1198Died: July 16, 1215 About Pope Innocent III Lothairs mother was honorability, and his noble family members may have made his examinations at the Universities of Paris and Bologna conceivable. Blood connections to Pope Clement III may likewise be liable for his height to a cardinal elder in 1190. In any case, he didnt get exceptionally associated with ecclesiastical legislative issues now, and he had the opportunity to compose on religious philosophy, remembering the works For the Miserable Condition of Man and On the Mysteries of the Mass.​ Very quickly upon his political decision as pope, Innocent looked to reassert ecclesiastical rights in Rome, realizing harmony among the opponent highborn groups and picking up the regard of the Roman individuals inside a couple of years. Honest additionally took an immediate enthusiasm for the German progression. He accepted that the pope reserved the privilege to affirm or dismiss any political decision that was sketchy in light of the fact that the German ruler could guarantee the title of Holy Roman Emperor, a place that influenced the profound domain. Simultaneously, Innocent expressly renounced mainstream power in the vast majority of the rest of Europe; yet he despite everything took an immediate enthusiasm for issues in France and England, and his impact in Germany and Italy alone was sufficient to carry the papacy to the cutting edge of medieval governmental issues. Blameless called the Fourth Crusade, which was occupied to Constantinople. The pope expelled the Crusaders who assaulted Christian urban areas, yet he made no transition to stop or upset their activities since he felt, wrongly, that the Latin nearness would achieve a compromise between the Eastern and Western Churches. Honest additionally requested a campaign against the Albigenses, which effectively quelled the Cathar apostasy in France yet at an extraordinary expense throughout everyday life and blood. In 1215 Innocent assembled the Fourth Lateran Council,â the best and very much went to ecumenical chamber of the Middle Ages. The Council passed a few significant pronouncements, including Canons concerning the creed of Transubstantiation and changes of the pastorate. Pope Innocent III kicked the bucket abruptly while planning for another Crusade. His papacy remains as a noteworthy political power of the thirteenth century.â The content of this record is copyright  ©2014 Melissa Snell. You may download or print this report for individual or school use, as long as the URL beneath is incorporated. Authorization isâ notâ granted to imitate this report on another website.â The URL for this report is:â https://www.thoughtco.com/pope-guiltless iii-1789017

Sunday, June 7, 2020

Andrew Jackson Life and Biography - Free Essay Example

Andrew Jackson was known for many important and eventful life.I will be talking about both the highs and the lows of his two terms as the president of the united states from 1829-1837. The issues that I will be using and discussing are The states rights, The tariff, The Indian Removal act, and mostly how he did before and after his time in office. Andrew Jackson was born on March 15th, 1767 in South Carolina. Very close after Jackson was born his father died, Living with his mother in South carolina, he had lived with an extended family of Scots-Irish that worked and owned farms. His mother always dreamed of him being a well taught little boy but ends up Jackson had a love for cursing, pranks, and a lot of fighting. When Andrew was thirteen he decided that he wanted to volunteer to be in the Revolutionary War, His oldest brother, Hugh, died of a heat stroke in The Battle of Stono Ferry in 1779. In 1781 Andrew and his brother were captured, Andrew refused to polish the officers shoes so one of the british officers bashed him in the head with his sword. Robert, his other brother, died later from a deadly illness. Andrews mother then went to help injured soldiers and then died leaving Andrew an orphan at the young age of fourteen years old. When his money ran out, he finished schooling and he became a teacher for a short period of time and most people thought of him as different. He was Tall with red hair and blue eyes, Jackson was known for his bad temper . In 1784, when he was seventeen, Jackson decided to become an attorney. He moved to Salisbury, North Carolina, where he studied law by learning with lawyers. He also while doing three years of lawing school he worked at an general store. He also studied at Nashville for two years. One day Andrew met a woman named Rachel Donelson Robards, and she was struggling with a marriage.After hearing that her husband had been granted permission to divorce her, Jackson went to her in Natchez, where her mother had sent her, and may have married her there but no one really knows and have no records of the marriage. When they returned to Nashville in 1791, they discovered the divorce had not worked out. In 1792, Rachels husband sued for divorce so then they could not marry until 1794. When Andrew was twenty-first birthday one of Jacksons friends, John McNairy, was elected Superior Court Judge of the newly formed Western District by the North Carolina General Assembly. He went to Tennessee and practiced law briefly in Greeneville.Then in the fall of 1788, he moved to Nashville. Then broke out the war of 1812, As the new general, Andrew Jackson made quick, action to take the War of 1812 into his own hands,even though his soldiers were not the best. After a long battle he then won the battle of New Orleans by the British. This unexpected victory launched an enormous sense of national pride as America began to realize its true potential. It also made Jackson the new American hero. With winning New Orleans,it put Jackson on the map politically for his road to the White House.When Andrew was president he empowered his presidency, he defended the union, and pushed the country to democracy. He was so important to the government and made him such a good leader, and he always wanted to help all of the problems that anybody that he could provide for/take care of the issue .Although his candidacy brought problems and even deep personal loss upon him, Jackson was beloved by the country and the people recognized in him a unique spark they believed would change the nation to new heights. Andrew always did not want to be the boring old president that just enforced laws. Jackson was different. No one like him had ever served as president. He made decisions based on his personal beliefs. Besides the great work he achieved in office and in the military, President Jackson left a legacy resulting from his unorthodox, action-first mentality that pushed the boundaries for what both the president and the nation could achieve. Jackson returned to the Bank War. His relationship with the people throughout his first term convinced him that he was the only elected official in the United States that represented all the people. As such, Jackson believed he had to use his office to carry out their will. Jackson also espoused removing Indian tribes in the United States to the west of the Mississippi River as one of his reforms.Jackson argued that the United States policy of attempting to assimilate the tribes into white society had failed and the Native Americans way of life would eventually be destroyed. He recognized that whites desired their lands and feared if the Native Americans remained in those areas they would eventually be taken by the soldiers. Opposition groups fought Jacksons removal policy in Congress,but they sadly lost .In June 1836, Congress approved the legislation and sent it to Jackson. Jackson was tempted to veto it because he despised distribution and he felt the regulations on the state banks that held U.S. deposits did not go far enough, but the bill offered a final victory in the Bank War, currency reform and assisted Van Buren in his presidential campaign. Congress made the Indian Removal Act in 1831 which empowered Jackson to make treaties with the tribes in arranging for their displacement.Andrew would get many threats but just ignore them. He then took the indians through the Trail Of Tears. Which after this happened most people started not liking Andrew for honestly really good reasons.Today, Jacksons Indian Removal policy and its tragic consequences which led to the Trail of Tears was one of the worst parts on his presidential legacy. Jackson as a president was to carry out the Peoples will and which the price was to pay to become the president, and adding on to the death of his wife made his deeply affect him and he would spend the rest of his life mourning her. One of the bad things that Andrew Jackson did was the Tariff, he was known for this act to be one of the worst things that Jackson did during his presidency.On October 22 1832, the South Carolina legislature declared a convention on November 19, to decide whether the state would, according to Calhouns formula. On December 11, 1832, Jackson published a proclamation giving strong constitutional arguments, written by the Secretary of State Livingston. The only problem with all of this is that Andrew received a lot of hate comment about what he was doing and the choices about all of this. On January 8, the administration submitted a bill, known as the Verplanck bill after one of Van Burens allies, which cut the tariff in half over two years. Even though he was getting all of these threats and hate comments he went through with what his opinion was not really what the people wanted to help the nation better. On the 16th Jackson also sent to Congress the Force Bill ,to get Congressional approval for deploying the military to put down armed rebellion. This was also one of the debated options that he did about what he thought about it. While he was in office he accomplished things beyond his power. Jackson helped to inspire the American sense of promise and hope; the idea that anyone can succeed through hard work and natural ability, rather than through unappreciated power.

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Compare And Contrast Education Reform - 1474 Words

An educational system is a means to develop a workforce, to improve the socioeconomic status of the poor via social mobility, and to create a shared culture. Given these important roles, educational systems are targets for social reformers. Joseph Lancaster and Arne Duncan were both education reformers with strong and influential ideas about what and how students are taught. Lancaster was a London schoolmaster and eventual leader of the Monitorial education reform movement in the early 1800s. Duncan was the US Secretary of Education from 2009-2015, and led an era of active federal education reform. In comparing and contrasting these two educational reformers from the past and present, there are more similarities than differences.†¦show more content†¦Recent United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was still trying to accomplish the same goal. In Lancaster s book Improvements in Education he argues people should invest money into the education of the poor. â€Å"W hy then so eager in the pursuit of riches? and why not rather pay that attention to the infant poor, which their wants requires?† (Improvements in Education). This line demonstrates that Lancaster believes people should put money towards the education of the poor so that they can have a chance to better their place in society. Lancaster tried to lower the cost of education by developing the monitorial system of education which uses less teachers and so lowers salary costs. This is similar to Arne Duncan s emphasis on investing more money into education and in managing costs. At the end of his term, The Washington Post reported â€Å"his agency directed $100 billion in stimulus funds to districts small and large that were otherwise facing severe job cuts in the wake of the 2008 recession. The move preserved an estimated 350,000 teaching jobs.† In his speeches, Duncan said that â€Å"states and institutions of higher education will need to meet us halfway in doing more to keep college costs down and boost completion†. This statement made by Duncan shows that both he and Lancaster have similar ideas on the cost of education, they both believe that education was a social investment and that the cost of education should be lowered so poorer people canShow MoreRelatedAll The King s Men By Robert Penn Warren889 Words   |  4 Pagespersonal story of Jack as the latter comes to realize his responsibility for the world around him. The insight that this book gives on politician life’s can compare and contrast history events thought the different themes like visions of America, alcohol, politics, and education. To begin, the theme of the visions of America is used to compare and constant history events. The U.S. s history of slavery continues to trouble generations of Americans and impacts Americans view of themselves. The bookRead MoreStony Brook 386774 Words   |  4 Pagesaccording to Ibn Khaldun?- According to Ibn Khaldun the rise and fall of the dynasties in the middle east can be directly correlated to the different social structures that tribes would embrace. Which will lead to a better military structure. Compare and contrast the organization of the Arabian tribes with that of the Turko-mongolian tribes of inner asia? The Arabian and turk0- monoglian had some similarities but they also had many differences I will first start with their similarities. Both the ArabianRead MoreStalin and Mao960 Words   |  4 PagesHong Kong Diploma of Secondary School Education History School-based Assessment Task One Study Outline Name of Student : Cheng Ho Wai, Gavin Class : 5A Class No.: 06 Title : Compare and contrast economic policies of Stalin (5 Years Plan) and Mao (First 5 Year Plan Three Red Banners) Study Outline : The first half of the 20th century saw the rise of some single-party states and the rise to power of some of the famous and controversial figures. Leaders of theseRead MoreAlexander II vs Alexander III752 Words   |  4 PagesCompare and contrast the domestic policies of Alexander II and Alexander III Alexander II and his successor and son, Alexander III, inherited Russia in different states and degrees of turmoil. Due to these pressures, both were required to make alterations to the systems in place, such as that of politics and economics. However the natures of their crisis were different and therefore the subsequent modifications varied and were, in many cases, controversial. Alexander II came to power in 1855Read MoreAnalysis Of The Article President Bush Announced On A Nation At Risk982 Words   |  4 PagesOrganization According to the article President Bush announced on April 18, 1991 he wanted to achieve six national education goals by the year 2000. . There are six objectives: (1) To guarantee that every child starts school ready to learn; (2) To raise the high school graduation rate to 90%; (3) To ensure that every student leaving the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades can demonstrate competence in core subjects; (4) To make students fir it in the world in math and science achievements; (5) To ensureRead MoreCharter Schools Are The Best Schools1608 Words   |  7 Pagesmillennials’ future actions and beliefs. David and Jack Cahn are millennial activists and journalists whose book was publicized by Post Hills Press in 2014. Their whole book covers present day events like running presidents and problems with debt, school reform, and the controversy on legalizing of Marijuana. Just recently some of theses events changed from present to historic. Their focus in this chapter is that â€Å"the most successful ‘school choice’ initiative is the charter school movement† (pg.183). TheRead MoreWhy Education Systems Has Success, And The Lack Of The American Education System1585 Words   |  7 Pagesstill had questions about why education systems had success, and the lack thereof in the United States. I started my research by looking at articles about America’s education system. I used the keywords â€Å"American education system,† â€Å"American education spending,† and â€Å"Global education rankings.† An article from the CBS News explained that the United States ranked first in spending per student. However, an article from the Guardian showed that we were only 14th in education. This was intriguing becauseRead MoreComparison Between Karl Marx And Emile Durkheim1501 Words   |  7 PagesName: Crystal Henrick FL6132 Compare and contrast the various early European urban theorists as found in Chapter 1 of the course text. (300-400 words) The two theorists i’ve decided to compare and contrast are Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim. Firstly i’ll compare them to one another. From all the readings I did and past education on these individuals I found they have a lot of the same views in regards to religion. Both Emlie Durkheim and Karl Marx believe that religion is a projection of mans hopesRead MoreDwight D. Eisenhower and Civil Rights Act Essay995 Words   |  4 PagesDouglas Mac Arthur HUAC The Hollywood 10 Alger Hiss Whittaker Chambers Richard Nixon J. Edgar Hoover Klaus Fuchs Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Joseph McCarthy Red Scare Adlai Stevenson Dwight D. Eisenhower Sputnik NASA National Defense Education Act John Foster Dulles â€Å"Massive Retaliation† â€Å"Brinkmanship† Shah of Iran Gammel Abdel Nasser Suez Crisis Fidel Castro Hungarian Revolution Nikita Khrushchev U-2 â€Å"Military Industrial Complex The Bay of Pigs Berlin Wall Cuban MissileRead MoreEssay on comparing alexander II and alexander III887 Words   |  4 Pagesï » ¿Compare and contrast the social and economic policies of Alexander II (1855-81) and Alexander III (1881-94) of Russia. Alexander II and Alexander III were both Tsars of Russia and they both believed in the divine will to rule the people. However Alexander II is said to be more liberal than Alexander III though they were both conservative in one way or the other in their social and economic policies because they both wanted to remain with the power over the people. Alexander II was more relaxed

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

The Golden Age of Rome - 873 Words

The Roman Empire is one of the most prominent civilizations that has walked the face of the Earth. The amount of amazing things that took place because of the Romans is astonishing in its own right, so for the time period of the Pax Romana to be considered the greatest age of Rome, there must have been some great achievements that had taken place during these first two centuries. With the rise of Rome coming from Augustus Caesar during this time, Rome also had its declining downfall come soon after. Rome’s legacy was left in many places during the time, and still to this day is expressed throughout the modern world. The Pax Romana lasted from roughly 31 B.C.- 180 A.D. During this time period, the state of the Roman Empire was at its†¦show more content†¦One of the major works during this time was the Aeneid, which was written by Virgil at the request of Augustus. This work of literature was based on Augustus and his role in founding the empire. In this also included, â€Å"Roman virtues- patriotism, devotion to the family, duty to the state, and a strong sense of religion.† Other classical writers of the time were Horace, whose poetry was based on the value of moderation and the beauty of friendships. The two major leaders in the art of science were Ptolemy and Galen. Ptolemy was a scientist of math, geography, and astronomy. He wrote, Mathematical Composition which was the prominent all the way through The Middle Ages. As Ptolemy was to math and astronomy, Galen was the prominent medicinal scientist of his time. He was known for dissecting humans and also animals. Even though much of his work was found to be wrong, his contribution to the future of anatomy was great. Roman government was now being governed differently and with this came new law. Roman law started off by passing through two stages, the formation of civil law and the formation of the law of nations. The law of nations came to be applied throughout the empire, although i t never fully applied local law. These laws were brought about to bring everyone together. The government was also being run differently because unlike in the past where the Republic was corrupt and wanted to exploit each other, the Empire was tryingShow MoreRelatedThe Golden Ages : Greece, Rome, and China Essay1360 Words   |  6 PagesThe Golden Ages : Greece, Rome, and China The Golden Ages of Greece, Rome, and China were periods when certain cultures reached many achievements in certain fields. These fields could include drama, poetry, sculpture, philosophy, architecture, math or science. Their achievements in education, technology, and government have greatly influenced modern society. The artistic and literal legacies of these periods continue to instruct and inspire people today (Beck 120). In Ancient Greece, theRead MoreThe Greatest Accomplishments of the Pax Romana?1214 Words   |  5 PagesThe Pax Romana A golden age is a period of cultural accomplishments brought on by economic prosperity and relative peace. The Roman empire experienced a golden age after the fall of the Roman Republic, arguably one of the greatest golden ages in history. The Pax Romana began in 27 B.C. and it reigned for 200 years before falling. The Pax Romana was a time of great prosperity with many accomplishments. The Pax Romana was not only significant because of the amount of wealth and power it wieldedRead MoreThe Rise And Fall Of Empires1580 Words   |  7 PagesEmpire because of the way that tolerance allowed and caused the empire to rise, enter its golden age, and fall. The Roman Empire was a â€Å"hyperpower† that lasted from 44 BCE to 476 CE. The empire contained Western, Southern, and Eastern Europe, along with North Africa; thus, there was an abundance of culture from many different conquered groups. Romans wanted to make these conquered nations provinces of Rome. The Roman Empire began (and the Roman Republic ended) with the assassination of Julius CaesarRead MoreWashington Vs. Roman Empire1648 Words   |  7 PagesWashington was concerned about tax revenues as well as establishing financial institutions, likewise to Rome. Culturally, Washington emulated the Roman Empires form of architecture, although both Rome and Washington were not culturally significant. Although, regardless of whether Rome possessed a myriad of aspects, which positively benefitted them, therefore enabling them to experience a golden age; internal conflicts as well as political and economical tribulations ultimately lead to the downfall ofRead MoreAugustus s Influence On The Roman Empire1260 Words   |  6 PagesAugustus is known to be the first Roman emperor, and the founder of Rome, known for politically transforming the Roman republic to the early Roman Empire. During his rule his influence on artwork and architecture illustrated a classical style, and often they was a reflection of the †Å"public image† of his rule, as well as his â€Å"new agenda†. (115) Augustus was quickly seen as a restorer of Rome. Augustus commissioned many large scale building projects such as the Campus Martius, as well as elaborateRead MoreThe Augustan Reformation : Responsive Or Ideological?1281 Words   |  6 PagesIdeological? The government and laws of ancient Rome emphatically ruled the people who resided there. However, Caesar’s assassination in 44 B.C. brought out anarchy. The lower classes, which were very much in support of Caesar, became infuriated that a group of aristocrats had murdered him. Antony, who had arrived with the intent of taking control of Rome, and Octavian, later to be referred to as Augustus, formed an uneasy alliance in order to try and reunite Rome. However, the two eventually turned againstRead MoreThe Silver Age Of Latin Literature898 Words   |  4 Pages The Authors of the Silver Age of Latin Literature The Silver Age of the Classical Latin period is considered to have taken place A.D 18-133. The Silver age has been generally criticized as being inferior to the Golden Age which had produced many writers of distinction, many of them men of action such as Julius Caesar and statesmen and orators such as Cicero who was able to express abstract thought with clarity. The golden Age gave rise to the idea that an author shouldRead MoreChina s Rule Under Legalism And Launching A Military Campaign875 Words   |  4 Pagesnon-existent during the age of the warring states as there were rivalries between the seven competing kingdoms. Shihuangdi of the state of Qin tried to reunify China through Legalism and launching a military campaign. After the collapse of Shihuangdi’s brutal policies, China switched over to the milder and moralistic rule of the Han dynasty that followed. To try and restore China into something great, the people underwent changes to find a solution that would end the disorder. Likewise, Rome also experiencedRead MoreWhy Augustus Caesar was a Better Ruler than Julius Caesar652 Words   |  3 PagesThe two greatest leaders of Rome are without a doubt Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar. These two men have defined leadership for a country. Many other countries have modeled their ethics and used them as their own to better themselves as a whole. Without these two men, our world would not be the same in just about every way. Although these two men were both great, one of them was better than the other. Although Julius Caesar was a dominant leader, Augustus Caesar was certainly the better leaderRead MoreCharacteristics Of The Persian Empire And The Muslim Empire1328 Words   |  6 Pagescultural practices blended together. As a combination of all these cultures, a great Muslim civilization rose, which led to a lasting golden age. In civilizations, the characteristics of a golden age were a stable government, a large amount of trade, and new technology. A stable government, being the responsible public administration, was a key characteristic of a golden age. The Abbasid dynasty already had a system of local officials and borrowed government techniques from the Byzantine Empire and the

Relative Humidity Essay Sample free essay sample

This activity will look at two of the most cardinal and of import elements of conditions: temperature and humidness. Aims: 1. The pupils will detect the demand for mensurating instruments to quantify conditions observations. 2. The pupils will larn how to utilize a sling psychrometer to find temperature and comparative humidness values. 3. The pupils will explicate and understand the difference between absolute and comparative humidness and the relationships between temperature and atmospheric humidness. Introduction: Atmospheric Temperature is one of the most often considered of the many meteoric elements. This influence of air temperature on the growing and wellbeing of earth’s life signifiers is paramount. Temperature is fundamentally a step of the molecular kinetic energy of a substance. ( Or how fast the molecules are traveling ) . Therefore mention points upon which compare molecular activities or temperatures are needed. The freezing point and boiling points of H2O are used as 32OF or 0OCis the freeze point and 212OF or 100OC is the boiling point. Water is a basic necessity for the life signifiers here on Earth. At a given minute. merely about 1/100. 000 portion of the earth’s supply of H2O is found in the ambiance. yet it is this atmospheric H2O that brings wet to the surface of the Earth and makes it habitable. In the hydrologic rhythm. H2O is invariably being moved from the earth’s surface into the troposphere where it gives rise to overcast and precipitation. thereby conveying the H2O back to the surface once more. Humidity is defined as the sum of H2O vapour in the ambiance. It is measured in several ways. In one method. the mass of the H2O vapour is measured per unit volume. normally a three-dimensional metre ( M3 ) . This step of humidness is referred to as absolute humidness and reported as gms H2O/m3. The humidness may besides be expressed as a commixture ratio. The blending ratio represents the mass of H2O vapour in the ambiance measured in gms per kg mass ( g/kg ) of dry air. Specific humidness. yet another manner to mensurate and describe humidness. is basically the same as the commixture ratio. differing merely in that the sample mass of air includes the mass of H2O vapour contained within it. While each of the methods merely described to describe humidness involve mensurating the mass of H2O vapour within a sample unit of air. there is yet another manner to mensurate the sum of H2O vapour in the ambiance that utilizes a different attack. The construct of partial vapour force per unit area breaks out the sum of the entire atmospheric force per unit area attributable entirely to H2O vapour. For case if the atmospheric force per unit area is 1000 millibars. and H2O vapor represents 3 % of the mass of the air ( which is manifested as air force per unit area ) we could depict the sum of H2O vapor present by describing the existent vapour force per unit area as 30 millibars. Relative humidness. the most widely reported step of humidness. is non a direct step of the sum of H2O vapour in the ambiance. but instead the ratio of the air’s H2O vapour content to its H2O vapour capacity at a given temperature. The capacity is the sum of H2O vapour needed to bring forth impregnation at that peculiar temperature. The assorted expression for comparative humidness are: sum of H2O vapour in ambiance ( per unit ) X 100 H2O vapour capacity of ambiance ( per unit ) or blending ratioX 100impregnation blending ratio or existent vapour force per unit area X 100impregnation vapour force per unit area Humidity can be expressed in several ways. One step of humidness is vapor force per unit area. Every gas bing in air is lending to portion of the force per unit area being exerted by the air. The vapor force per unit area is the portion of the entire atmospheric force per unit area being exerted by the H2O vapour in the air. Therefore. it is a step of the existent vapour content or absolute humidness. If the air is keeping the maximal sum of vapour capable of keeping. it is said to be saturated and the vapour content can be expressed as the concentrated vapour force per unit area. There is a important relationship between the temperature of the air and its capacity to keep wet. The higher the temperature the greater of the air to keep wet. This relationship between temperature and saturated vapor force per unit area. Simple Calculations:Using the expression stated above in this lab execute the undermentioned computations and reply the inquiries. You must demo your work. 1 If the H2O vapour capacity of the ambiance in a given location is 25 gms per kg of air sampled. and the existent sum of H2O vapour nowadays is 5 gms per kg of air sampled. what is the comparative humidness? Water vapor/ West Virginia capacity=rh5g per k/ 25g per k= . 20?100=20RH=20 % 2 If the H2O vapour capacity of the ambiance in a given location is 12gms per kg of air sampled. and the existent sum of H2O vapour nowadays is 3 gms per kg of air sampled. what is the comparative humidness? 3g per k/12g per k= . 25?100=25RH=25 % 3 If the blending ratio of a sample of air is 5 grams/kilogram. and the temperature of the sample is 15 grades Celsius. giving a impregnation blending ratio of 10 grams/kilogram. what is the comparative humidness of the sample? 5gk/10gk= . 5?100= 50RH=50 % 4 If the blending ratio of a sample of air is 2 grams/kilogram. and the temperature of the sample is 25 grades Celsius. giving a impregnation blending ratio of 20 grams/kilogram. what is the comparative humidness of the sample? 2g per k/20g per k= . 10?100=10RH=10 % 5 If the vapour force per unit area is 10 millibars and the impregnation vapour force per unit area is 40 millibars. what is the comparative humidness of the ambiance? Actual/saturated10 millibars/40 millibars= . 25?100=25RH=25 % 6 Why was the comparative humidness in inquiry 2 higher than that calculated for inquiry 1. even though the sum of H2O vapour nowadays in the ambiance was less? Possibly because the capacity of the H2O vapour was a factor and thetemperature outside had an impact.Dry air will be denser or heavier than a column of air incorporating any H2O vapour. Use of the Sling Psychrometer The sling psychrometer is a simple. yet effectual instrument used to find comparative humidness. It does non. nevertheless. give a direct reading of comparative humidness. Psychrometric tabular arraies must be used to obtain the comparative humidness from the temperature informations provided by the psychrometer. In this portion of the lab. you will utilize the sling psychrometer and the psychrometric tabular arraies as demonstrated by the teacher. Use the informations you obtain to finish the chart below: Note: Care must be taken with these instruments. as they are really delicate and easy damaged. HUMIDITY DATA TABLE Temperature inside_70F____ Temperature outside_36F___ Time_8:20pm____ Explain the conditions conditions at the present clip: It is dark outside. cold. with a little zephyr. |LOCATIONS: |WET  °F |DRY  °F |DRY-WET  °F |DEW PT  °F | % R. H. | | |BULB |BULB | | | | | | | | | | | |Lab-kitchen |62 |76 |14 |51 |44 % | |Outdoors |38 |38 |0 |40 |40 % | |on pavement | | | | | | |Outdoors on a grassy area|32 |36 |4 |25 |63 % | |Outdoors under a tree |32 |36 |4 |25|63 % | |Parents Bedroom |56 |62 |6 |49 |68 % | |Hallway |52 |60 |8 |45 |58 % | |You pick a topographic point: My |56 |62 |6 |49 |68 % | |Bedroom | | | | | | Questions: 1 Remark on any differences noted in the comparative humidness values you determined for the assorted locations. Can you give any accounts for the differences? It is different how the RH compares in the hallway than my sleeping room or exterior. It seems like the bigger the spread in the dry-wet reading. the lower the comparative humidness will be. 2 How does air conditioning alter the comparative humidness of a room? Cooler air can non keep as much wet as warmer air. The procedure of chilling causes the wet to distill and run out out of the air conditioner. 3 How does heating a room alter the comparative humidness? The comparative humidness will travel down. if all you do is heat the room. As the temp goes up. so does the ability of the air to keep more H2O vapour. If you heat the room without adding H2O vapour. so the air is â€Å"drier† compared to what it could be. 4 Can you believe of any agents or fortunes that may do the commixture ratio in a room to alter? Possibly person is utilizing an air conditioner or a humidifier/ dehumidifier. 5 Given the fact that the molecular weight of H2O vapour is less than that of dry air. what affect does increasing humidness have on the denseness of the ambiance? Does this run counter to what your intuition tells you? Yes moist air is lighter than dry air. Subconsciously. this seems sort of dumb. because air incorporating H2O should be heavier than dry air. but the difference is so great that clouds ( contain droplets of wet every bit good as H2O vapour ) readily remain in the air. 6 How does comparative humidness affect the comfort of people? Can you explicate the physiological grounds for this? It makes people experience uncomfortable because when the humidness is higher. perspiration is less able to vaporize. doing a individual feel stickier and hotter. 7 The diurnal ( day-to-day ) relationship between temperature and humidness is such that the lowest humidness should happen in the afternoon hours. It is during these times. nevertheless. when it frequently seems to be most humid and uncomfortable. What could be the ground for this sensed incompatibility? During a warm yearss. we will experience humid because of the combination of high temperatures mixed with more H2O vapour in the air. When the temperature is warm. people exposed to this type of heat will sudate. It is the sudating procedure that we cool down. 8 When dew signifiers on out-of-door objects. can it be assumed that the ambiance is saturated? If so. why is at that place frequently no fog attach toing the dew? If the ambiance is the major beginning of wet ( dewfall ) . a certain sum of airing is needed to replace the vapour that is already condensed. I would believe that this can be assumed to be saturated since the wet forms the dew. There is no fog because the H2O vapour already is condensed into dew. Parts of this lab came from the lab â€Å"Humidity† from Mississippi State University’s Graduate Meteorology Department with permission.

Monday, April 20, 2020

Whose life is it anyway is not just a play about a man who has lost the will to live Essay Example

Whose life is it anyway is not just a play about a man who has lost the will to live Essay In the play Whose life is it anyway? the man who has lost the will to live is most prominently someone suffering from some form of hindrance. The author Brian Clark puts forward an indefinite idea of uncertainty for the mans future. Throughout the play it continues to make us contemplate on the issues of quality of life, personal choice, authority and relationships. It is for these reasons that the play is more than simply the idea of a mans will of life.A man who had a substantial quality to perform what he lives for would have the urge to live on. However, if he deteriorated to a quadriplegic like Ken (the main character in the play) yet before, experienced a life with all the passion, freedom, love and creation he wanted then what would the effect have on him? After Ken realises he has no chance to survive without dependency on hospitals for the rest of his life he chooses to be discharged. I will spend most of life in hospital not able to move. As far as I can see, that is a act of deliberate cruelty.I dont wish to die, nor do I wish to live at any price. Of course I want to live but as far as I am concerned, Im dead already. I merely require the doctors to recognize the fact. I cannot accept this condition constitutes life in any real sense at all.Personal choice is valuable to everyone. Those who have it should cherish it as it keeps us intact in what we want. Yet, Kens choice of life is hindered when Dr. Emerson deliberately injects a Valium needle into him when he knew Ken refused it initially. Doctor, I didnt give you permission to stick that needle in me. Why did you do it? The choice to die structures a belief that you are incapable, depressed, and fearful etc. Mr. Hill (Kens solicitor) explains to Ken after his request in being discharged what is occurring. Mr. Harrison, I will be perfectly plain. Dr. Emerson claims that you are not in a sufficiently healthy mental state to make a rational decision Despite this outlook Mr. Hill decides to help grant Kens wishes to die as he believes Ken mentally stable by talking to him. Mr. Hill is not forced to and deep down he does not enjoy the idea to justify his client to die. Can anyone prove that they are sane? Both these examples show that personal choice is very important as it can be taken away or used for good pretenses.Authority over others becomes a dilemma when we are actually questioning the law of control over human lives. Whether it is crossing boundaries of mankind to decide what is the justification of another mans life. Resulting in not serving the truthful purpose it once was as a basis of keeping humans rectified. resides in the fact that choice is removed from the man concerned. This statement meaning Kens request of euthanasia was contradicted and he has limited power over those around him.Examining the hierarchy of society, the control over others in a pyramidal imaginative diagram is situated where positions decide the fate of others. For example a judge measures the truthfulness from deceiving lips of mankind and how innocent one really is where as citizens rely on the doctors profession to rescue their lives.A doctor cannot accept the choice for death; hes committed to life. When a patient is brought into my unit, hes in a bad way. I dont stand about thinking whether or not its worth saving his life, I havent time for doubts. I get in there and do whatever I can to save life.Relationships in this play revolve in a web of interchanging roles. Professionalism becomes personal, as people believe that a medical or psychological opinion is usually better than what an unstable individual feels. He may be unqualified but he is the one affected. Dr. Scott argues with Dr. Emerson Kens case. Although other medical professionals working around him for a long time become aware of their feelings for a man wanting to die is stronger than imagined. When Ken goes to court, Sister Anderson who had been seeing Ken for the last couple of months and attending hi m showed concern for him. I thought this morning, when he was talking about the compensation, he was beginning to plan for the future. Therefore, this proves the play does not only include the man who has lost the will to live but others play an important part in the play to contribute emotion and feedback.Evidently, Whose life is it anyway is not just a play explaining a man who has lost the will to live. This is due to the main themes of quality of life, personal choice, authority and relationships, which adds to the complex nature of the play. Ken repeatedly emphasizes the point that It is not undignified if the man wants to stay alive, but I must restate that the dignity starts with his choice. He chooses a dignified death. After all these conflicts for someone to finally emerge to resulting in death it is still an extensive revelation given the chance to continue life.

Sunday, March 15, 2020

Case Study Evaluation and Analysis using Leadership Theories and Concepts The WritePass Journal

Case Study Evaluation and Analysis using Leadership Theories and Concepts Introduction Case Study Evaluation and Analysis using Leadership Theories and Concepts ). As argued by Hogg,Van Knippenberg and Rast (2012), how leaders in organisation’s delegated duties, make decisions and interact with other members either positively or negatively affects employee output and thus influences the attainment of the overall organisational objective. This paper presents an analysis of leadership at EEF, a membership organisation that is a counterpoint to the Trade Union movement and was founded with the aim of supporting employers in the United Kingdom. Among the key concepts addressed in this analysis are the key leadership theories can be applicable to this case and challenges encountered in the leadership process. The role of Leadership at EEF As an organisation that represents the interests of many employers around the United Kingdom, the leadership at EEF is obligated to ensure that it establishes the needs of its members and effectively addresses them. The role played by EEF’s leadership is exhibited by the fact that it addresses its members’ needs through providing them with advice, guidance and support that will enable them to efficiently and effectively manage their businesses. EEF’s leadership is also committed towards ensuring that the company is flexible enough to maintain its relevance in its service delivery by implementing the required changes. Some of the changes included the transformation of the company’s legal status from a federation to a limited company by guarantee in 2009 to ensure that that its status as a non-profit was protected. The other change that was implemented by the company’s leadership in the same year was converting it into a single integrated national ent ity from its original regionalised structure. This integration resulted into the appointment of another CEO who was expected to lead the company under its new banner of â€Å"One EEF†. All these changes were made by the company with the aim of addressing the  £7 million loss experience in 2009, which was the first it had ever experienced since it was founded. A regional team leader of the company’s sales team, Tom Jones, was also appointed to oversee the now consolidated team. These strategies that were implemented by the company’s top leadership to ensure that the company remains on track highlights one of the key roles of leadership in an organisation, which is decision making. Whereas the  £7 million loss that was suffered in 2009 might have highlighted flaws in the leadership of EEF that year, the immediate changes that were made show the commitment of the company’s leadership towards its good performance. Analysis of Tom Jones’ Leadership using Leadership Theories The Trait Theory of Leadership From the case, Jones was selected out of the other applicants who were originally in charge of the regional sales functions. Out of these was an applicant who had expected to be selected as the team leader because of his long-term experience with the company. The trait theory of leadership can be used in explaining this selection. According to the trait leadership theory, good leaders possess a variety of characteristics and personal traits that enable them execute their leadership responsibilities well. These include integrity, assertiveness, empathy, honesty, openness, likeability and decision making skills (Colbert et al., 2012). The applicant mentioned in the case who had served for long as the leader of a regional sales team could have possessed some of these traits, but not as many as Jones exhibited. Some of the traits exhibited by Jones – as highlighted in the case – included openness, honesty and good decision making skills. The Behavioural Theory This theory focuses the behaviour of leaders as they guide their followers towards attaining the overall organisational objective, and classifies leaders as democratic, autocratic or Laissez-faire (DeRue et al., 2011). Democratic leaders are characterised by the fact that they involve other team members in the decision making process. The suggestions that receive the most support from team members are adopted as final decisions. Whilst this approach is lauded for ensuring effective teamwork, it becomes challenging to reach a final decision when the suggestions provided are many and differ widely (Lussier Achua, 2012). Autocratic leadership involves making of decisions without any prior consultation or involvement of team members. This approach has been regarded as being ineffective for teamwork dynamics and team agreement. It is however considered ideal in situations where decisions need to be urgently made (Bhatti et al., 2012). The Laissez-faire approach to leadership is carried o ut by allowing other team members to make most of the decisions with minimal interference from the leader. This approach is mostly applicable when team members are highly skilled and capable of independently making good decisions. However, leaders who prefer this approach might at times be mistaken for being lazy (Lussier Achua, 2012). Jones’ leadership approach was characterised by openness, which contributed towards his adoption of a collaborative team building approach that involved sharing of information and ideas, which matches with the democratic approach. Jones also valued the experiences and ideas of other team members. By applying this leadership approach, the team was able to identify the major issues, which were later prioritised according to their urgency.   Transactional vs. Transformational Leadership Leadership can also be classified as either transactional or transformational. Transactional leadership is based on the assumption that individuals are motivated by punishment and reward. It also assumes that the best way in which social systems can work is through the establishment of a clear chain of command (Carter et al., 2013). According to Bono, Hooper and Yoon (2012), transactional leaders work by clearly setting structures or rules by which their followers are required to abide, as well as rewards to be expected when they are adhered to. Whilst they are not usually mentioned, formal discipline systems and punishments are also well understood by their followers (Carter et al., 2013). This is as opposed to transformational leadership where leaders develop constructive visions for the organisation, sell them to their followers, find the way forward on how to implement the vision and lead the implementation of the vision (Wright et al., 2012). The diagram below depicts the differ ences between Transactional and transformational leadership. Table 1: Transactional vs. Transformational leadership (Adopted from Lussier and Achua (2012) Jones’ involvement of the team at EEF, formulation of necessary changes to transform the company and offering both personal and professional support to his team to enable them achieve these changes matches with the transformation approach to leadership. Among the changes that were identified as necessary for EEF were the establishment of new geographical sales areas and their respective sales representatives, implementing the necessary forecasting and reporting processes, and ensuring that the existing CRM systems are upgraded so as to attain consistency in the measurement key performance indicators. Jones embarked on achieving these changes by leading the change in the organisational culture by encouraging team members to be more ‘corporate minded’ and committed to problem solving. He also embarked on building corporation and trust within the team he was leading. These characteristics of Jones’ leadership further verify his transformational leadership appr oach. Leadership challenges from the Case There are several challenges that can be identified from the provided case on EEF. One of these was the loss that was incurred in the 2009 financial year, which triggered the transformation of EEF’s overall structure. The changes that were implemented further triggered challenges that are typical to any change process in organisations. The first was ensuring that he addressed the feelings of the applicants who lost on their applications as team leaders and creating a formidable team. Given that they all held same regional position before, it can be concluded that their capabilities were almost the same. Therefore, the most effective approach that could be used by Jones in addressing this was involving them in decision making through a highly democratic leadership style (DeRue et al., 2011). By knowing that their opinions are valued by their leader, they will be motivated and committed towards attaining the desired organisational objective (Lussier Achua, 2012). The other challenge was in regards to the transformation of the organisation’s structure from being regionally based to a unit national structure. In order to attain this overall change, there are several change management models that could be used. One of these is the 8 step model of organisational change, which was proposed by Kotter (1996). It divides the whole change process into eight stages that are more manageable and all contribute towards the attainment of the desired outcome of change. These stages are explained in table 2 below. Whereas this approach to organisational change has been supported by a wide number of researchers, it has also received criticism. For instance, O’Keefe (2013) pointed out that the model assumes that change is a linear process and does not account for challenges or changes that might be encountered in the change process. Table 2: Kotter’s 8-stage model of organisational change (Kotter, 1996) Conclusion In conclusion, this paper has presented an in-depth analysis of leadership at EEF in regard to the changes implemented with the aim of recovering from its poor performance that was registered in 2009. In the analysis, leadership concepts and theories have been referred to and their applicability to the case has been explained. Among these are the trait and behavioural theories of leadership, transformational and transactional leadership models and Kotter’s 8 stage model of leadership. Even with the few mentioned challenges that were highlighted in the case, it has been shown that Tom Jones’ leadership approach was ideal for the EEF as it set out to implement the necessary changes in its functional and organisational structures. References Bhatti, N. et al. (2012) The impact of autocratic and democratic leadership style on job satisfaction. International Business Research, 5(2), pp.192-207. Bono, J.E., Hooper, A.C. Yoon, D.J. (2012) Impact of rater personality on transformational and transactional leadership ratings. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(1), pp.132-45. Carter, M.Z., Armenakis, A.A., Feild, H.S. Mossholder, K.W. (2013) Transformational leadership, relationship quality, and employee performance during continuous incremental organisational change. Journal of Organisational Behavior, 34(7), pp.942-58. Colbert, A.E., Judge, T.A., Choi, D. Wang, G. (2012) Assessing the trait theory of leadership using self and observer ratings of personality: The mediating role of contributions to group success. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(4), pp.670-85. DeRue, D.S., Nahrgang, J.D., Wellman, N.E.D. Humphrey, S.E. (2011) Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and meta†analytic test of their relative validity. Personnel Psychology, 64(1), pp.7-52. Hogg, M.A., Van Knippenberg, D. Rast, D.E. (2012) Intergroup leadership in organisations: Leading across group and organisational boundaries. Academy of Management Review, 37(2), pp.232-55. Kotter, J.P. (1996) Leading change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Lussier, R. Achua, C. (2012) Leadership: Theory, application, skill development. Mason: Cengage Learning. O’Keefe, K. (2013) Where Kotter’s 8 Steps Gets it Wrong. [Online] Available at:   executiveboard.com/communications-blog/where-kotters-8-steps-gets-it-wrong   Ã‚  [Accessed 18 December 2014]. Wright, B.E., Moynihan, D.P. Pandey, S.K. (2012) Pulling the Levers: Transformational Leadership, Public Service, Motivation, and Mission Valence. Public Administration Review, 72(2), p.206–215.

Friday, February 28, 2020

FREECLAIM Solicitors Marketing Mix Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

FREECLAIM Solicitors Marketing Mix - Essay Example The video will rank high if more and more visitors view the video produced by the company. The links of the video will be spread all over the internet; a landing page link will be created which will be published with several articles. These articles will discuss the services that the company provides and these articles will even inform the consumers about the affiliations of the company. These articles will even inform potential clients about the various benefits that the company is offering to its clients and how well the company has performed. A landing page link will be posted within these articles so the people who want to view the video can land on the organization’s webpage and can view the video from the webpage and learn about the company. Two different sets of videos will be created for the company and these two videos will be posted on the main webpage of the company. These videos will be used to promote the activities and the services that will be provided by the organization. These videos will talk about the qualified associates of the organization who can help the clients in a different manner. These videos will even talk about the benefits that the consumers can attain if the purchase services from the organization. This video will highlight various legal issues experienced by consumers and how FREE CLAIM solicitors can help them resolve these legal issues. Viewers of the videos will not have to pay a dime to watch these videos and the information provided through these videos will be completely free of cost. These videos will even talk about the charges that clients will be paying for obtaining services from the organization. More details on the charges that will be levied on customers for the services provided will be detailed in the charges section of the website. No charges will be obtained for advice  sessions, advice will be provided free of cost through the website and through the telephone link provided by the company. The company will even call the client itself if the client uses the â€Å"request a callback† option. Calculations for the amount of compensation for the injured client can be calculated through the website and no charges will be obtained for this inquiry.

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Point of Sale System Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Point of Sale System - Research Paper Example The United States and other countries which have a lot of international activities thus receive many visitors from the world over have the highest number of sale transactions. As a result of the increased usage of point of sale system in almost every retail store, fraudsters have come up with technologies to skim customer cards, produce replica cards and defraud users of their money. This has forced major car producing and regulating companies Visa and MasterCard to move from magnetic strip cards to EM which is more secure as it requires the use of a pin code and has a chip. Compared to other countries such as the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, the UK and other parts of the world card fraud in USA has been significantly low. But as this other markets migrate to EMV their fraud rates have seen tremendous reduction while the United States’ have been going upwards due delays in migration from magnetic strip. The American card market heavily relies on the magnetic strip cards and this could behind the rising fraud rates; fraud has risen by 70% since the year 2004 with 2010 representing the first year in time when fraud rates on cards issued in the United States was higher compared to cards issued in the UK (King, 2012). In conclusion therefore the use of point of sale systems has become popular the America and the whole world. Fraud has evolved and targeted plastic money necessitating the change of technology to EMV. The United States has been slow in moving to EMV due to high presence of signature verification cards and mag strips. Migrating from magnetic strip cards will therefore be a huge milestone in curbing card counterfeiting in

Friday, January 31, 2020

Psychological Effects one can have due to Sleep Deprivation Essay Example for Free

Psychological Effects one can have due to Sleep Deprivation Essay According to Kozier et Al. (2002), sleep is the state of being conscious wherein there is a decrease of perception, and reaction to the environment of an individual (p. 953). Sleep exerts physiologic effects on both the nervous systems and other body structures and also it restores normal levels of activity and balance among parts of the nervous systems (p. 956). There are two types of sleep, NREM sleep and REM sleep, NREM sleep or non-REM sleep is a deep, restful sleep and some physiologic functions were decreased. It is also referred to as a low wave sleep because when a person sleeps the brain waves tends to slow than the alpha and beta waves of an awake person. NREM sleep is divided into four stages: stage 1- very light sleep wherein the person feels drowsy and relaxed, stage 2- light sleep that will last only from ten to fifteen minutes, stage 3- domination of parasympathetic nervous systems that slows down the heart and respiratory rates as well as other body processes and sometimes snoring may occur and the fourth stage will be the deep sleep is thought to restore the body physically, dreams and rolling of the eyes may occur in this stage. Another type of sleep is the REM sleep or the rapid eye movement sleep that constitutes 25% of sleep of a young adult and usually recurs every ninety minutes and lasts five to thirty minutes. On the other hand, dreams in REM sleep were usually remembered because it is consolidated in the memory (pp. 953-954). There are many factors that may affect sleep of an individual, quality of sleep and quantity of sleep were both affected by a number of factors. The quality of sleep is the ability of an individual to stay asleep and to get the required amount of REM and NREM sleep while the quantity of sleep is the total time the individual sleeps. Age, environment fatigue, life style, psychological stresses are just some of the factors that indeed affects the sleep of an individual (p. 956). Literature Review In an internet article, they listed six persons that have a contribution in sleep research. A French Scientist Henri Pieron authored a book entitled â€Å"Le probleme physiologique du sommeil,† which was the first text to examine sleep from a physiological perspective. This work is usually regarded as the beginning of the modern approach to sleep research. Dr. Nathaniel Kleitman, now known as the â€Å"Father of American sleep research,† he started working in Chicago in the 1920’s questioning the regulation of sleep and wakefulness and of circadian rhythms. Kleitman’s crucial work included studies of sleep characteristics in different populations and the effect of sleep deprivation. Another contributor is questioning the regulation of sleep and wakefulness and of circadian rhythms. Kleitman’s crucial work included studies of sleep characteristics in different populations and the effect of sleep deprivation. Dr. William C. Dement extended Dr. Kleitman’s path of research. Dement described the â€Å"cyclical† nature of nocturnal sleep in 1955, and in 1957 and ’58 established the relationship between REM sleep and dreaming. In 1958, he published a paper explaining that in a sleeping cat there is a cyclic organization existence, thus creating an explosion of fundamental research that gathers researchers from different fields of specialty. For the next 20 years, Michel Jouvet leads to an identification of REM sleep as an independent state of alertness, which he called â€Å"paradoxical sleep. Another one is H. Gastaut and his colleagues discovered the presence of apnea during sleep in a subgroup of â€Å"Pickwickian† patients (1965) that lead them to an outbreak of investigations of the control exercised by the â€Å"sleeping brain† on the body’s vital functions. His work eventually led to the new discipline of â€Å"sleep medicine† (A brief history of sleep research, â€Å"n. a. †). Sleep deprivation and its causes According to Kozier et Al. (2002), sleep deprivation is only one out of many common sleep disorders. They defined sleep deprivation as a syndrome of prolonged disturbance that leads the amount, quality, and consistency of sleep to decrease and thus produces a variety of physiologic and behavioral symptoms, its harshness will depend on the degree of the deprivation. Again there are two types of sleep deprivation REM and NREM deprivation, the combination of the two deprivation increases the severity of symptoms. Alcohol, barbiturates, shift work, jet lag, extended ICU hospitalization, morphine, and meperidine hydrochloride are the causes of REM deprivation, while all of the causes of REM deprivation plus diazepam flurazepam hydrochloride, hypothyroidism, depression, respiratory distress disorders, sleep apnea, and age causes NREM deprivation, and both REM and NREM deprivation is caused from the combination of both REM and NREM deprivation causes (p. 959). Another cause of sleep deprivation is from the psychological stress wherein anxiety and depression frequently disturb sleep. A person can’t relax adequately to get to sleep if he or she is having a personal problem. Another factor is alcohol and stimulants, people who drinks alcohol excessively has the higher rates of sleep disturbances. Alcohol disrupts REM sleep even though it fastens the onset of sleep. Diet- weight loss is accompanied with reduced total sleep time as well as broken sleep and earlier awakening. Smoking, cigarettes contains nicotine that has stimulating effects on the body and may cause in difficulty of falling asleep. Motivation, person’s desire to stay awake can cause a fatigue, and illness, an ill person is more prone to sleep deprivation, in their condition they need to have more sleep, but a patient in a hospital is disturb by their time to take their medicines, and respiratory conditions can also disturb sleep thus disturbing their total time of sleep a person is required to have (p. 956). Psychological and physical effects of sleep deprivation  The effects of sleep deprivation to the body is like a chain reaction, its main target is the brain, since the brain is the control unit of the body, the brain controls and is responsible for the homeostasis of the body, once the brain is affected many imbalances may occur. For REM deprivation excitability, restlessness, irritability, increased sensitivity to pain, confusion and suspiciousness, and emotional liability can possibly be the effects. For NREM deprivation one may show hyporesponsiveness, withdrawal, apathy, feeling physically uncomfortable, lack of facial expression, and speech deterioration. For both REM and NREM deprivation, inattentiveness, decreased reasoning ability and the ability to concentrate, marked fatigue manifested by blurred vision, itchy eyes, nausea, headache, difficulty in performing activities of daily living, lack of memory, mental confusion, visual or auditory hallucinations and illusions can be its primary effects to one’s both psychological and physical aspect of a person. Since stress is one of the major factor affecting sleep deprivation whether it’s psychological or physical stress. As you think more and focuses your mind into the problem, your mind will become more fatigue (p. 959). Based on the book by Biron et Al. (2006), stress may lead to some psychological problems and may interfere with effective intrapersonal and the intrapersonal behavior of the individual. A person experiencing prolonged stressful events may suffer from feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, and consequently, undermining his self esteem. Impaired task performance is another effect of stressful mind; it interferes with our ability to successfully perform a task and responsibilities expected. And disruption of cognitive functioning, people who are under stress are likely to experience loss of concentration, disorientation, and forgetfulness (pp. 184-185). Treatment for sleep deprived persons According to the book made by Kushida (2005), pregnant women are also prone to sleep deprivation. In treating sleep deprivation for pregnant women, they recommended seven treatments to minimize maternal and fetal health risk: a) women should try to seep on the left side and avoid sleeping in supine position.  Avoiding it will ease the stress of the heart, will reduce constriction of the space available to the fetus, will reduce pressure to the inferior vena cava that carries blood back to the heart from the feet and legs, b) if symptoms of RLS are present, consider an evaluation of ferritin, hemoglobin, and folate levels and supplement when indicated, c) treat sleeping- disordered breathing with CPAP, d) avoid staying in bed when unable to seep, e) address anxiety provoking issues to reduce overall level of arousal, f) Consider regular exercise, pregnant women who exercise three times a week for at least thirty minutes have less insomnia and anxiety than pregnant women who do not exercise, and g) treat psychophysiological insomnia with empirically supported cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (p. 185). Another form of treatment is discussed by Greist and Jefferson (1992), psychosurgery is a rare treatment; it is not then advisable if other treatments have not been tested to a patient. Careful neurosurgical interruption of brain pathways has been shown that fifty percent of patients has been helped to this kind of treatment (pp. 79-80). Conclusion: Sleep is really a helpful in obtaining our health; it restores our body’s energy. Sleep deprivation is not really a syndrome but an effect due to some disturbances, stress, and anxiety that makes our brain to send signal to our body to be awake, an unnecessary awakening that affects our total time of sleep.  When our body is stressful or lack of average sleep needed by each individual, our brain do not work properly thus affecting our lifestyle, our ability to think and cope up with problems, and then other diseases may occur if not immediately taken to concern, because stress attacks our brain and knowing that our brain is the control center of our body. Recommendation: If sleeplessness and the listed signs and symptoms occur, it will be a clever decision if you consult a Doctor immediately prior to health concern. It is also a best way if symposiums will be conducted or seminars that discuss about Sleep deprivation to school and or universities so that students and educators will be aware to the effects of sleep deprivation that one can possibly have due to body exhaustion and abuse.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

The Entertainment Value of a Buffy the Vampire Episode :: Buffy Vampire Slayer Essays

In this essay I ultimately want to address the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Once More with Feeling" (season 6, episode 7). However, I do not want to look at this episode in isolation from the remainder of the Buffy franchise but rather argue that it exemplifies a certain entertainment strategy that courses through the Buffyverse. Now it seems to me that entertainment is either too often denigrated as a specific ideological formation that produces negative effects of audience passivity as against more overtly challenging texts, or, alternatively, entertainment is celebrated within a postmodern theoretical framework that views the multiplicity of pleasures afforded as inherently productive and even oppositional. Alternatively I want to concentrate on entertainment for entertainment's sake which is to say as a dialectical operation that in Fredric Jameson's terms intermingles wish fulfilment and repression by arousing radical fantasies in order to contain them (Jameson, 1990: 25). In order to analyse this mechanism I will concentrate less on consumers and ideology (that assumes unilateral transmission) and more on fans and affect (that inscribes a dialectical procedure into reception). What seems to me to be of specific interest therefore is the manner in which Joss Whedon, Marti Noxon and the other writers/directors working on Buffy for Twentieth Century Fox target affect and fans by constructing scenarios that feed into and exceed audience expectation. I will argue that his formula culminates in the episode "Once More With Feeling" that ventures beyond Jameson's dialectical formula in that it appears to wilfully play with wish fulfilment/invocation that both figuratively and literally run the risk of arousing utopian fantasies that cannot be contained. Before turning to the musical episode in particular I believe our exposition would benefit from a brief survey of critical approaches to the Buffyverse. The critical material on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in print at least (see here the Slayage online journal), is expanding but currently somewhat limited. However, as a general rule two tendencies emerge. The first is to treat some self-contained aspect of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as an ideological work. Such analyses concentrate upon the encoded more or less implicitly pre-determined messages that the text transmits. Certainly some ideological responses are definitely triggered by Buffy and I will briefly make reference to two critical examples. Brian Wall and Michael Zyrd adopt a Marxist master frame of analysis to determine the world historical content of Buffy.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Mo Yan’s the Garlic Ballads: Saga of Suffering and Solitude Essay

They are, instead, people with their own shortcomings and prejudices, and by understanding that, Mo Yan shows the true power of an artist–rather than stoop for the easy message, he dives into the actuality of his characters to make them empathic and flawed, and allow us to root for them and cringe when we realize that they simply don’t have the wisdom to always act correctly. When it comes to the plight of the farmer and the destitute, Mo Yan has experience in spades. The Garlic Ballads tells the tale of a group of Chinese peasants whose lives are dependent upon selling their garlic crop; when harvests exceed governmental estimates, officials curb the amount of garlic that can be brought to market, setting off a violent chain of events. Against this backdrop, Mo weaves presents three stories: that of two lovers, which dominates the novel, as well as a familial conflict and the relationship between two friends. Howard Goldblatt’s translation is so good as to make the reader mistake this for an English novel; the prose is nearly flawless. Set in rural China, The Garlic Ballads explores the misfortune of ordinary Chinese farmers during the post revolutionary period. The very title which focuses on the word ‘Ballads’ reveals that it is a love story in particular spiced by magic realism. The harrowing experiences make the stuff of the novel. The small dramas of the Gao and Yang families, set against a slightly larger but nonetheless miniscule backdrop of rural corruption gets steadily deeper as it progresses, illuminating the paradoxes of modern China and the unchanging demands of love, family, and duty. There are also other heterogeneous elements – an arranged marriage, a botched directive from central agricultural planners, a drunk driver with government connections. All are woven into a coherent whole through the poetic vision of Mo Yan who easily peddles in realism. This novel which focuses on the aftermath of an uprising a tragic story which depicts both a very specific time and place and sheds light onto basic human truths. The people of Paradise County have been encouraged, if not ordered, to grow garlic, and so garlic has infused itself into every aspect of the people’s lives–their breath reeks of it, their celebrations tainted with it. But the governing officials of Paradise County are out to grab up every copper they can, and so out come the taxes for traveling the roads to the co-op warehouses, the penalties, the closures, and one day the garlic farmers have had enough and act out against the officials making their lives so full of hardship. The government retaliates, and Mo focuses on some of the victims. First, there is Gao Yang, who suffers enough with a blind daughter and a new son soon to be born, but he is beaten and brought to jail. One who escapes at first is Gao Ma, a former soldier who longs to marry Jinjun, whose family have agreed to marry her to someone else, but Gao Ma and Jinjun do not take the alternate marriage lightly, and trouble ensues from there. Jinjun’s mother, Fourth Aunt of the Fang family, is also sought after in the police hunt since she won’t stay quiet about her husband being run over by a government official, and the lives of these peasants intertwine through the courses of love and justice. The Fang family is cruel to both Jinjun and Gao Ma as they try to reject the lovers’ vow to be married, and Gao Yang suffers humiliation and torment from his cellmates. Fourthly we have the character of the Aunt who appears to be tyrannical at home, but in jail she becomes a different creature altogether. At times, she is bawdy and scatological, at other times heart-breaking and lyrical. Thus through the characters, Mo Yan gives us the entirety of the human spectrum in his novel. The main story in The Garlic Ballads details the tragic love story of Gao Ma and Fang Jinju. This story is told in parallel with the life of Gao Yang and some other stories. All are inter-related. The background is a Chinese village in the mid 1980s. The details make it frightfully real. The central focus in the book is however on an invasion and trashing by an angry mob of the local governmental offices. We do not see this event occur until the end of the book, yet it colors every moment in the lives of the Fang and Gao families of Paradise County. It is understandable that the Beijing government would suppress a novel that shows most of its local officials to be bloated satraps and its policement to be little better than thugs, applying cattle prods to their prisoners and beating them mercilessly. Equally villainous, however, are the Fang family, who force their daughter to marry an old man in a three-in-one arranged marriage that guarantees that their crippled eldest son also gets a bride. In a grisly scene, the marriage deal finally goes through after both the daughter and her fiance commit suicide: Their bodies are dug up, their remains are mixed together, and they are re-interred in a single coffin. The full picture of alternating hopelessness and rebellion emerges slowly and tragically, and the disparate elements weave together into an elegant and moving whole. The Swedish Academy which selects Mo as the recipient of the Nobel Prize praised his ‘hallucinatory realism’ saying that along with his other writings, Sorghum, The Big Breasts and Wide Hips, The Garlic Ballads ‘merges folk tales, history and the contemporary’. Mo in his writings mingled fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives and thus created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Although Mo is the writer of eleven novels and a hundred of short stories, The Garlic Ballads seems to be his masterpiece. Born in 1955 to parents who were farmers, Mo Yan – a pseudonym for Guan Moye; the pen name means â€Å"don’t speak† – grew up in Gaomi in Shandong province in north-eastern China. The cultural revolution forced him to leave school at 12, and he went to work in the fields, completing his education in the army. He writes about the peasantry, about life in the countryside, about people struggling to survive, struggling for their dignity, sometimes winning but most of the time losing . Arundhati Roy’s A God of small Things is graphic and captivating, but seen from that perspective, The Garlic Ballads is ten imes more so. The novel depicts simple people living in hard times, in very helpless circumstances. Basically there was no way out, and people could only console themselves that their lives were `fated’. â€Å"I think writers write for their consciences, they write for their own true audiences, for their souls,† Mo said in an interview with  China Daily. â€Å"No person writes to win awards. † Today the best reward in literature comes to him. In fact he is the first Chinese writer to win this reward in Literature. The Garlic Ballads seems to have gained prominence no less than Marquez’s 100 years of Solitude.

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

The Value of Fiction - The uses of fiction in bringing history to life

We history buffs are a rare breed. Happy are the hours we spend poring through pages of dusty old books, wandering through museums full of armor and tapestries, and deciphering forgotten languages in primary sources. Those who have never been bitten by the history bug find it hard to understand what attracts us -- until they are bitten themselves. There are many different ways history lovers have been drawn into the fascinating world of the past, but perhaps the most common is through a good story. The moment we begin viewing history as stories about real human beings with human motivations instead of mere dates, places and statistics, history can take on a whole new luster. Period literature can help bring the past alive with an epic tale, and so can modern historical fiction. If you are a history buff hoping to get a friend to share your passion for the past, or if you are new to history as a hobby and are trying to understand what others see in it, the best introduction may very well be a historical novel or film. Entertainment has ways of opening the mind to ideas that even the friendliest or most erudite of straight historical texts can never hope to achieve. It helps, of course, when the book is well-written or the film well-directed, and unfortunately historical fiction, just like any other genre, has many more mediocre examples than it does splendid ones. Yet once you find a truly excellent piece of historical fiction, the results can be highly rewarding. However, the trouble with getting your history from fiction is that its, well, fiction. This may seem excruciatingly obvious, but its surprising how many intelligent, educated, well-read individuals take what they read in a historical novel or see in a period film as fact. The Trouble with Fiction When done really well, fiction leaves its audience thinking they know what the medieval world was really like. If the work is accurate, thats wonderful; but alas, novels and films have been known to present a skewed version of events and to perpetuate common misconceptions about the Middle Ages. Of course, most readers realize that much of the dialogue and the private moments of real historical figures that are captured in text or on film are only speculation. They may be aware on some level that events are open to interpretation, and that what they read or see is just one of many versions of what might have happened. Yet even readers who are acutely aware of these facets of historical fiction often ignore any question of accuracy concerning general historical background, settings and costumes, and the details of daily life, accepting as given that this much, at any rate, is authentic. This may be the most dangerous pitfall of using fiction as a doorway to the past. In order to enjoy the experience of fiction, we can (and should) suspend disbelief, and suspend as well any analysis of its veracity as history -- while reading the story or watching the film. But once you close the book or leave the theater, its time to think again. Even the most carefully-researched historical novel can contain errors of fact, and the sad truth is that many such novels arent carefully researched to begin with. Unlike a historian writing a scholarly treatise, novelists dont have to support every assertion with documentary, archaeological or even secondary evidence in order to get their work published;* they just have to write a good story. And films are so notorious for lacking accuracy that some moviegoers take particular delight in counting the mistakes. Furthermore, scholarly views of the medieval world are constantly evolving; what was considered a fairly accurate picture of the Middle Ages in, for example, the 1970s may be rendered much less authentic by the research and new evidence uncovered in the last few decades. You will sometimes find authors standing on the shoulders of earlier writers and passing along the erroneous or outdated details of their predecessors, with very few readers ever the wiser. Evaluating Fiction Fortunately, historical fiction doesnt always misrepresent the past. There is excellent fiction available, works that bring the Middle Ages to life in a wealth of accurate detail (and tell a good story, too). And more and more, modern historical novelists are making serious efforts to provide an accurate version of medieval times. But how do you know how much of whats presented in fiction is true to life? Do you take the word of the blurb on the back cover? Can film reviewers really tell you when a picture of the past is realistic? Theres only one way to know for sure: find out for yourself. Pick up a factual history book, visit some websites, go to a museum, join a discussion list, and start your journey into the fascinating world of historical discovery. If fiction is the trigger that launches you into the past, its value cannot be denied. Review a Medieval NovelShare your thoughts on a medieval-set historical novel -- good or bad -- at this review page. Note *Unfortunately, the same could be said of much popular history that gets published, as well. Guide Note: This feature was originally posted in May of 2000, and was updated in August of 2010.