PERSONAL NARRATIVE Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

PERSONAL NARRATIVE - Essay Example The grass embraces the feet with all its softness, and this unique sensation warms the whole body. On a thin and delicate cherry tree lurking in the garden corner, by a carved wooden fence, a bird is sitting. It is a song thrush, the best singer of all thrushes. He is sitting on the top of the cherry tree, as a king on a throne of beautiful neat leaves, bright red cherries, and wood glue. His song is marvelous: it is slow, sonorous, and long, with lots of low whistles and short trills. The sounds of the mavis’ singing remind me of one old song: â€Å"Sounds like flowers grow / Sad, funny – any / Sometimes hot to redness / until chilly blue.† Still, the most scenic view in the garden is that of an old lime tree, nowhere grafted. Perhaps it had grown up here before my grandfather planted the garden, and he simply did not chop it. And rightly so, because the lime tree is magnificent and even useful: just imagine drinking fragrant lime-blossom tea some day in winter. Yes, and the tree itself is impressive - high, powerful and not yielding to any storm. Under the linden tree, just as in a magazine picture, there is a rocking chair. The sight of it evokes an immediate desire to sit in peace and quiet, read a book, browse the Internet on your tablet, or listen to the music player, leaning back in the chair. What a dismay it is standing in an old abandoned garden. The sun scorching everything around,even the old ugly apple-tree, which is half dried, bearing the weight of rotting fruit. The thought of the taste of the fruit is nauseating. Several flowerbeds, which are irregularly shaped, are filled with some unknown wildflowers, along with a lot of weeds and thorns. They leave a depressing feeling. The dangerously attempt to interact with the garden by walking on the dry grass; the sensation of heat swells on my bare feet, a feeling I cannot bearably withstand. The dry grass scratches the feet, causing them to suffer deep sores. It seems there is only

METHODOLOGY POLICY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

METHODOLOGY POLICY - Essay Example Organizations operate with the aim of attaining economic efficiencies. Production is guided by the law of marginal utility and continues until marginal returns equal marginal cost of production. Beyond this point, production is inefficient and organizations stop production. The graph shows an increasing trend in production and therefore explains that marginal utility from production is still lower than unit production cost. Based on the theory, advantage in production cost or higher demand into higher utility could explain the trend. The theory however fails to recognize the role of social utility in production and resource distribution (The State of Working America, 1; Wolf and Reinsick 52- 55). Labor theory of value explains that labor cost is the main driver of commodities’ cost, and therefore indicators of productivity. The graph, based the theory, shows that labor costs have been increasing at a higher rate than median family income. It also demonstrates inequality in labor wages. The theory’s rationale is similar to that of neoclassical theory (The State of Working America 1; Wolf and Reinsick 169). Keynesian theory explains a relationship between productivity and aggregate demand. The graph, based on the theory shows an increase in demand despite lower increase rate in income and therefore suggests increase in number of households towards higher demand and productivity values. Rationale of Keynesian theory is similar to that of neoclassical theory (The State of Working America 1; Wolf and Reinsick 126). Institutionalist methodology focuses on social utility instead of economic efficiency. Based on the approach, the graph demonstrates increasing investments into social utilities while demand driven production could have similar changes to median income. The investments could be from the government and private entities. This is contrary to neoclassical perspective economic efficiency (The State of Working America

Women's rights in Afghanistan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Women's rights in Afghanistan - Essay Example It has also been noted that during the most favorable times in Afghanistan, the overall literacy rate was less than 20% amongst males and less than 5% amongst females; surprisingly considered by some to be optimistic. Against such a backdrop, the country plunged into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists in 1992. This was deemed as a misfortune for women's rights. The new government of the country pledged prompt action to improve the conditions of women. A report by the international women's organization, Womankind Worldwide reported that millions of Afghan women and girls continue to face prejudice and belligerence in their day-to-day lives. Now, it has been acknowledged by the Afghan women's rights groups that women in Afghanistan now have a variety of rights, which they were deprived of earlier. The major religion practiced throughout Afghanistan is Islam. This religion guarantees equal rights to men and women before their Lord and gives them various rights such the right to inheritance, the right to vote, the right to work, and even choose their own partners in marriage. This was practiced over 1400 years ago. But this is not the case observed in Afghanistan, neither now, nor earlier. Here women have been denied these rights either by official government decree or by their own husbands, fathers, and brothers, now for centuries, even though their religion permits them the same. 1996 to 2001 was the worst of all times experienced by the women in Afghanistan, or of any other society. Women were degraded, forbidden to work, leave the house without a male escort, not permitted to seek medical assistance from a male doctor, and were forced to coverthemselves from head to toe, so much so, that even their eyes were to be covered. The female doctors, teachers and other professional s were forced to beg and even become prostitutes just to support their families. Their social rights were snatched away and were badly encroached. The year 2001, brought a revolutionary change in the social, political and cultural condition of women in Afghanistan. According to the newly adopted constitution, women's rights were recognized and they were given equal rights and duties as males, before the law. Women were now allowed to get back to work and resume to their social lives. The obligation on wearing the all covering burqa, was relaxed and they were now respected and even appointed to prominent positions in the government. Despite all these changes, there still remain many challenges for the women of Afghanistan. (Qazi, n.d.) No Improvement in Women's Rights in Afghanistan It is evident that the women in Afghanistan are looked down upon and not given their due rights. Their right to full participation in social, economic, cultural and political life of the country was drastically truncated and soon summarily snatched and denied to them. Women were completely deprived of their birthright of getting education, of the right to work, of the right to travel, of the right to health, of the right to legal recourse, of the right to recreation, and of the right to being human. They were not allowed to travel in private vehicles with male passengers; they did not have the right to raise their

EQ Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

EQ - Essay Example Why? Introduction: Emotional intelligence (EI) has emerged as a highly significant and critical aspect of management after studies related to emotional intelligence gained pace in fields of psychology and management. Leading is an integral part of manager’s job, which requires the ability to influence others to achieve certain goals. In general, emotional intelligence may be referred to the ability of realising or understanding emotions of oneself and others coupled with the ability to put this understanding to use in managing self and others in a manner that produces desired outcomes. Emotions tend to have mental, social and physical impact on self and surroundings, which makes emotional intelligence a necessity in managing relationships and work. Though EI has received much attention from various researchers and scholars around the world, the most significant and renowned studies have been that of Daniel Goleman. Numerous models on EI and its application have been proposed; however, this paper briefly explores EI from Goleman’s (2003) perspective, which identifies four key components namely, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Further, a short argument about the most important component will be presented before concluding with findings and opinions. Self-awareness: Self-awareness is the first component discussed in EI model, which refers to the ability of recognizing feelings and their impact on outcomes or performance. Goleman (2003) asserts that self-awareness helps in identifying one’s own strengths and weaknesses, which will further assist the individual in taking right steps towards goal achievement or bringing an improvement in expected outcomes. Self-awareness also encourages the individual to introspect and seek feedback; such individuals strive to learn from the feedback and also from their mistakes. Goleman’s (2003) studies indicated that most of the high performing candidates we re high on self-awareness index. Self-awareness also instigates individuals to assess the impact of their emotions on situations and others as well as on the outcomes. Self-management: Self-management refers to the process of controlling oneself and not showing too much of distress or other extreme feelings (Goleman, 2003). Self-management ability helps the individual to build the focus and achieve desired goals. Such individuals possess flexibility to adapt to any situation without getting affected by the changes. Social awareness: This third component refers to the ability to empathize with others and understand their situation without affecting their emotions in a negative manner. Social awareness skills help in developing others by positively motivating them while understanding their negative or disruptive state of mind. Higher social awareness drives greater service-oriented behavior, which is a critical quality for effective leadership from customer, subordinate and situation perspectives. Social awareness also refers to the ability to understand organizational mood or emotion, which will help in understanding and building interpersonal relationships by exerting the right and/or positive influence on others (Lynn, 2000). Relationship management: The last component is relationship management, which refers to the ability to influence, motivate and lead others towards the right direction. As Goleman (2003) explains, Individuals with high social awareness will be able to manage relationships

Program Evaluation Paper Part III - smoking cessation Term - 1

Program Evaluation Part III - smoking cessation - Term Paper Example The program is extensively large since the target population is the entire populace of smokers in the US (Goel , 2008). This is however not a shortfall since the subject of smoking itself does not require a lot of study since the outcomes of a small comparison group will suffice. The subject being an addiction means that what will be displayed in one smoker will most likely be homogenous among all other smokers. Obtaining information would be considered rather easy. The records of those who have previously been enrolled in smoking cessation programs in health facilities will be found to be useful. Smokers would also voluntarily provide information. As mentioned before that the programs have been in place for some time, information from previous evaluations that were done on a smaller scale will be used as a baseline for this evaluation. This approach of employing surveys will involve distribution of questionnaires to people who smoke or are affected by smoking. The main components of the questionnaires will be finding out how many people admit to being a smoker. Another question would be to find out those who have considered quitting and also to find out what is the biggest challenge that they face when trying to stop smoking. The respondents will be samples collected from different geographical locations to ensure that the sample population is representative of the whole population. It will also be important to have questionnaires designed differently to be filled out by health providers. These questionnaires will be primarily used to find out professional opinions that will be crucial in developing and implementing the smoking cessation program. (Auxin, 2006) Examination of archival documents will also be a vital source of information. These types of source will be used mostly where information like national smoking prevalence is required. Existing records will have to be the latest and most credible. An important

Ict as level coursework Essay Example for Free

Ict as level coursework Essay Welcome to Magic Herbal Products, which was founded by Sarah Lenington in 2003, who travelled across the world in search of some of the rarest herbal and organic remedies. Sarah was born in London and studied dermatology at a top university. Her passion was making others feel good about themselves so she decided to take up the opportunity to travel several countries in 1997 in the hope of finding natural ingredients instead of artificial products that are prone to cause skin deterioration and allergic reactions. Her discoveries of mineral oils and powders as well as plant extracts were tested in labs for over three years. This was a major procedure to ensure the ingredients were compatible with both skin and hair. It was important that all ingredients used in each product was natural and was not tested on animals. The ingredients were found in Indonesia, Malaysia, India and also Egypt. What makes Magic Herbal products so different to any other brand is the purity of the products as well as their campaign against testing products on animals. Furthermore the packaging of all their products is recycled to ensure they are doing their bit for the environment. The Organic Cosmetics store is located in the centre of London with two people working in it that are in charge of customer service, stocking the products and distributing the products by postage to customers that order by mail. Current system The current system is a paper based system meaning that all customer details, store details, bills and employee information is all stored on paper and is filed. Once a customer wants to purchase any of the herbal products over the phone the employee will have to fill out customer details manually on a sheet containing contact details, billing information, product information and the total of items purchased. All calculations are made using a calculator, pen and paper- including a 10% discount on orders. Problems with the current system Having a paper based filing system of all the companies details is a major disadvantage to the company as it is generally very inconvenient to always search through hundreds of files on a daily basis just to find previous customer details. This wastes a substantial amount of time for the employees. The company very regularly offer discounts on the products which is calculated by a calculator, pen and paper however this takes time and errors are made very easily. This is due to several reasons handwriting can be unclear, it can be difficult to understand all customers of the phone and also totals have to be calculated manually. Another major disadvantage is the fact that receipts are not given to customers as proof of their purchase in case they need it in the future. It also portrays an unprofessional image of the business to customers as they have to wait impatiently while the employee has fills out all their details and also wait whilst the employee is calculating the total of items purchased. Furthermore, the confidentiality of customer information is not secure as anyone has access to the files as they are not in a secure place meaning that customer information can be accessed by unauthorised people. The solution In order to overcome these fundamental problems I will create a user interface. The system will enable the user to choose one of the following options buy products, go to previous customers, see stock levels and edit customer details. If a customer wants to buy something then the user will enter the product via a catalogue and all the details of the product should appear on the screen. Once this is complete the final price will be displayed after a 10% discount of total. Therefore this will be calculated without the user physically viewing the formulas of how the total is calculated. This will ensure that all the calculations are correct which will ultimately increase customer service. This means that no one will have to work out the value themselves ensuring the correctness of the calculations. Another benefit is all the data is safe and secure as only authorised people will have access to customer information due to passwords. The solution will be easy and quick to use as the business may need to deal with several customers on a particular day, therefore if the system is quick it means that they are not loosing customers. The solution should be professional as it is a representation of the business. I will create a system where the employee will fill out details of the client whilst on the phone to them.

Environmental Effects on COPD

Environmental Effects on COPD Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is an obstructive airway disorder characterized by the slowly progressive and irreversible decrease in forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), accompanied by emphysema and chronic bronchitis (Rabe et al. 2007; Cazzola et al. 2015); it develops with decreasing lung function as a function of age in the normal population (Ito and Barnes, 2009). Despite the heritability of 40-77%, a host of other influences can also exacerbate this condition (Young et al., 2009). Rather the development and progression of COPD involves multiple genes, gene-gene and gene-environment interactions (Ã…Â ½idzik et al. 2008; de Jong et al. 2015). Smoking exposure is considered as the most important risk factor for the development of COPD (Chan-Yeung et al. 2007; Kurmi et al.2015) with mild and moderate COPD cases having a three- fold risk of developing lung cancer within ten years, which increases to a ten-fold risk with severe COPD compared to the smokers with normal lung function (El-Zein et al. 2012). There also however exists COPD-associated increased mortality from lung cancer in non-ever smokers (Turner et al. 2007; Kiri et al. 2010; Aldrich et al.2015). Despite quarrying and mining activities as important occupational set-ups inducing COPD (Jhoncy et al. 2011; Iftikhar et al. 2009), yet work-place identification of this occupational disease has not come to attention on pursuing literature related to COPD. Also there is uncertainty in prognosis of COPD although a number of validated indices exist (Briggs et al. 2008). As these indices require in-puts from patients and the interpretation by the care-giver/physician, these may not be able to cater to disease-identification in the field. In the present study, the on-site disease-identification using the recommended spirometry evaluation (Briggs et al. 2008;Shiota et al. 2015) to recognize COPD cases at stone-crushing units (dust exposure) was carried out. Such an identification at the workplace gains importance as 50-80% of COPD are missed-out on the basis of misdiagnosis/co-current diagnosis due to relying on reported symptoms which are not sufficiently sensitive and / or because of fa ilure of persons to report to the health provider (Levy et al. 2009). The effect of various environmental stressors from occupational exposures needs to be assessed for prediction of cancer outcome(s) (Fenech, 2002) as 90% of cancer is environmental in origin (Hemminki et al. 2006). COPD has also been identified as an independent risk factor for lung cancer with inflammation as the pathophysiologic factor for high risk of its progression (Sin et al. 2006; Hillas et al.2015) and smoking- induced COPD associated with lung cancer has also been documented (Koshiol et al. 2009). While mechanisms governing the risk of developing neoplastic disease are not well known (Barreiro, 2008), of the various theories, oxidative stress may be playing a pivotal role in its manifestation. In COPD, oxidative stress has been observed as ensuing from decreased FEV1 (Kluchovà ¡ et al. 2007), substantial inflammatory response increasing cytokines as triggered by exogenous dust particles (Yang et al. 2011) and decreased antioxidants because of depletions of glutathione peroxi dase, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, ascorbic acid and vitamin E (Borm et al. 2004). The impaired oxidant-antioxidant status can cause cellular damage; DNA damage can result from the action of reactive oxygen species (Jackson and Loeb, 2001) and is the underlying cause of mutations leading to cancer (Bernstein, 2012).Chromosomal damage (increased micronuclei frequency) in peripheral blood lymphocytes has been extensively used for predicting risk of cancer (Fenech et al. 2011) and oxidative DNA damage is also implicated in carcinogenesis, ageing and age-related neurodegenerative diseases (Fortini et al. 2003, Nishigori et al. 2004). The major form of oxidative DNA damage is 8-hydroxy-2`-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) resulting from G→T and A→C base substitutions. It may lead to mutagenesis if unrepaired and is directly correlated with lung carcinogenesis (Gackowski et al. 2006). The lesion 8-OHdG is an established biomarker of oxidative stress/oxidative DNA damage and being potentially mutagenic, it is useful as an intermediate marker of a disease end-point lik e cancer (Cheng et al. 1992). Therefore in the present study, 8-OHdG level was assessed as a pre-lesion of neoplasia in peripheral blood leukocytes (PBL) of COPD- identified cases at stone-crushing units. Although the leukocytes are not the direct target of the exposure at this workplace, they may possibly be affected by the accumulated unmetabolized toxic compound(s) in the lung (Gackowski et al. 2003). This hence prompted the assessment of oxidative DNA damage in the peripheral blood leukocytes and also because of the non- accessibility of the target (lung) cells. The biomarkers of exposure and effect, and clinical disease (cancer) may further be influenced by susceptibility genotypes and their gene products as pre-dispositional factors (Their et al. 2003). Also as DNA damage and DNA repair have a major role in carcinogenesis and from occupational settings, the susceptible metabolic genotypes (gene products) may inherently be associated in causing genetic damage. Therefore genotyping of the occupational workforce was carried out for glutathione-S-transferase (GST) gene variants (both for disease susceptibility and genetic damage) since GST alleles have been documented to have an association with COPD (Young et al. 2011). Furthermore, a reduced expression of these alleles has also been observed in the air passage of COPD patients (Imboden et al. 2001; Lakhdar et al. 2011) and hence the expression of glutathione-s-transferases was also estimated. Association of the Val/Ala variants of manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) with lung cancer (Wang et al. 2001) further justified the genotyping of this allele and assessing its expression. Variant forms of these susceptible genes are generally common in the population. Due to their specificities for substrates they interact with during environmental exposures, they can increase the risk for disease-causation (Lan et al. 2000). Incidentally, GST and SOD enzymes are also involved in the metabolic and oxidative stress pathways (Borm et al. 2004), and since stone-crushing is an inflammation-triggering occupation (Vallyathan et al. 1995), the assessment of the amounts of these enzymes was thought appropriate. The purpose of the present study was two-fold. On one hand to identify COPD cases from workplace exposure (occupation-related disease) and hence assist in identifying ‘missing’ COPD cases using recommended (spirometry) measurements (Briggs et al. 2008, Young et al. 2011) and COPD categorizations (GOLD, 2003). The other (main) purpose was to determine the propensity (Prognostic Index/score) for genetic damage and by extension an increased likelihood for carcinogenesis as ensuing from the combined effects/interactions of prognostic (risk) factors in COPD cases (the workers exposed to industrial-type prevalent conditions) at stone-crushing units. This entailed the evaluation for the presence of oxidative stress (GSH and SOD) and oxidative DNA damage in workers at stone-crushing units genotyped for the GST and MnSOD genes.